Search Results
Journal Article
Medical Spending, Bequests, and Asset Dynamics around the Time of Death
Using data from the Health and Retirement Survey, we document the changes in assets that occur before a person's death. Applying an event study approach, we find that during the six years preceding their deaths, the assets of single decedents decline, relative to those of similar single survivors, by an additional $20,000 on average. Over the same time span, the assets of couples who lose a spouse fall, relative to those of similar surviving couples, by an additional $90,000 on average. Households experiencing a death also incur higher out-of-pocket medical spending and other end-of-life ...
Journal Article
The effects of health and wealth shocks on retirement decisions
Both health status and net worth can affect retirement decisions. In some cases, early retirement may be precipitated by a shock to an individual?s health and/or economic status. The authors examine how health and wealth shocks affect retirement decisions. They use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to estimate a first-differences model of health and wealth shocks on retirement over the course of the 2000s in the United States. Their results suggest that acute health shocks are associated with labor market exits for older American men but not women. These results appear particularly ...
Journal Article
Does education improve health? A reexamination of the evidence from compulsory schooling laws
This article analyzes the impact of compulsory schooling laws early in the twentieth century on long-term health. The author finds no compelling evidence for a causal link between education and health using this research design. Further, the results suggest that only a small fraction of health conditions are affected by education, and several of those are conditions, such as sight and hearing, where economic theories don?t appear to be relevant.
Working Paper
Health Shocks, Health Insurance, Human Capital, and the Dynamics of Earnings and Health
We specify and calibrate a life-cycle model of labor supply and savings incorporating health shocks and medical treatment decisions. Our model features endogenous wage formation via human capital accumulation, employer-sponsored health insurance, and means-tested social insurance. We use the model to study the effects of health shocks on health, labor supply and earnings, and to assess how health shocks contribute to earnings inequality. We also simulate provision of public insurance to agents who lack employer-sponsored insurance. The public insurance program substantially increases medical ...
Journal Article
Making up for lost time: Forging new connections between health and community development
New trends in the today?s public health world are making an important case for bringing public health and community development efforts together. These include the changing nature of 21st century preventable disease, the increasing link between health disparities and place, and the early positive evidence from early adopters of combined health and development strategies. Read about specific examples of efforts from King County, Washington that are capitalizing on these changes and simultaneously advancing both health and community development.
Working Paper
Home Equity in Retirement
Retired homeowners dissave more slowly than renters, which suggests that homeownership a?ects retirees? saving decisions. We investigate empirically and theoretically the life-cycle patterns of homeownership, housing and nonhousing assets in retirement. Using an estimated structural model of saving and housing decisions, we ?nd, ?rst, that homeowners dissave slowly because they prefer to stay in their house as long as possible but cannot easily borrow against it. Second, the 1996-2006 housing boom signi?cantly increased homeowners? assets. These channels are quantitatively signi?cant; without ...
Working Paper
Medical Expenses and Saving in Retirement: The Case of U.S. and Sweden
Many U.S. households have significant wealth late in life, contrary to the predictions of a simple life-cycle model. In this paper, we document stark differences between U.S. and Sweden regarding out-of-pocket medical and long-term-care expenses late in life, and use them to investigate their role in discouraging the elderly from dissaving. Using a consumption-saving model in retirement with significant uninsurable expense risk, we find that medical expense risk accounts for a quarter of the U.S.-Sweden difference in retirees' dissaving patterns. Furthermore, medical expense risk affects ...
Working Paper
Equilibrium Labor Market Search and Health Insurance Reform
We present and empirically implement an equilibrium labor market search model where risk averse workers facing medical expenditure shocks are matched with firms making health insurance coverage decisions. Our model delivers a rich set of predictions that can account for a wide variety of phenomenon observed in the data including the correlations among firm sizes, wages, health insurance offering rates, turnover rates and workers? health compositions. We estimate our model by Generalized Method of Moments using a combination of micro datasets including Survey of Income and Program ...
Working Paper
Intergenerational Health Mobility in the US
Studies of intergenerational mobility have largely ignored health despite the central importance of health to welfare. We present the first estimates of intergenerational health mobility in the US by using repeated measures of self-reported health status (SRH) during adulthood from the PSID. Our main finding is that there is substantially greater health mobility than income mobility in the US. A possible explanation is that social institutions and policies are more effective at disrupting intergenerational health transmission than income transmission. We further show that health and income ...