Evidence suggests that hospital mergers can reduce costs but less is known about their effects on patient outcomes. We study how a wave of mergers that led to the shutdown of one third of all Swedish maternity wards affected the health of mothers who gave birth and their newborns. Applying a...

Using multiple U.S. and European data sources, we show that observed physical attributes are related to participation in financial markets. Specifically, we find that individuals who are relatively tall and of normal weight are more likely to hold stocks in their financial portfolios. We...

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...

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...

Using an extended version of the credit risk model CreditRisk, we develop a flexible framework with numerous applications amongst which we find stochastic mortality modelling, forecasting of death causes as well as profit and loss modelling of life insurance and annuity portfolios which can be...

This paper builds on the work of Stout and Mitchell (2006), Stout (2008), and Blanchett and Frank (2009) by creating a preventive approach to withdrawal management. Proactive strategies, which reduce the withdrawal rate before there are insufficient funds, are shown to significantly reduce the...

We examine the role of employee health in Private Equity buyouts using employee-level data on employment, wages, medical prescriptions, and health expenditures of more than 55,000 buyout employees. Employees with a lower health status before the buyout face the most substantial losses of income...