What are the cumulative effects of health shocks over the life-cycle? The answer depends on the nature of persistence of bad health and the extent to which it changes individuals' economic circumstances. We measure the lifetime costs of bad health using a rich structural model that can reproduce...

What are the cumulative effects of health shocks over the life-cycle? The answer depends on the nature of persistence of bad health and the extent to which it changes individuals' economic circumstances. We measure the lifetime costs of bad health using a rich structural model that can reproduce...

Health shocks are an important source of risk. People in bad health work less, earn less, face higher medical expenses, die earlier, and accumulate much less wealth compared to those in good health. Importantly, the dynamics of health are much richer than those implied by a low-order Markov...