IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp9237.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Financial Support for Long-Term Elderly Care and Household Savings Behaviour

Author

Listed:
  • Ohinata, Asako

    (University of Leicester)

  • Picchio, Matteo

    (Marche Polytechnic University)

Abstract

We analyse how the financial support for long-term elderly care affects the level of household savings. Using a difference-in-differences estimator, we investigate the 2002 Scottish reform, which introduced free formal personal care for all the elderly aged 65 and above residing in Scotland. Our semiparametric estimation technique allows the policy effects to be flexibly estimated across age groups. We find that the Scottish policy reduced the average household saving by about £7,200. Moreover, the estimated effects are heterogeneous across age groups of the head of household: these effects are particularly strong among those aged between 40 and 60. The largest effect is observed at age 49 with the reduction in the average household saving by £12,764.

Suggested Citation

  • Ohinata, Asako & Picchio, Matteo, 2015. "The Financial Support for Long-Term Elderly Care and Household Savings Behaviour," IZA Discussion Papers 9237, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9237
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp9237.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. Timothy J. Hatton & Massimiliano Tani, 2005. "Immigration and Inter-Regional Mobility in the UK, 1982-2000," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(507), pages 342-358, November.
    3. repec:clg:wpaper:2013-20 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Jonathan Gruber & Aaron Yelowitz, 1999. "Public Health Insurance and Private Savings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(6), pages 1249-1274, December.
    5. Mark Kazarosian, 1997. "Precautionary Savings-A Panel Study," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(2), pages 241-247, May.
    6. Laibson, David, 1998. "Life-cycle consumption and hyperbolic discount functions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 861-871, May.
    7. Alessandra Guariglia, 2001. "Saving behaviour and earnings uncertainty: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 14(4), pages 619-634.
    8. Mariacristina De Nardi & Eric French & John B. Jones, 2010. "Why Do the Elderly Save? The Role of Medical Expenses," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(1), pages 39-75, February.
    9. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    10. Barro, Robert J, 1989. "The Ricardian Approach to Budget Deficits," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 37-54, Spring.
    11. A. Colin Cameron & Douglas L. Miller, 2015. "A Practitioner’s Guide to Cluster-Robust Inference," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 317-372.
    12. Kimball, Miles S, 1990. "Precautionary Saving in the Small and in the Large," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 53-73, January.
    13. Brewer Mike & Crossley Thomas F. & Joyce Robert, 2018. "Inference with Difference-in-Differences Revisited," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-16, January.
    14. A. Sandmo, 1970. "The Effect of Uncertainty on Saving Decisions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 37(3), pages 353-360.
    15. Alberto Abadie, 2005. "Semiparametric Difference-in-Differences Estimators," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 1-19.
    16. Guariglia, Alessandra & Rossi, Mariacristina, 2004. "Private medical insurance and saving: evidence from the British Household Panel Survey," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 761-783, July.
    17. 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 174-179, May.
    18. James G. MacKinnon & Matthew D. Webb, 2017. "Wild Bootstrap Inference for Wildly Different Cluster Sizes," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(2), pages 233-254, March.
    19. John Karl Scholz & Ananth Seshadri & Surachai Khitatrakun, 2006. "Are Americans Saving "Optimally" for Retirement?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(4), pages 607-643, August.
    20. Gilles Duranton & Vassilis Monastiriotis, 2002. "Mind the Gaps: The Evolution of Regional Earnings Inequalities in the U.K., 1982–1997," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 219-256, May.
    21. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1988. "On the mechanics of economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-42, July.
    22. Matthew D. Webb, 2023. "Reworking wild bootstrap‐based inference for clustered errors," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(3), pages 839-858, August.
    23. Karen A. Kopecky & Tatyana Koreshkova, 2014. "The Impact of Medical and Nursing Home Expenses on Savings," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 29-72, July.
    24. Hayne E. Leland, 1968. "Saving and Uncertainty: The Precautionary Demand for Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(3), pages 465-473.
    25. Gruber, Jonathan, 1994. "The Incidence of Mandated Maternity Benefits," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 622-641, June.
    26. Michael G. Palumbo, 1999. "Uncertain Medical Expenses and Precautionary Saving Near the End of the Life Cycle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(2), pages 395-421.
    27. Alex Maynard & Jiaping Qiu, 2009. "Public insurance and private savings: who is affected and by how much?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 282-308, March.
    28. Shane Frederick & George Loewenstein & Ted O'Donoghue, 2002. "Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 351-401, June.
    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


    Cited by:

