In this paper we revisit two well-known facts regarding lifecycle expenditures. The first is the familiar "hump" shaped lifecycle profile of nondurable expenditures. We document that the behavior of total nondurables masks surprising heterogeneity in the lifecycle profile of individual sub-components. We find, for example, that while food expenditures decline after middle age, expenditures on entertainment continue to increase throughout the lifecycle. These patterns pose a challenge to familiar lifecycle models that emphasize inter-temporal substitution or movements in income, including standard models of precautionary savings, myopia, and limited commitment. Secondly, we document that the increase in the cross-sectional dispersion of expenditure over the lifecycle is not greater for luxuries. In particular, the dispersion in entertainment expenditure declines relative to food expenditures as households become older, casting further doubt on theories that emphasize (exclusively) shocks to permanent income. We propose and test a Beckerian model that emphasizes intra-temporal substitution between time and expenditures as the opportunity cost of time varies over the lifecycle. We find this alternative model successfully explains the joint behavior of food and entertainment expenditures in the latter half of the lifecycle. The model, however, is less successful in explaining expenditure patterns during the early half of the lifecycle.
{"title":"Deconstructing Lifecycle Expenditure","authors":"Mark Aguiar, Erik Hurst","doi":"10.3386/W13893","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/W13893","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper we revisit two well-known facts regarding lifecycle expenditures. The first is the familiar \"hump\" shaped lifecycle profile of nondurable expenditures. We document that the behavior of total nondurables masks surprising heterogeneity in the lifecycle profile of individual sub-components. We find, for example, that while food expenditures decline after middle age, expenditures on entertainment continue to increase throughout the lifecycle. These patterns pose a challenge to familiar lifecycle models that emphasize inter-temporal substitution or movements in income, including standard models of precautionary savings, myopia, and limited commitment. Secondly, we document that the increase in the cross-sectional dispersion of expenditure over the lifecycle is not greater for luxuries. In particular, the dispersion in entertainment expenditure declines relative to food expenditures as households become older, casting further doubt on theories that emphasize (exclusively) shocks to permanent income. We propose and test a Beckerian model that emphasizes intra-temporal substitution between time and expenditures as the opportunity cost of time varies over the lifecycle. We find this alternative model successfully explains the joint behavior of food and entertainment expenditures in the latter half of the lifecycle. The model, however, is less successful in explaining expenditure patterns during the early half of the lifecycle.","PeriodicalId":164882,"journal":{"name":"University of Michigan Retirement Research Center Research Paper Series","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131710298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
tThis paper presents and estimates a dynamic programming model model of retirement behavior that accounts explicitly for the effects of health cost volatility and and health insurance on retirement behavior. The model includes a savings decision so that we are able to analyze whether self-insurance is an important mechanism for understanding how greatly individuals value health insurance. We present preliminary estimates from the Health and Retirement Survey. We find that the possibility of self-insurance significantly lessens an individual's valuation of health insurance. Therefore, failure to account for self-insurance potentially leads to overestimates of the effect of health insurance and Medicare on retirement behavior.
{"title":"The Effects of Health Insurance and Self-Insurance on Retirement Behavior","authors":"Eric French, J. Jones","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.295560","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.295560","url":null,"abstract":"tThis paper presents and estimates a dynamic programming model model of retirement behavior that accounts explicitly for the effects of health cost volatility and and health insurance on retirement behavior. The model includes a savings decision so that we are able to analyze whether self-insurance is an important mechanism for understanding how greatly individuals value health insurance. We present preliminary estimates from the Health and Retirement Survey. We find that the possibility of self-insurance significantly lessens an individual's valuation of health insurance. Therefore, failure to account for self-insurance potentially leads to overestimates of the effect of health insurance and Medicare on retirement behavior.","PeriodicalId":164882,"journal":{"name":"University of Michigan Retirement Research Center Research Paper Series","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126614526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines the extent to which private savings responds to the availability of a social insurance program. We focus on the Medicaid nursing home assistance program and uses variation in state Medicaid policies in the 1960s and 1990s to identify whether household wealth correlates negatively with access to public insurance coverage. We use data from the 1962 and 1970 Survey of Consumer Finances and the 1992 through 2002 Health and Retirement Study. We find that household savings in 1970 was substantially lower in states with easier access to Medicaid assistance and that household savings in the 1990s was lower when access to the Medicaid program was lower.
