The Financial Crisis: Economic and Health Effects

描述(申请人提供)：美国和大多数发达国家正在经历自大萧条以来最严重的经济危机。家庭受到了多方面的影响。房价大幅下跌，再加上高风险的抵押贷款和股权剥离的假设，导致相当大一部分房主的住房资产为负值，一些人丧失了抵押品赎回权。股票价值的大幅下跌已经使许多家庭的储蓄大幅缩水，特别是对退休储蓄的影响。创纪录的失业率危及很大一部分工人及其家人的经济基础，而且这一比例还在不断增加。这个拟议项目的一个主要目标将是量化金融危机对美国家庭财富状况的影响，以及家庭对应对措施所做的任何行为调整。为了尽可能完整地描绘一幅图景，这些分析将使用多种纵向数据来源(HRS、PSID、American Life Panel和ELSA)，这些数据来源在涵盖的年龄范围、样本量、访谈的频率和时间以及可用信息的丰富性方面各不相同。在面板数据中，我们将估计家庭对其财富状况变化的反应，特别是在消费和储蓄、退休和遗产方面。因此，我们将发现家庭是如何为财富损失提供资金的。跨期决策的一个重要因素是个人对未来的期望。最近金融市场的持续动荡使人们很难形成这样的预期。这个项目将记录和估计家庭财务状况的主观不确定性和乐观程度的变化，并将它们与个人的经济选择联系起来。这项研究的另一个主要目标是调查经济危机是否与健康下降有关。过去的研究表明，健康和经济状况之间存在密切关系，而这些财富的意外变化提供了一个机会，让我们有机会将这种关系的一些解释分开。除了自我报告的健康信息外，我们还将利用HRS和ELSA中可用的生物标记物。因此，这项研究将把健康的变化与财富的变化以及对失业和其他压力的预期联系起来。这些分析中的大多数将复制来自英国老龄化纵向研究的数据，利用危机的不同演变和ELSA关于健康的更丰富的信息。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The United States and most of the developed world is experiencing its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Households have been affected in a number of ways. Large declines in house values combined with the assumption of risky mortgages and equity extraction has led to negative housing equity for a significant fraction of home owners and foreclosures for some. Large declines in stock values have decimated the savings of many households, especially affecting retirement savings. Record rates of job loss jeopardize the economic foundations of a large and growing fraction of workers and their families. One major objective of this proposed project will be to quantify the effects of the financial crisis on the wealth positions of U.S. households and any adjustments in behavior households made in response. To paint as complete a picture as possible these analyses will employ multiple longitudinal data sources (HRS, PSID, American Life Panel, and ELSA) that vary in the covered age range, sample size, the frequency and timing of interviews as well as the richness of available information. In panel data we will estimate the responses by households to changes in their wealth positions, in particular in consumption and saving, retirement and bequests. Thus we will find how households financed the wealth losses. An important element to intertemporal decision making is what individuals expect about the future. The recent extended turmoil in the financial markets makes it difficult to form such expectations. This project will document and estimate changes in subjective uncertainty and optimism about the financial situation of households and relate them to individuals' economic choices. Another major objective of this research is to investigate whether the economic crisis is associated with declines in health. Past research has shown a close relationship between health and economic status and these unexpected changes in wealth provide an opportunity to separate some of the explanations for this relationship. In addition to self-reported health information we will take advantage of available biomarkers in the HRS and ELSA. Thus the study will relate changes in health to wealth changes and to expectations about unemployment and other stresses. Most of these analyses will be duplicated on data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, taking advantage of different evolutions of the crisis and somewhat richer information on health in ELSA.