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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Foltyn, Richard; Olsson, Jonna |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how objective and subjective heterogeneity in life expectancy affects savings behavior of healthy and unhealthy people. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we first document systematic biases in survival beliefs across self-reported health: those in poor health not only have a shorter actual lifespan but also underestimate their remaining life time. To gauge the effect on savings behavior and wealth accumulation, we use an overlapping-generations model where survival probabilities and beliefs evolve according to a health and survival process estimated from data. We conclude that differences in life expectancy are important to understand savings behavior, and that the belief biases, especially among the unhealthy, can explain up to a fifth of the observed health-wealth gap. |
| Keywords: | life expectancy, preference heterogeneity, subjective beliefs, life cycle |
| JEL: | D15 E21 G41 I14 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:294009&r=dem |
| By: | Gregory Clark (University of Southern Denmark, LSE, CEPR); Neil Cummins (LSE, CEPR); Matthew Curtis (University of Southern Denmark) |
| Abstract: | The European Marriage Pattern (EMP), in place in NW Europe for perhaps 500 years, substantially limited fertility. But how could such limitation persist when some individuals who deviated from the EMP norm had more children? If their children inherited their deviant behaviors, their descendants would quickly become the majority of later generations. This puzzle has two possible solutions. The first is that all those that deviated actually had lower net fertility over multiple generations. We show, however, no fertility penalty to future generations from higher initial fertility. Instead the EMP survived because even though the EMP persisted at the social level, children did not inherit their parents' individual fertility choices. In the paper we show evidence consistent with lateral, as opposed to vertical, transmission of EMP fertility behaviors. |
| Keywords: | Demography, Economic History, European Marriage Pattern, Selection Pressures |
| JEL: | N13 N11 J12 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0259&r=dem |
| By: | Ole Hexel (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Diego Alburez-Gutierrez (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Emilio Zagheni (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Keywords: | USA, inequality, wealth |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2024-008&r=dem |
| By: | Richard Blundell; Christopher R. Bollinger; Charles Hokayem; James P. Ziliak |
| Abstract: | We present new estimates of earnings volatility over time and the lifecycle for men and women by race and human capital. Using a long panel of restricted-access administrative Social Security earnings linked to the Current Population Survey, we estimate volatility with both transparent summary measures, as well as decompositions into permanent and transitory components. From the late 1970s to the mid 1990s there is a strong negative trend in earnings volatility for both men and women. We show this is driven by a reduction in transitory variance. Starting in the mid 1990s there is relative stability in trends of male earnings volatility because of an increase in the variance of permanent shocks, especially among workers without a college education, and a more attenuated trend decline among women. Cohort analyses indicate a strong U-shape pattern of volatility over the working life, which comes from large permanent shocks early and later in the lifecycle. However, this U-shape shifted downward and leftward in more recent cohorts, the latter from the fanning out of lifecycle transitory volatility in younger cohorts. These patterns are more pronounced among White men and women compared to Black workers. |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:24-21&r=dem |
| By: | Jon D. Samuels |
| Abstract: | The U.S. gross domestic product and its foundational National Income and Product Accounts contain some of the most widely used and followed economic statistics in the world yet contain limited information on the labor market and almost no information on demographic groups. We build a new dataset that includes labor market data cross-classified by sex, age, education, and industry and integrate this into the National and Industry Economic Accounts. To overcome small sample size issues for poorly measured demographic groups, we apply small area estimation to refine the estimates. We present examples of how this data can be used to better understand relationships between economic growth and labor market outcomes by demographic group. |
| JEL: | E01 |
| Date: | 2023–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bea:papers:0118&r=dem |