Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Health Indexes and Retirement Modeling in International Comparisons

Contents:

Author Info

  • Erik Meijer

    ()

  • Arie Kapteyn

    ()

  • Tatiana Andreyeva

Abstract

It is widely believed that health plays a major role in retirement decisions. The most important problem in including health in retirement models is the lack of availability of a good measure of health at the individual level in existing data sets. This problem is exacerbated when a model spanning multiple countries is desired, because self-reports on health may not be comparable across countries. Arguably, physical measures are less influenced by cultural and linguistic differences than self-reports on general health or even on health conditions. The authors develop a cross-country measurement model for health in which the relations between functional limitations, self-reports, and physical measures like grip strength are used to construct health indexes. Comparability across countries is achieved by using the physical measurements to define the measurement scales, and allowing other parameters to vary across countries to account for cultural and linguistic differences in response patterns. The usefulness of the health indexes is then investigated by including it in some simple retirement models.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/2008/RAND_WR614.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by RAND Corporation Publications Department in its series Working Papers with number 614.

as in new window
Length: 65 pages
Date of creation: Aug 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ran:wpaper:614

Contact details of provider:
Postal: 1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, California 90407-2138
Phone: 310-393-0411
Fax: 310-393-4818
Email:
Web page: http://www.rand.org/pubs/
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

