Professor Mitchell’s main areas of research and teaching are private and public insurance, risk management, public finance and labor markets, and compensation and pensions, with a US and an international focus. Her research analyzes public and private retirement pensions as well as links between wealth, health, and retirement. Mitchell has recently addressed the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Fund, the Investment Company Institute, the White House Conference on Social Security, and Committees of the US Congress, the UK Parliament, the Australian Parliament, and the Brazilian Senate.
Dr. Mitchell received the MA and PhD degrees in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the BA in economics from Harvard University. She previously taught at Cornell University, visited Harvard University and the University of New South Wales, and served on the US Department of Labor’s ERISA Advisory Council. She served on the Board member for Alexander and Alexander Services, Inc., the National Academy of Social Insurance, the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, and the National Academy of Sciences panel on forecasting/modeling. She co-chaired the Technical Panel on Trends in Retirement Income and Saving for the Social Security Advisory Council, and she participated in a social security privatization panel for the National Academy on Social Insurance. She speaks Spanish and Portuguese, having lived and worked extensively in Latin America, Europe and Australasia.
