Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Behavioral Responses to Wealth Shocks: Evidence from Sweden

在财务状况发生意外变化后，员工如何为退休做准备？财富的突然变化对退休前后的收入和健康有何影响？在投资组合出现意外亏损后，人们是否会工作更多，压力也会更大？人们是会迅速花掉新获得的财富，还是会把它存起来？在家庭中，人们在多大程度上相互帮助？这项研究通过对瑞典完整的人口登记的三个新的研究设计，实证地解决了这些问题。该项目是第一个将这些数据用于这一目的的项目，这对任何主要发达经济体来说都是一个特别的机会。主要设计使用了根据瑞典纳税申报单中异常详细的投资组合数据计算的资本利得。风险较高的资产应该产生更高的平均回报，更安全的投资应该产生更低的平均回报，但实际回报高于或低于这些特定风险水平会对一个人的财富和储蓄构成不可预测的冲击。辅助性设计使用养老金和遗产税政策的大幅下限，作为对财富的明显冲击。所有设计都会导致对结果的调查，比如退休年龄、健康和幸福感，以及一个人的收入、消费或储蓄。此外，财富对劳动力供给或消费的因果效应也可以为家庭成员记录下来--这是一个非常重要的渠道，以前从来不可能用整个国家的完整家庭网络来研究。这项工作加深了我们对人类决策如何随财富变化的理解。数据的性质和调查的冲击都超过了以前使用调查进行的调查：影响建立在更广泛的人群中，拥有更准确的数据(关于收入或消费)，特别是对新的结果(如健康)。最重要的是，丰富的数据不仅提供了精确度，而且还提供了具有更高内部有效性的新颖研究设计，即对财富变化接近随机的情况进行干净的比较。这项工作可以分析财富的负面冲击，这一事实使其与之前(或同时)关于彩票中奖或遗产的工作脱颖而出。尤其重要的是，要确定人们对损失和相应收益的反应是否不同。此外，人们可以考虑改变他们的储蓄，而不是同等规模的意外之财。此外，这项研究是第一批正确考虑溢出效应的研究之一，在这种情况下，帮助在家庭中可能是重要的，即。储蓄或健康的“私人保险”。一项对一个国家基本完整的家庭网络进行同样可靠的数据的研究本身就是一项重要的进步。许多结果可以产生更广泛的影响。例如，如果退休人员拥有一些额外的财富，他们会更健康，那么更强大的退休储蓄计划看起来可能是合理的。另一方面，如果更富有的人更容易离开工作岗位，接受经济状况调查的退休年龄可能会提高福利。如果即使在一个慷慨的福利国家，家庭帮助似乎仍然很普遍，那么可以预期，政策建议和其他实证研究都会做出更大的努力，将这种溢出效应考虑在内。更广泛的研究和政策界也关心人们对激励措施的反应，这取决于他们或他们的家庭成员是更富有还是更不富裕。

How do workers prepare for retirement after an unexpected change in their financial situation? How do sudden wealth changes affect earnings and health before and after retirement? Do people work more and become more stressed after unexpected losses in their portfolios? Do people spend down new-found wealth quickly, or do they save it? To what extent do people help each other out in the family? This study addresses these questions empirically with three novel research designs on Sweden's complete population registries. The project is the first to use this data for this purpose, a singular opportunity for any major developed economy in particular.The main design uses capital gains calculated from exceptionally detailed portfolio data in the universe of Swedish tax returns. Riskier assets should generate higher average returns, safer investments lower ones, but realized returns above or below these risk-specific levels constitute unpredictable shocks to one's wealth and savings. Auxiliary designs use sharp cutoffs in pension and inheritance tax policies as clear shocks to wealth. All designs lead to investigations of outcomes like the age of retirement, health and well-being, as well as what one earns, consumes or saves. Even more, the causal effects of wealth on labor supply or consumption can also be documented for family members -- a very important channel which has never been possible to study using the complete family network of an entire country before.This work advances our understanding of how human decisions change with wealth. Both the nature of the data and the shocks investigated surpass previous investigations using surveys: The effects are established in a much broader population, with more precise data (on earnings or consumption), and, in particular, on novel outcomes (like health). Most importantly, the rich data does not only offer precision, but also novel research designs with greater internal validity, i.e. clean comparisons of situations where the variation in wealth is close to random.The fact that this work can analyze negative shocks to wealth makes it stand out from prior (or concurrent) work on lottery winnings or inheritance. It is particularly important to establish whether people react to losses differently from commensurate gains. Also, people can think about changes to their savings unlike windfalls of equal size. Moreover, the study is among the first to properly take into account spillover effects where help can be important within the family, viz. "private insurance" of savings or health. A study with equally reliable data on the basically complete network of families in a country is an important advance in itself.Many results can have broader implications. For instance, if retirees are much healthier with some extra wealth, more powerful retirement saving schemes might look justified. On the other hand, if wealthier people leave work more easily, a means-tested retirement age might raise welfare. If family help still seem prevalent even in a generous welfare state, both policy proposals and other empirical studies can be expected to make bigger efforts to take such spillover effects into account. The wider research and policy community also cares about people responding to incentives depending on whether they or their family members are more or less wealthy.