McGarry's dozens of publications focus on the economics of aging, including public and private transfers, such as those between parents and children as well as the
Supplemental Security Income,
Social Security, and
Medicare programs. She has also studied the market for long-term care. Her most-cited paper, with
Amy Finkelstein, on the long-term care insurance market, was the first work cited in the award of the
John Bates Clark Medal to Finkelstein. This work showed that there is little relationship between the probability people will need such insurance and the probability that they will purchase this insurance, because people vary in two different ways: how much they believe they will need this insurance, and how cautious they are, and these two different types of variation act in opposite ways.
Selected works • Finkelstein, Amy, and Kathleen McGarry. "Multiple dimensions of private information: evidence from the long-term care insurance market." American Economic Review 96, no. 4 (2006): 938–958. • Hurd, Michael D., and Kathleen McGarry. "Evaluation of the subjective probabilities of survival in the health and retirement study." Journal of Human resources (1995): S268-S292. • McGarry, Kathleen, and Robert F. Schoeni. "Transfer behavior in the health and retirement study: Measurement and the redistribution of resources within the family." Journal of Human resources (1995): S184-S226. • Hurd, Michael D., and Kathleen McGarry. "The predictive validity of subjective probabilities of survival." The Economic Journal 112, no. 482 (2002): 966–985. • McGarry, Kathleen. "Inter vivos transfers and intended bequests." Journal of Public Economics 73, no. 3 (1999): 321–351. == References ==