IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jae/japmet/v19y2004i6p705-721.html

Some searches may not work properly. We apologize for the inconvenience.

   My bibliography  Save this article

On the distribution and dynamics of health care costs

Author

Listed:
  • Eric French

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, USA)

  • John Bailey Jones

    (Department of Economics, University at Albany, State University of New York, USA)

Abstract

Using data from the Health and Retirement Survey and the Assets and Health Dynamics of the Oldest Old survey, we estimate the stochastic process that determines both the distribution and dynamics of health care costs. We find that the data-generating process for log health costs is well represented as the sum of a white noise process and a highly persistent AR(1) process. We also find that the innovations to this process can be modelled with a normal distribution that has been adjusted to capture the risk of catastrophic health care costs. Simulating this model, we find that in any given year 0.1% of households receive a health cost shock with a present value of at least $125,000. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric French & John Bailey Jones, 2004. "On the distribution and dynamics of health care costs," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(6), pages 705-721.
    • Handle: RePEc:jae:japmet:v:19:y:2004:i:6:p:705-721
    DOI: 10.1002/jae.790
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/jae.790
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://qed.econ.queensu.ca:80/jae/2004-v19.6/
    File Function: Supporting data files and programs
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/jae.790?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthew Eichner & Mark B. McClellan & David A. Wise, 1998. "Insurance or Self-Insurance? Variation, Persistence, and Individual Health Accounts," NBER Chapters, in: Inquiries in the Economics of Aging, pages 19-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Eric French & John Bailey Jones, 2011. "The Effects of Health Insurance and Self‐Insurance on Retirement Behavior," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(3), pages 693-732, May.
    3. David A. Wise, 1998. "Inquiries in the Economics of Aging," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number wise98-2, May.
    4. Abowd, John M & Card, David, 1989. "On the Covariance Structure of Earnings and Hours Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 411-445, March.
    5. Douglas Rivers & Quang Vuong, 2002. "Model selection tests for nonlinear dynamic models," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 5(1), pages 1-39, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eric French & John Bailey Jones, 2002. "On the distribution and dynamics of health costs," Working Paper Series WP-02-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    2. Hugo Benitez-Silva & Moshe Buchinsky & John Rust & Emine Boz & Joseph B. Nichols & Sharbani Roy & Ignez Tristao, 2005. "Health Status, Insurance, and Expenditures in the Transition from Work to Retirement," Department of Economics Working Papers 05-11, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    3. Cutler, David M. & Zeckhauser, Richard J., 2000. "The anatomy of health insurance," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 563-643, Elsevier.
    4. Erin Strumpf, 2010. "Employer-sponsored health insurance for early retirees: impacts on retirement, health, and health care," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 105-147, June.
    5. Roozbei Hosseini & Karen Kopecky & Kai Zhao, 2022. "The Evolution of Health over the Life Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 237-263, July.
    6. Roozbei Hosseini & Karen Kopecky & Kai Zhao, 2022. "The Evolution of Health over the Life Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 237-263, July.
    7. Meghan M. Skira, 2015. "Dynamic Wage And Employment Effects Of Elder Parent Care," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(1), pages 63-93, February.
    8. Hua Chen & Xiaobo Peng & Menghan Shen, 2021. "Concentration and Persistence of Healthcare Spending: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-17, May.
    9. Rettenmaier, Andrew J. & Wang, Zijun, 2006. "Persistence in Medicare reimbursements and personal medical accounts," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 39-57, January.
    10. Mark V. Pauly & Yuhui Zeng, 2004. "Adverse Selection and the Challenges to Stand-Alone Prescription Drug Insurance," NBER Chapters, in: Frontiers in Health Policy Research, Volume 7, pages 55-74, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Herring, Bradley & Pauly, Mark V., 2006. "Incentive-compatible guaranteed renewable health insurance premiums," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 395-417, May.
    12. Bradley Herring & Mark Pauly, 2003. "Incentive-Compatible Guaranteed Renewable Health Insurance," NBER Working Papers 9888, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Eric French, 2005. "The Effects of Health, Wealth, and Wages on Labour Supply and Retirement Behaviour," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(2), pages 395-427.
    14. Matthew Eichner & Mark McClellan & David A. Wise, 2000. "Why Do Some Firms Spend So Much on Medical Care? Accounting for Variation," NBER Chapters, in: Frontiers in Health Policy Research, Volume 3, pages 1-32, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Guillaume Allègre & Thomas Melonio & Xavier Timbeau, 2012. "Dépenses publiques d'éducation et inégalités. Une perspective de cycle de vie," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 63(6), pages 1055-1079.
    16. Cristóbal Huneeus & Andrea Repetto, 2005. "The Dynamics of Earnings in Chile," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Jorge Restrepo & Andrea Tokman R. & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Edi (ed.),Labor Markets and Institutions, edition 1, volume 8, chapter 12, pages 383-410, Central Bank of Chile.
    17. Laisney, François & Pohlmeier, Winfried & Staat, Matthias, 1991. "Estimation of labour supply functions using panel data: a survey," ZEW Discussion Papers 91-05, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    18. Scalco, Paulo R. & Braga, Marcelo J., 2015. "Identification of Market Power in Bilateral Oligopoly: The Brazilian Wholesale Market of UHT Milk," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 212278, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. John Abowd & Martha Stinson, 2011. "Estimating Measurement Error in SIPP Annual Job Earnings: A Comparison of Census Bureau Survey and SSA Administrative Data," Working Papers 11-20, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    20. David Card & Christian Dustmann & Ian Preston, 2012. "Immigration, Wages, And Compositional Amenities," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 78-119, February.

    More about this item

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. On the distribution and dynamics of health care costs (Journal of Applied Econometrics 2004) in ReplicationWiki

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jae:japmet:v:19:y:2004:i:6:p:705-721. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0883-7252/ .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.