This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the effect of health care policy uncertainty (HCPU) on households’ portfolio choice. A causal identification approach is developed, whose key assumption is the existence of an exogenous variable that shifts responsiveness to HCPU without shifting...

This paper investigates the possibility, raised by Perron (1989, 1990a), that aggregate economic time series can be characterized as being stationary around broken trend lines. Unlike Perron, we treat the break date as unknown a priori. Asymptotic distributions are developed for recursive,...

This paper develops a discrete-time epidemiological model for the spread of economic crises across sectors in the United States for the period 1952-2015. It is the first to use an epidemiological approach with macroeconomic (Flow of Funds) data. An extension of the usual one-period Markov model...

We develop metrics to assess the complexity of a bank holding company (BHC), based on its ownership structure. Large BHCs have intricate ownership hierarchies involving hundreds or even thousands of legal entities that may contribute to increased operational risk and greater opacity. Our...

Large bank holding companies (BHCs) are structured into intricate ownership hierarchies involving hundreds or even thousands of legal entities. Each subsidiary in these hierarchies has its own legal form, assets, liabilities, managerial goals, and supervisory authorities. In the event of BHC...

This paper considers the role of survey design and question phrasing in evaluating the subjective health assessment responses using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) dataset. A unique feature of this dataset is that respondents were twice asked during the survey to...

The American population is aging rapidly. Persons 65 and over who now constitute about one-fifth of the population will constitute about two-fifths of the population by 2040. In addition, individuals are living longer. Yet the labor force participation of older Americans has fallen dramatically...