Reference-dependent preference models assume that agents derive utility from deviations of consumption from benchmark levels, rather than from consumption levels. These references can be either backward-looking (as explicit in the Habit literature) or forward-looking (as implicitly suggested by...

Both educational expenditures and attainment have increased sharply over the last decades, despite rising prices of education, and stagnating income returns to human capital. This paper emphasizes conditional employment risks diversification as additional motivation for education demand. Job...

Despite clear evidence of correlations between financial and medical statuses and decisions, most models treat financial and health-related choices separately. This paper bridges this gap by proposing a tractable dynamic framework for the joint determination of optimal consumption, portfolio...

Richer and healthier agents tend to hold riskier portfolios and spend proportionally less on health expenditures. Potential explanations include health and wealth e ffects on preferences, expected longevity or disposable total wealth. Using HRS data, we perform a structural estimation of a...

Information asymmetry is a necessary prerequisite for testing adverse selection. This paper applies this sequence of tests to Mauritian slave auctions. Dynamic auction theory with private value highlights more aggressive bidding by uninformed bidders and higher prices when an informed...

Health insurance status can change over the life cycle for exogenous reasons (e.g. Medicare for the elders, PPACA for younger agents, termination of coverage at retirement in employer-provided plans). Durability of the health capital, endogenous mortality and morbidity, as well as backward...

Near the end of life, health declines, mortality risk increases and curative is replaced by uninsured long-term care, accelerating the fall in wealth. Whereas standard explanations emphasize inevitable aging processes, we propose a com- plementary closing down the shop justification where...

Lifetime financial-, work- and health-related decisions made by agents are intertwined with one another. Understanding how these decisions are made is essential to gauge if saving in financial, retirement and human assets is adequate or not. This paper numerically solves, simulates, and...

The Human Capital (HK) and Statistical Life Values (VSL) differ sharply in their empirical pricing of a human life and lack a common theoretical background to justify these differences. We first contribute to the theory and measurement of life value by providing a unified framework to formally...