While the savings of retired singles tend to fall with age, those of retired couples tend to rise. We estimate a rich model of retired singles and couples with bequest motives and uncertain longevity and medical expenses. Our estimates imply that while medical expenses are an important driver of...

The desirability, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness of government welfare policies depend crucially on the income risk that households face and the actions that they can take to reduce consumption fluctuations, for instance by adjusting their saving and labor supply. Shocks to labour earnings are...

Using data covering a single cohort's first 55 years of life, we show that most of the intergenerational elasticity of earnings (IGE) is explained by differences in: years of schooling, cognitive skills, investments of parental time and school quality, and family circumstances during childhood....