    1. Bram De Rock & Mariia Kovaleva & Tom Potoms, 2023. "A Spouse and a House are all we need? Housing Demand, Labor Supply and Divorce over the Lifecycle," Working Papers ECARES 2023-18, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Hollingsworth, Bruce & Ohinata, Asako & Picchio, Matteo & Walker, Ian, 2017. "Labour supply and informal care supply: The impacts of financial support for long-term elderly care," GLO Discussion Paper Series 118, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    3. Khadijah Alavi & Rosnah Sutan & Suzana Shahar & Mohd Rizal Abdul Manaf & Mohd Hasni Jaafar & Khairul Nizam Abdul Maulud & Zaini Embong & Kamarul Baraini Keliwon & Ruzian Markom, 2022. "Connecting the Dots between Social Care and Healthcare for the Sustainability Development of Older Adult in Asia: A Scoping Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-17, February.
    4. Miao Guo & Yang Li & Minghao Wu & Terence C. Cheng, 2024. "Services and Cash: How Long-term Care Insurance Benefit Design Affects Household Behavior in China," Papers 2024-13, Centre for Health Economics, Monash University.
    5. Hollingsworth, Bruce & Ohinata, Asako & Picchio, Matteo & Walker, Ian, 2022. "Does It Matter Who Cares for You? The Effect of Substituting Informal with Formal Personal Care on the Care Recipients' Health," IZA Discussion Papers 15457, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    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. Chou, Shin-Yi & Liu, Jin-Tan & Hammitt, James K., 2003. "National Health Insurance and precautionary saving: evidence from Taiwan," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 1873-1894, September.
    2. Hollingsworth, Bruce & Ohinata, Asako & Picchio, Matteo & Walker, Ian, 2017. "Labour Supply and Informal Care Supply: The Impacts of Financial Support for Long-Term Elderly Care," IZA Discussion Papers 10988, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Lee, Daeyong, 2016. "Effects of dependent coverage mandate on household precautionary savings: Evidence from the 2010 Affordable Care Act," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 32-37.
    4. Lugilde, Alba & Bande, Roberto & Riveiro, Dolores, 2017. "Precautionary Saving: a review of the theory and the evidence," MPRA Paper 77511, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Shin-Yi Chou & Jin-Tan Liu & Cliff J. Huang, 2004. "Health insurance and savings over the life cycle-a semiparametric smooth coefficient estimation," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(3), pages 295-322.
    6. Mariacristina De Nardi & Eric French & John Bailey Jones, 2016. "Medicaid Insurance in Old Age," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(11), pages 3480-3520, November.
    7. James G. MacKinnon & Morten Ørregaard Nielsen & Matthew D. Webb, 2023. "Fast and reliable jackknife and bootstrap methods for cluster‐robust inference," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(5), pages 671-694, August.
    8. Alba Lugilde & Roberto Bande & Dolores Riveiro, 2018. "Precautionary saving in Spain during the great recession: evidence from a panel of uncertainty indicators," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 1151-1179, December.
    9. Diego Nocetti & William T. Smith, 2011. "Precautionary Saving and Endogenous Labor Supply with and without Intertemporal Expected Utility," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(7), pages 1475-1504, October.
    10. MacKinnon, James G. & Nielsen, Morten Ørregaard & Webb, Matthew D., 2023. "Cluster-robust inference: A guide to empirical practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 232(2), pages 272-299.
    11. Johannes Geyer, 2011. "The Effect of Health and Employment Risks on Precautionary Savings," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 408, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    12. Congdon Fors, Heather & Houngbedji, Kenneth & Lindskog, Annika, 2019. "Land certification and schooling in rural Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 190-208.
    13. Nocetti Diego & Smith William T, 2010. "Uncertainty, the Demand for Health Care, and Precautionary Saving," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-31, August.
    14. Drange, Nina & Telle, Kjetil, 2015. "Promoting integration of immigrants: Effects of free child care on child enrollment and parental employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 26-38.
    15. Matthew D. Webb, 2023. "Reworking wild bootstrap‐based inference for clustered errors," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(3), pages 839-858, August.
    16. Chung-Ming Kuan & Chien-Liang Chen, 2013. "Effects of National Health Insurance on precautionary saving: new evidence from Taiwan," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 921-943, April.
    17. FUKAI Taiyo & ICHIMURA Hidehiko & KANAZAWA Kyogo, 2018. "Quantifying Health Shocks over the Life Cycle," Discussion papers 18014, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    18. Di Giannatale, Sonia & Roa, María José, 2016. "Formal Saving in Developing Economies: Barriers, Interventions, and Effects," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 8107, Inter-American Development Bank.
    19. Clemens, Christiane & Soretz, Susanne, 1999. "Konsequenzen des Zins- und Einkommensrisikos auf das wirtschaftliche Wachstum," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-221, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    20. Mariacristina De Nardi & Eric French & John Bailey Jones, 2016. "Savings After Retirement: A Survey," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 177-204, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    wealth; saving; means tested financial support; ageing; long-term elderly care; difference-in-differences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp9237. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.