A Life-Cycle Analysis of Health, Family Structure, Wealth, and Retirement

描述（由申请人提供）：该提案将在一个单一的退休建模框架内整合健康，家庭结构，财富和退休之间关系的现有工作。这样一个框架将使研究和政策界受益，因为它提供了对退休过程的全面了解，并为评估随之而来的政策问题提供了基础。这项工作将建立一个动态的、生命周期的、结构性的模型，以健康和女性劳动力供应的作用为特征。它将使用健康和退休研究（HRS）及其相关的社会保障收入记录以及消费者支出调查（CEX）来估计模型参数。该提案的具体目标是：1）开发和评估一个动态的，结构性的家庭储蓄，消费和退休行为的模型，其特点是与年龄相关的健康状况的变化。现有的规范意味着老年人健康状况的恶化会导致家庭消费水平的上升或下降。我们的框架嵌套了所有三个规范。最近的注意力集中在退休时家庭消费的明显系统性下降上，我们的框架再次嵌套了一些突出的解释，并提供了检验它们的可能性。2)发展和估计一个家庭行为的生命周期模型，该模型以家庭生产和市场工作时间分配决策为特征。女性劳动力供给似乎比男性更有弹性，大概是因为家庭生产内外的替代。如果家庭产品的价值很大，一个完整的生命周期模型不能忽略它。不幸的是，它几乎不可能直接测量。我们的框架使我们能够间接地评估家庭生产的变化，可能会影响退休行为。3)开发和评估一个综合目标1-2特点的模型。一个综合模型是必要的，以获得最准确的参数估计和预测。对于政策分析和今后的工作，显然需要一个综合模型。例如，我们感兴趣的是模拟未来寿命和健康状况的增加对退休和储蓄的可能影响，可能的社会保障改革的后果，以及更高比例的女性选择职业对家庭退休年龄的影响-在所有情况下，健康和女性的劳动力供应都将发挥重要作用。未来分析的重要课题包括：与休闲和支出之间的互补程度相关的退休行为趋势;各自有职业工作的配偶关于退休的双重决策的结果;应对不可保险风险的家庭策略;以及私人代际转移，包括遗赠。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal would integrate existing work on the relationships among health, family structure, wealth, and retirement within a single retirement modeling framework. Such a framework would benefit the research and policy communities by providing a comprehensive understanding of the retirement process and a basis for evaluating attendant policy concerns. The work would develop a dynamic, life-cycle, structural model that features the roles of health and female labor supply. It would estimate model parameters using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and its linked Social Security earning records, and the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX). The proposal's specific aims are: 1) To develop and estimate a dynamic, structural model of household saving, consumption, and retirement behavior that features age-related health- status changes. Existing specifications imply that health deterioration in old age leads to rising, level, or declining household consumption. Our framework nests all three specifications. Recent attention has focused on apparent systematic drops in household consumption at retirement, and, again, our framework nests a number of prominent explanations and offers the possibility of testing them. 2) To develop and estimate a life-cycle model of household behavior that features home-production and market-work time allocation decisions. Female labor supply seems more elastic than male, presumably because of substitution in and out of home production. If the value of home production is large, a complete life-cycle model cannot overlook it. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to measure directly. Our framework enables us indirectly to assess changes in home production that may affect retirement behavior. 3) To develop and estimate a model integrating the features of Aims 1-2. An integrated model is necessary to obtain the most accurate parameter estimates and predictions. For policy analysis and future work, an integrated model is obviously desirable. For example, we are interested in simulating the likely effects of future increases in longevity and health status on retirement and saving, the consequences of possible Social Security reforms, and the implications for household retirement ages of higher fractions of women choosing career jobs - and in all cases, health and women's labor supply will both play significant roles. Important topics for future analysis include trends in retirement behavior related to the degree of complementarity between leisure and expenditures; outcomes of dual-decision making about retirement for spouses who each have career jobs; household strategies for coping with uninsurable risks; and, private intergenerational transfers, including bequests.