Respondents use different ways to respond to rating scale items. Hence, item responses do not only capture the trait to be measured, but also the way respondents react to rating scales. So-called response styles have been incorporated in a variety of psychometric modeling approaches and...

In the U.S, after age 65, households face income and health risks and a large fraction of these risks are transitory. While consumption significantly responds to transitory income shocks, out-of-pocket medical expenses do not. In contrast, both consumption and out-of-pocket medical expenses...