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Differential mortality, uncertain medical expenses, and the saving of elderly singles

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Author Info
Mariacristina De Nardi
Eric French
John Bailey Jones

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Abstract

People have heterogenous life expectancies: women live longer than men, rich people live longer than poor people, and healthy people live longer than sick people. People are also subject to heterogenous out-of-pocket medical expense risk. We show that all of these dimensions of heterogeneity are large for the elderly. Can these factors explain their lack of asset decumulation even at very advanced ages and the high saving rate of the income-rich elderly? We answer this question in two steps. We first estimate the uncertainty about mortality and outof pocket medical expenditures as functions of sex, health, permanent income, and age. We then formalize a rich structural model of saving behavior for retired single households, and we estimate it by using the method of simulated moments.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in its series Working Paper Series with number WP-05-13.

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Date of creation: 2005
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-05-13

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Keywords: Savings banks Medical care Cost of

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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  14. Hubbard, R Glenn & Skinner, Jonathan & Zeldes, Stephen P, 1994. "Expanding the Life-Cycle Model: Precautionary Saving and Public Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 174-79, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. Eric French & John Bailey Jones, 2004. "The Effects Of Health Insurance And Self-Insurance On Retirement Behavior," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College 2004-12, Center for Retirement Research. [Downloadable!]
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  22. Newey, Whitney K. & McFadden, Daniel, 1986. "Large sample estimation and hypothesis testing," Handbook of Econometrics, in: R. F. Engle & D. McFadden (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 36, pages 2111-2245 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  28. Pakes, Ariel & Pollard, David, 1989. "Simulation and the Asymptotics of Optimization Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(5), pages 1027-57, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  30. Dennis Epple & Holger Sieg, 1999. "Estimating Equilibrium Models of Local Jurisdictions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(4), pages 645-681, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  31. Cagetti, Marco, 2003. "Wealth Accumulation over the Life Cycle and Precautionary Savings," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 21(3), pages 339-53, July.
  32. Karen E. Dynan & Jonathan Skinner & Stephen P. Zeldes, 2002. "The Importance of Bequests and Life-Cycle Saving in Capital Accumulation: A New Answer," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 274-278, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Purvi Sevak & Lina Walker, 2007. "The Responsiveness of Private Savings to Medicaid Long Term Care Policies," Working Papers wp150, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center. [Downloadable!]
  2. Karsten Jeske & Sagiri Kitao, 2007. "U.S. tax policy and health insurance demand: can a regressive policy improve welfare?," Working Paper 2007-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. [Downloadable!]
  3. John Ameriks & Andrew Caplin & Steven Laufer & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2007. "The Joy of Giving or Assisted Living? Using Strategic Surveys to Separate Bequest and Precautionary Motives," NBER Working Papers 13105, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Olesya Baker & Phil Doctor & Eric French, 2007. "Asset rundown after retirement: the importance of rate of return shocks," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue Q II, pages 48-65. [Downloadable!]
  5. Kam Ki Tang & Jie Zhang, 2007. "Morbidity, Mortality, Health Expenditures and Annuitization," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
  6. Eric French & Mariacristina De Nardi & John Bailey Jones & Olesya Baker & Phil Doctor, 2006. "Right before the end: asset decumulation at the end of life," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue Q III, pages 2-13. [Downloadable!]
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