{"title":"The Responsiveness of Private Savings to Medicaid Long Term Care Policies","authors":"P. Sevak, Lina Walker","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1095814","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1095814","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the extent to which private savings responds to the availability of a social insurance program. We focus on the Medicaid nursing home assistance program and uses variation in state Medicaid policies in the 1960s and 1990s to identify whether household wealth correlates negatively with access to public insurance coverage. We use data from the 1962 and 1970 Survey of Consumer Finances and the 1992 through 2002 Health and Retirement Study. We find that household savings in 1970 was substantially lower in states with easier access to Medicaid assistance and that household savings in the 1990s was lower when access to the Medicaid program was lower.","PeriodicalId":164882,"journal":{"name":"University of Michigan Retirement Research Center Research Paper Series","volume":"57 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131088702","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The responsibility to save and contribute to a pension is increasingly left to the individual worker. Understanding how households save and prepare for retirement is of paramount importance. There is concern in the U.S. that many families have little or no wealth even close to retirement. In this project, I use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative sample of the cohort born between 1931 to 1941, to examine the financial situation of older households and their retirement plans. I first show that many families have not thought about retirement even though they are a few years away from retirement and the event is imminent. This finding confirms the results of other surveys, such as the Retirement Confidence Survey, that show that a large majority of workers have not made any plans for retirement.
{"title":"The Impact of Financial Education on Savings and Asset Allocation","authors":"A. Lusardi","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1092150","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1092150","url":null,"abstract":"The responsibility to save and contribute to a pension is increasingly left to the individual worker. Understanding how households save and prepare for retirement is of paramount importance. There is concern in the U.S. that many families have little or no wealth even close to retirement. In this project, I use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative sample of the cohort born between 1931 to 1941, to examine the financial situation of older households and their retirement plans. I first show that many families have not thought about retirement even though they are a few years away from retirement and the event is imminent. This finding confirms the results of other surveys, such as the Retirement Confidence Survey, that show that a large majority of workers have not made any plans for retirement.","PeriodicalId":164882,"journal":{"name":"University of Michigan Retirement Research Center Research Paper Series","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127431002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) system is designed to provide income security to workers in the event that health problems prevent them from working. In order to qualify for benefits, applicants must pass a medical screening that is intended to verify that the individual is truly incapable of work. Past research has shown, however, that the screening procedures used do not function without error. If screening were error-free, it has can be demonstrated that it is socially optimal to distinguish the disabled non-worker from the non-disabled, providing benefits to the disabled. In this paper we first demonstrate that if the errors in the medical screening are too large, it will not be optimal to distinguish the disabled from the non-disabled. Then, we use data on the actual quality of screening to determine first, if segmenting the non-working population is desirable, and second whether the current SSDI system relies too heavily on screening than is justified. Our preliminary conclusion is that while screening is good enough to justify some distinction in benefits, it may not be good enough to justify the size of the benefit offered.
{"title":"Disability Benefits as Social Insurance: Tradeoffs between Screening Stringency and Benefit Generosity in Optimal Program Design","authors":"T. Waidmann, J. Bound, A. Nichols","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1090897","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1090897","url":null,"abstract":"The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) system is designed to provide income security to workers in the event that health problems prevent them from working. In order to qualify for benefits, applicants must pass a medical screening that is intended to verify that the individual is truly incapable of work. Past research has shown, however, that the screening procedures used do not function without error. If screening were error-free, it has can be demonstrated that it is socially optimal to distinguish the disabled non-worker from the non-disabled, providing benefits to the disabled. In this paper we first demonstrate that if the errors in the medical screening are too large, it will not be optimal to distinguish the disabled from the non-disabled. Then, we use data on the actual quality of screening to determine first, if segmenting the non-working population is desirable, and second whether the current SSDI system relies too heavily on screening than is justified. Our preliminary conclusion is that while screening is good enough to justify some distinction in benefits, it may not be good enough to justify the size of the benefit offered.","PeriodicalId":164882,"journal":{"name":"University of Michigan Retirement Research Center Research Paper Series","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133282942","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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