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.:
as in new window
  1. Lumsdaine, Robin L. & Mitchell, Olivia S., 1999. "New developments in the economic analysis of retirement," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 49, pages 3261-3307 Elsevier.
  2. David M. Drukker & Richard Gates, 2006. "Generating Halton sequences using Mata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 6(2), pages 214-228, June.
  3. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier, 1985. "A Disaggregated, Structural Analysis of Retirement by Race, Difficulty of Work and Health," NBER Working Papers 1585, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Bengt Muthén & David Kaplan & Michael Hollis, 1987. "On structural equation modeling with data that are not missing completely at random," Psychometrika, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 431-462, September.
  5. Norma B. Coe & Gema Zamarro, 2008. "Retirement Effects on Health in Europe," Working Papers 588, RAND Corporation Publications Department.
  6. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier, 1986. "A Structural Retirement Model," NBER Working Papers 1237, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Axel Borsch-Supan & Daniel L. McFadden & Reinhold Schnabel, 1996. "Living Arrangements: Health and Wealth Effects," NBER Chapters, in: Advances in the Economics of Aging, pages 193-216 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. John Bound & Michael Schoenbaum & Todd R. Stinebrickner & Timothy Waidmann, 1998. "The Dynamic Effects of Health on the Labor Force Transitions of Older Workers," NBER Working Papers 6777, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Mitchell, Olivia S & Fields, Gary S, 1984. "The Economics of Retirement Behavior," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(1), pages 84-105, January.
  10. Dwyer, Debra Sabatini & Mitchell, Olivia S., 1999. "Health problems as determinants of retirement: Are self-rated measures endogenous?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 173-193, April.
  11. Whitehouse, Edward & Queisser, Monika, 2007. "Pensions at a glance: public policies across OECD countries," MPRA Paper 16349, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  12. Hamilton, James D., 1986. "A standard error for the estimated state vector of a state-space model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 387-397, December.
  13. Lee, Lung-Fei, 1995. "Asymptotic Bias in Simulated Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Discrete Choice Models," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(03), pages 437-483, June.
  14. Stock, James H & Wise, David A, 1990. "Pensions, the Option Value of Work, and Retirement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(5), pages 1151-80, September.
  15. John Bound & Todd Stinebrickner & Timothy Waidmann, 2007. "Health, Economic Resources and the Work Decisions of Older Men," University of Western Ontario, Economic Policy Research Institute Working Papers 20076, University of Western Ontario, Economic Policy Research Institute.
  16. Crossley, Thomas F. & Kennedy, Steven, 2002. "The reliability of self-assessed health status," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 643-658, July.
  17. repec:att:wimass:9430 is not listed on IDEAS
  18. Hendrik Jürges, 2006. "True Health vs. Response Styles: Exploring Cross-country Differences in Self-reported Health," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 588, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
  19. Gordon, Roger H. & Blinder, Alan S., 1980. "Market wages, reservation wages, and retirement decisions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 277-308, October.
  20. Susan T. Stewart & Rebecca M. Woodward & Allison B. Rosen & David M. Cutler, 2005. "A Proposed Method for Monitoring U.S. Population Health: Linking Symptoms, Impairments, and Health Ratings," NBER Working Papers 11358, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  21. Gustman, Alan L & Steinmeier, Thomas L, 2000. "Retirement in Dual-Career Families: A Structural Model," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 503-45, July.
  22. Currie, Janet & Madrian, Brigitte C., 1999. "Health, health insurance and the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 50, pages 3309-3416 Elsevier.
  23. Train,Kenneth E., 2009. "Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521747387.
  24. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 2007. "Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Fiscal Implications of Reform," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number grub07-1, August.
  25. Agar Brugiavini & Tullio Jappelli & Guglielmo Weber, 2002. "The Survey on Health, Aging and Wealth," CSEF Working Papers 86, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
  26. Richard Burkhauser & John Cawley, 2006. "The Importance of Objective Health Measures in Predicting Early Receipt of Social Security Benefits: The Case of Fatness," Working Papers wp148, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
  27. Jonathan Gruber & David Wise, 2005. "Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Fiscal Implications, Introduction and Summary," NBER Working Papers 11290, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  28. Michaud, P.C., 2005. "Dynamic Panel Data Models and Causality: Applications to Labor Supply, Health and Insurance," Open Access publications from Tilburg University urn:nbn:nl:ui:12-166601, Tilburg University.
  29. John Rust & Christopher Phelan, 1997. "How Social Security and Medicare Affect Retirement Behavior in a World of Incomplete Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(4), pages 781-832, July.
  30. Heckman, James J, 1979. "Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(1), pages 153-61, January.
  31. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 2002. "Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World: Micro Estimation," NBER Working Papers 9407, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  32. Carlson, Per, 1998. "Self-perceived health in East and West Europe: another European health divide," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 46(10), pages 1355-1366, March.
  33. Lindeboom, Maarten & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2004. "Cut-point shift and index shift in self-reported health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 1083-1099, November.
  34. Beth J. Soldo & Olivia S. Mitchell & Rania Tfaily & John F. McCabe, 2006. "Cross-Cohort Differences in Health on the Verge of Retirement," NBER Working Papers 12762, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  35. repec:bla:restud:v:72:y:2005:i:2:p:395-427 is not listed on IDEAS
  36. Hurd, Michael D, 1990. "Research on the Elderly: Economic Status, Retirement, and Consumption and Saving," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 565-637, June.
  37. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 1999. "Social Security and Retirement around the World," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number grub99-1, August.
  38. van Doorslaer, Eddy & Wagstaff, Adam & Bleichrodt, Han & Calonge, Samuel & Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & Gerfin, Michael & Geurts, Jose & Gross, Lorna & Hakkinen, Unto & Leu, Robert E., 1997. "Income-related inequalities in health: some international comparisons," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 93-112, February.
  39. Erik Meijer & Tom Wansbeek, 2007. "The Sample Selection Model from a Method of Moments Perspective," Econometric Reviews, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 26(1), pages 25-51.
  40. Kathryn H. Anderson & Richard V. Burkhauser, 1985. "The Retirement-Health Nexus: A New Measure of an Old Puzzle," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 20(3), pages 315-330.
  41. Courtney C. Coile, 2004. "Health Shocks and Couples' Labor Supply Decisions," NBER Working Papers 10810, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  42. Bengt Muthén & Albert Satorra, 1995. "Technical aspects of Muthén's liscomp approach to estimation of latent variable relations with a comprehensive measurement model," Psychometrika, Springer, vol. 60(4), pages 489-503, December.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Galama, T.; & Hullegie, P.; & Meijer, E.; & Outcault, S.;, 2012. "Empirical evidence for decreasing returns to scale in a health capital model," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 12/05, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
  2. Anneke Exterkate & Robin L. Lumsdaine, 2011. "How Survey Design Affects Inference Regarding Health Perceptions and Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 17244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ran:wpaper:614

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Benson Wong).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.