This paper attempts to quantify the private and public economic value of reducing obesity through pharmaceutical and medical interventions. We find that the economic value of such treatments, in particular bariatric surgery, is large for treated patients, with incremental cost-effectiveness...

This paper uses comparable micro-data from over 15 OECD countries to study the causal relationship between education and health outcomes. We combine three surveys (SHARE, HRS and ELSA) that include nationally representative samples of people aged 50 and over in these countries. We use variation...

Prior studies disagree regarding the effectiveness of financial literacy programs, especially those offered in the workplace. To explain such measurement differences in evaluation and outcomes, we employ a stochastic life cycle model with endogenous financial knowledge accumulation to...

The identification of information problems in different markets is a challenging issue in the economic literature. In this paper, we study the identification of moral hazard from adverse selection and learning within the context of a multi-period dynamic model. We extend the model of Abbring et...

We propose to combine clinical trial and estimates of behavioral responses in the population to quantify the value of new drug innovations when such values cannot be obtained by randomized experiments alone. New drugs are seen as having two distinct effects on patients. First, they can provide...

Using data from three waves of the General Social Survey on retirement and older workers (1994, 2002 and 2007), we document the evolution of retirement patterns over the last three decades. We combined the analysis of retirement ages of actual retirees with data on expected retirement ages of...

We estimate a stochastic life-cycle model of endogenous health spending, asset accumulation and retirement to investigate the causes behind the increase in health spending and longevity in the U.S. over the period 1965-2005. We estimate that technological change and the increase in the...

We use simulation methods to analyze the impacts of certain proposed reforms to improve the coverage of longevity risk. This risk, which may in principle be adequately covered by classic defined-benefit pension plans, has been of particular interest in Quebec for some years now, notably due to...

Nous présentons dans ce document la conception et la structure de COMPAS, un modèle de microsimulation dynamique portant sur l’état et l’utilisation de soins de santé des Québécois. Ce modèle comporte deux dimensions importantes : un composante dynamique, qui permet une évo- lution...

Nous utilisons des méthodes de simulation pour analyser les impacts de certaines propo- sitions de réforme visant à améliorer la couverture du risque de longévité. Ce risque, qui peut en principe être adéquatement couvert par les régimes de retraite classiques à prestations...