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Health-Related Life Cycle Risks and Public Insurance

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Listed author(s):
  • Daniel Kemptner

Abstract

This paper proposes a dynamic life cycle model of health risks, employment, early retirement, and wealth accumulation in order to analyze the health-related risks of consumption and old age poverty. In particular, the model includes a health process, the interaction between health and employment risks, and an explicit modeling of the German public insurance schemes. I rely on a dynamic programming discrete choice framework and estimate the model using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. I quantify the health-related life cycle risks by simulating scenarios where health shocks do or do not occur at different points in the life cycle for individuals with differing endowments. Moreover, a policy simulation investigates minimum pension benefits as an insurance against old age poverty. While such a reform raises a concern about an increase in abuse of the early retirement option, the simulations indicate that a means test mitigates the moral hazard problem substantially.

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File URL: http://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.426032.de/dp1320.pdf
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Paper provided by DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research in its series Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin with number 1320.

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Length: 36 p.
Date of creation: 2013
Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1320
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Keywords: Dynamic programming; discrete choice; health; employment; early retirement; consumption; tax and transfer system;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
  • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
  • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
  • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

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  21. Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln, 2008. "The Response of Household Saving to the Large Shock of German Reunification," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2008-21, Center for Retirement Research, revised Dec 2008.
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Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. #HEJC papers for September 2013
    by academichealtheconomists in The Academic Health Economists' Blog on 2013-08-31 23:01:38
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Cited by:

  1. Tobias Laun & Johanna Wallenius, 2016. "Social Insurance and Retirement: A Cross-Country Perspective," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 22, pages 72-92, October.

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