FROM MARGINALISM TO INSTITUTIONALISM: DISTRIBUTIONAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE FINNISH PENSION REGIME

This study offers a longitudinal scrutiny of the development of pension policy in Finland and evaluates the impacts that the shift from a "marginal" to an "institutional" welfare state imposed on economic well-being among the elderly. The data that are used stem from household budget surveys from 1966 to 1990. During that period, average income of the elderly doubled in real terms, legislated pensions replaced other sources of income, the traditional cycle of poverty, where the elderly had a higher risk of poverty, disappeared, and income differences between the elderly diminished.     

Estimating Telephone Demand with State Decennial Census Data from 1970–1990: Update with 2000 Data

Adding the 2000 decennial census data to our pooled logit model results in much stronger evidence that targeted subsidy programs to add poor households to the network are ineffective and very costly. Untargeted programs are about nine times more expensive than targeted programs. Overall higher penetration rates are fueled by the declining real price of access and rapid income growth in the 1990s. In addition, our estimate of the first integrated access and new services model with 2000 decennial census data suggests that cell phones and Internet are, in part, responsible for the recent surge in penetration, but precise estimates are difficult without price information.     

Losers amongst the Losers:: The welfare effects of the great recession across cohorts

This paper studies the effect of deep recessions on intergenerational inequality by quantifying the welfare effects on households at different phases of the life cycle. Deep recessionary episodes are characterized by large declines in the prices of real and financial assets and in employment. The former levies high welfare costs on older households who own financial wealth, the latter determines labour income losses and destroys the human capital of younger cohorts, lowering their productivity. The paper extends previous analyses in the literature by including permanent labour income losses in an OLG model calibrated to match the Great Recession. The analysis shows that younger households lose more than double of all other living cohorts, as younger household become unemployed and experience a decline in their future income. The dynamics of households’ consumption and portfolio composition between 2007 and 2013 in the US are consistent with the predictions of the model.     

Uncertain Medical Expenses and Precautionary Saving Near the End of the Life Cycle

This paper introduces a dynamic, structural model of household consumption decisions in which elderly families consider the effects of uncertain future medical expenses when deciding current levels of consumption. The model with uncertain medical expenses implies a potentially important role for precautionary saving incentives to explain slow rates of dissaving among elderly Americans during retirement. Rather than just simulating the stochastic dynamic model, preference parameters are estimated using panel data on health, wealth and expenditures for retired families. The health uncertainty model predicts consumption levels closer to observed expenditures than a life cycle model with uncertain longevity. However, elderly families typically dissave their financial assets more slowly than even the baseline health uncertainty model predicts is optimal.     

A DYNAMIC MODEL OF HOUSING DEMAND: ESTIMATION AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS*

Using data from the PSID, we estimate a dynamic model of housing demand with nonconvex adjustment costs, credit constraints, and uncertainty about income and home prices. We simulate how consumer behavior responds to house price and income declines as well as tightening credit. In response to a negative home price shock, households early in the life cycle climb the housing ladder more quickly and invest more in housing assets due to the lower price. With a concurrent negative income shock, however, housing demand falls among young and middle aged households who stay in smaller homes rather than to trade up.     

An analysis of life-cycle accumulation of financial assets

This paper uses data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) to estimate age profiles for financial asset accumulation. While the CEX is not designed to estimate financial wealth, it has the advantage of being available on a consistent basis since 1980.As the data set is not a panel, synthetic cohort techniques are used to analyse the dynamics of asset accumulation over the life cycle, while allowing for cohort and business cycle effects. It is shown that it is not possible to separately identify cohort and age effects in the level of financial assets. However, with the specification proposed, it is possible to identify all the parameters (except the intercept) of the age profile for the changes in financial assets.Several measures of location are analysed, and several conditioning variables considered. The results seem to indicate a decline in the rate of financial asset accumulation in the last part of the life cycle. However, because the scale of this effect is not identified, these results cannot be used to address the issue of asset decumulation by the elderly.     

MEASUREMENT OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN CANADA

The only periodic data available in Canada on the asset holdings and net worth of the household sector are data collected through a series of household surveys originally initiated in 1954. Some limited data on the holdings of financial claims by the personal and unincorporated business sector are available from flow of funds work. Data are unavailable for estimation from estate tax returns.
The scope of the surveys has been expanded substantially so that the most recent survey obtained a very comprehensive list of asset holdings. The experience with Canadian surveys has been similar to that of other countries; surveys appear to underestimate asset holdings although the estimates are more reliable for widely held assets than for assets with a very skewed distribution. Nevertheless, the surveys appear to trace the accumulated distribution of personal savings over time to a considerable degree and provide useful cross-sectional trend data.
Canadian data show that wealth is more unequally distributed among family units than is income although wealth appears to be more equally distributed between income groups than is income. Wealth is also very unequally distributed within the same income group. Over time, there appears to have been some movement towards a more equal distribution of asset holdings between income groups.     

