We study a model in which retired single people optimally choose consumption, medical spending and saving while facing uncertainty about their health, lifespan and medical needs. This uncertainty is partially offset by insurance provided by the government and private institutions. We first show...

Medicaid was primarily designed to protect and insure the poor. However, the poor tend to live much shorter lifespans and thus incur much lower medical expenses before death. In this paper we assess the insurance and redistributive properties of Medicaid, taking these dimensions of heterogeneity...

This paper assesses the effect of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on the labor supply of Americans ages 50 and older. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, we estimate a dynamic programming model of retirement that accounts for both saving and...

In the United States, both taxes and old age Social Security benefits explicitly depend on one's marital status. We study the effects of eliminating these marriage-related provisions on the labor supply and savings of two different cohorts. To do so, we estimate a rich life-cycle model of...

Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), we estimate a dynamic model of health and employment. We estimate how transitory and persistent health shocks affect employment over time. In a first step, we formulate and estimate a...

We use comparable data from the U.S. and England to examine similarities and differences in the level and trajectories of assets among households age 70 and older. We find that in the U.S. assets on average decline gradually with age, while in England older households actually accumulate wealth....

Parental investments in children can take one of three broad forms: (1) Time investments during child-hood and adolescence that aid child development, and in particular cognitive ability (2) Educational investments that improve school quality and hence educational outcomes (3) Cash investments...