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Life insurance and household consumption

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  • Jay H. Hong
  • Jose-Victor Rios-Rull

Abstract

In this paper, we use data of life insurance holdings by age, sex, and marital status to infer how individuals value consumption in different demographic stages. Essentially, we use revealed preference to estimate equivalence scales and altruism simultaneously in the context of a fully specified model with agents facing U.S. demographic features and with access to savings markets and life insurance markets. Our findings indicate that individuals are very caring for their dependents, that there are large economies of scale in consumption, that children are costly but wives with children produce a lot of goods in the home and that while females seem to have some form of habits created by marriage, men do not. These findings contrast sharply with the standard notions of equivalence scales.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in its series Working Papers with number 04-10.

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Date of creation: 2004
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpwp:04-10

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Keywords: Insurance;

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References

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  1. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre, 1992. "Collective Labor Supply and Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 437-67, June.
  2. Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde & Dirk Krueger, 2002. "Consumption over the Life Cycle: Some Facts from Consumer Expenditure Survey Data," Centro de Alti­simos Estudios Ri­os Pe©rez(CAERP) 7, Centro de Altisimos Estudios Rios Perez (CAERP).
  3. Diaz-Gimenez, Javier & Prescott, Edward C. & Fitzgerald, Terry & Alvarez, Fernando, 1992. "Banking in computable general equilibrium economies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 16(3-4), pages 533-559.
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  6. Jeremy Lise & Shannon Seitz, 2004. "Consumption Inequality and Intra-Household Allocations," Working Papers 1019, Queen's University, Department of Economics.
  7. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & John Knowles, . "More on Marriage, Fertility, and the Distribution of Inocome," Penn CARESS Working Papers 65f9ffed93b3a872de23c94c2, Penn Economics Department.
  8. Martin Browning & Pierre-Andre Chiappori, 1994. "Efficient Intra-Household Allocations: a General Characterization and Empirical Tests," Department of Economics Working Papers 1994-02, McMaster University.
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  10. Fischer, Stanley, 1973. "A Life Cycle Model of Life Insurance Purchases," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(1), pages 132-52, February.
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  12. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1993. "Uninsured idiosyncratic risk and aggregate saving," Working Papers 502, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
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  17. Browning, Martin, 1992. "Children and Household Economic Behavior," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 1434-75, September.
  18. Browning, Martin, 2000. " The Saving Behaviour of a Two-Person Household," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(2), pages 235-51, June.
  19. repec:bla:restud:v:74:y:2007:i:3:p:857-895 is not listed on IDEAS
  20. Matthew S. Chambers & Don E. Schlagenhauf, 2004. "Husbands Might Really Be That Cheap," 2004 Meeting Papers 146, Society for Economic Dynamics.
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  22. McElroy, Marjorie B & Horney, Mary Jean, 1981. "Nash-Bargained Household Decisions: Toward a Generalization of the Theory of Demand," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 22(2), pages 333-49, June.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Jeremy Lise & Shannon Seitz, 2007. "Consumption inequality and intra-household allocations," IFS Working Papers W07/09, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
  2. Kenichi Ueda, 2008. "Life Expectancy and Income Convergence in the World:A Dynamic General Equilibrium Analysis," IMF Working Papers 08/158, International Monetary Fund.
  3. David A. Love, 2010. "The Effects of Marital Status and Children on Savings and Portfolio Choice," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(1), pages 385-432, January.
  4. Hong, Jay H. & Rios-Rull, Jose-Victor, 2007. "Social security, life insurance and annuities for families," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 118-140, January.
  5. Bruhn, Kenneth & Steffensen, Mogens, 2011. "Household consumption, investment and life insurance," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 315-325, May.
  6. Bick, Alexander & Choi, Sekyu, 2012. "Revisiting the Effect of Household Size on Consumption Over the Life-Cycle," MPRA Paper 41756, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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