An Examination of the Impact of Health on Families' Financial Status

健康对家庭财务状况影响的检验

• 批准号: 1714922
• 负责人: Jermaine Toney
• 金额: $ 6.9万
• 依托单位: Toney Jermaine
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-09-01 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1714922&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Examination; Impact; Health; Families; Financial

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. A theme that is evident in the literature is that disparities in health affect other social outcomes, including the disparities in financial wealth. The NSF mission emphasizes the need for research that can advance the national health, prosperity and welfare. This project responds to this call by using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to examine the conventional wisdom on the link between health status and the financial basket. Explorations on the link between mental/physical health of the person and financial basket (aka portfolio allocation, i.e. portion of household wealth allocated to stocks, bonds, mutual funds) is a relatively new line of inquiry. In previous research, however, the focus is only on the health status of the individual or head of the household. Such a focus on the individual may in fact underestimate the full extent of health on portfolio allocation. This project improves upon existing knowledge and focuses on connections between the health status of the head of household and their siblings, parents and grandparents. The extended family can contribute as a positive or negative social force to the well being of a household. Previous research indicates that economic hardship in the family tree, e.g. among siblings and parents, helps to undermine the ability of middle-class households to accumulate net wealth, and it substantially lowers the probability of carrying stocks or a bank account in their portfolio. Middle-class black households, in particular, are far more likely to have relatives that face such hardship. What is more, previous investigations find that relatively younger and elderly black households tend to devote a much lower proportion of their assets to risky investments, e.g. stocks and mutual funds, compared to their white counterparts. These scholars do not, however, consider the forces behind such disparity. The underlying hypothesis of this project is that sickness in the family tree may be a unique contributor to the black-white disparity in portfolio selection. To test this proposition, this project relies on perspectives and statistical methods used by Bogan et al (2013). One empirical model that the project uses is the logistic regression for binary data. The logistic regression is a model that can estimate the weight of health status in the family on ownership of a particular asset type, e.g. wealth ownership of stocks, bank account, mutual funds. Another model that this project proposes to run is the tobit model. A tobit model is appropriate because it can estimate the impact of health on the share of wealth allocated to a particular financial asset. Bogan et al (2013) estimate the influence of self-reported health status on household wealth by using a tobit regression model. If after controlling for income, education, etc., certain demographics appear to have lower wealth prospects due to illness in the extended family, such inequality needs to be made known. Potentially, this project could draw attention to the disproportionate effect that health status in the family tree has on different demographics and why certain assets are not contained in an individual's portfolio.

该奖项是作为NSF社会、行为和经济学博士后研究奖学金(SPRF)计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学职业生涯培养有前途的、早期职业博士水平的科学家。SPRF奖项包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。国家科学基金会致力于促进科学界所有阶层的科学家参与其研究方案和活动，包括那些来自代表性不足的群体的科学家；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的一个重要水平。每个博士后研究员都必须解决推动各自学科领域向前发展的重要科学问题。文献中显而易见的一个主题是，健康方面的差距会影响其他社会结果，包括金融财富方面的差距。国家科学基金会的任务强调了能够促进国家健康、繁荣和福利的研究的必要性。该项目响应了这一呼吁，使用收入动态小组研究(PSID)的数据来检验关于健康状况与金融篮子之间联系的传统智慧。探索个人的心理/身体健康与金融篮子(又称投资组合分配，即家庭财富的一部分配置到股票、债券、共同基金)之间的联系是一个相对较新的调查路线。然而，在以前的研究中，重点只放在个人或户主的健康状况上。事实上，这种对个人的关注可能低估了投资组合配置的全面健康程度。该项目在现有知识的基础上加以改进，侧重于户主与其兄弟姐妹、父母和祖父母之间的健康状况之间的联系。大家庭可以作为一种积极或消极的社会力量对一个家庭的福祉作出贡献。以前的研究表明，家谱中的经济困难，例如兄弟姐妹和父母之间的经济困难，有助于削弱中产阶级家庭积累净财富的能力，并大大降低了在其投资组合中持有股票或银行账户的可能性。尤其是中产阶级黑人家庭，他们的亲戚更有可能面临这样的困难。此外，之前的调查发现，与白人家庭相比，相对年轻和年长的黑人家庭倾向于将资产的比例投入到高风险投资，如股票和共同基金。然而，这些学者并没有考虑这种差异背后的力量。这个项目的基本假设是，家谱中的疾病可能是投资组合选择中黑人和白人差距的唯一贡献者。为了检验这一命题，该项目依赖于Bogan等人(2013)使用的视角和统计方法。该项目使用的一个经验模型是二进制数据的Logistic回归。Logistic回归是一种模型，可以估计家庭健康状况对特定资产类型所有权的权重，例如股票、银行账户、共同基金的财富所有权。该项目建议运行的另一个模型是Tobit模型。托比特模型是合适的，因为它可以估计健康状况对分配给特定金融资产的财富份额的影响。Bogan等人(2013)使用Tobit回归模型估计了自我报告的健康状况对家庭财富的影响。如果在控制了收入、教育等因素后，由于大家庭中的疾病，某些人口结构的财富前景似乎较低，则需要公布这种不平等。这个项目可能会引起人们注意家谱中的健康状况对不同人口统计的不成比例的影响，以及为什么某些资产没有包含在个人的投资组合中。