主观预期寿命对家庭资产配置的影响——基于CHARLS数据的经验分析

本文在基于生命周期的资产配置模型中引入主观预期寿命,对主观预期寿命、遗赠动机对中国家庭资产配置的影响进行分析。运用中国健康与养老追踪调查数据,本文的实证研究结果表明：中老年居民的主观预期寿命是理性的,该指标在研究家庭金融决策问题上具有重要的参考意义;主观预期寿命的增长显著提升了家庭持有政府债券和风险资产的可能性,并增加了家庭在相应资产上的配置。遗赠动机会弱化主观预期寿命增长对家庭持有相应资产的可能性和配置比例的正向影响。通过使用多种估计方法和代理变量,笔者发现上述结论是稳健的。     

THE ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE ELDERLY: BEWARE OF THE MEAN*

Current discussion contains widely contradictory statements about the economic status of the elderly in the United States. One can read that poverty among the elderly has been eliminated, and that it remains one of the most serious problems facing the country today. This paper discusses different ways of measuring economic status, and attempts to show how authors can reach such divergent conclusions, and support them with readily available data. The U.S. Census data on personal income generally exclude in-kind benefits, and treat family size in a straightforward though unsophisticated manner. This paper shows that alternative treatments of these issues can have significant effects on indices of the economic status of the elderly. Whether or not in-kind benefits are included in the definition of income, which in-kind benefits are included and how they are valued change the conclusions dramatically. Even more important is whether the income data are presented by household or per capita (or with some intermediate divisor, using equivalency scales), since elderly households are the smallest of any age category. This paper makes 3 points. One is that there has been significant progress in the economic status of the elderly over the past several decades, although the extent of the improvement is subject to debate. But the second is that summary statistics about the elderly, such as the above, may conceal more than they reveal. The diversity of the elderly is key. Beware of the mean. Finally, there is no one correct way to measure well-being. Different methodological approaches can be chosen and justified, and the choices made alter the conclusions significantly.     

THE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF THE ELDERLY

Estimating the elderly's relative economic well-being is of policy importance, but the procedure poses several technical problems. We propose a methodology for such comparison and present results from its application. Household income of persons is adjusted for household size, underreporting of unearned income, and the annuitized value of assets. By this measure, the elderly are on average 124 percent as well off as the nonelderly. Their households are on average 183 percent as well off as those of children under 6. Inequality is greater than at any other age and increases further for those over 75.     

The dynamics of population ageing into the twenty-first century: ASEAN and selected countries of Pacific Asia

Demographic aging is examined in selected countries of east and Southeast Asia. "Among the 10 countries discussed in this article, there is a wide range of experience in the process of aging from the advanced stage reached by Japan to the incipient stage evident in the Philippines. Although the direction of age structural shift in these countries is consistent throughout, earlier patterns of fertility, mortality and migration dictate differing effects over the 50-year period, 1970-2020. This is apparent in the behaviour and changing relationships of cohorts passing through the various stages of the life course. The ultimate phase of the current ageing cycle results in a greatly expanded elderly component which, if the case of Japan provides a precedent, is likely to be further inflated by concurrent increases in life expectancy among the elderly themselves."     

The Relationship between Personal Income and Net Worth in Australia

This article uses data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey to examine the changing distribution of net worth with age. Even after controlling for age, the relationship between income and net worth is positive, except for the older age groups. Inequality falls as age increases. The income poor save in different forms compared with high income individuals of the same age cohort. Holdings of financial assets, especially equity investments and superannuation, are heavily concentrated in the hands of high income earners, while fixed income investments are favoured by the elderly for all income groups.     

Where is the Land of Hope and Glory? The geography of intergenerational mobility in England and Wales*

We present a new analysis of intergenerational mobility across three cohorts in England and Wales using linked decennial census microdata, focusing on occupation, homeownership, and education. Four main results emerge. First, area-level differences in upward occupational mobility are highly persistent over time. Second, measures of absolute and relative mobility tend to be spatially positively correlated. Third, there is a robust relationship between upward educational and upward occupational mobility. Last, there is a small negative relationship between upward homeownership mobility and upward occupational mobility, revealing that social mobility comparisons based on different outcomes can have different trends.     

INTERPRETING CHANGES IN THE ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE ELDERLY, 1949-1979

This paper analyzes changes in the economic well-being of the elderly using data from the Decennial Censuses of 1950 through 1980. We find that the economic status of each elderly cohort is higher on average than that of the preceding cohort. Certain events associated with age–retirement for both men and women and widowhood for women–are associated with declining incomes. Controlling for sex, labor force participation, and marital status, however, the economic well-being of elderly cohorts generally increases with age.     

INCOME AND WEALTH OVER THE LIFE CYCLE EVIDENCE FROM PANEL DATA

In this paper we examine household wealth and income in the Netherlands using data from the Socio Economic Panel (SEP) in the period 1987–89. We provide an evaluation of the quality of the data and some simple statistics which describe the behavior of wealth, saving, and income over the life cycle. We find there is substantial heterogeneity in the behavior of households, and wealth holdings vary substantially even among the same age group. By exploiting the panel feature of the SEP, we derive saving from first differencing wealth. We find that a sizeable fraction of households do not dissave when old and we find some evidence in favor of the bequest motive.     

国债融资能否影响居民消费需求——基于城镇居民经验数据的实证分析

“传统的政府债务观点”与“李嘉图等价观点”对国债融资的消费效应存在很大的争议.本文基于生命周期假说,将国债幻觉引入基本消费函数,区分私人部门持有的国债资产和其他资产两部分,运用中国宏观经济数据实证分析了国债对城镇居民消费的影响.实证结果表明:国债对城镇居民具有一定的“财富效应”;人均可支配收入仍是居民消费的基础;其他金融资产对城镇居民具有“负”的财富效应,而住房资产对城镇居民而言具有“正”的财富效应.     

The impact of rustication on sent-down cohorts�� income

We estimate the impact of rustication on sent-down cohorts during the decade period of the Cultural Revolution, relying on econometric methods and policy reviewing. The data used from the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) for the years 1995 and 2002 show that the average income of sent-down cohorts is higher than those who were not sent-down, which seems to conflict with the human capital theory that predicts that education increases future expected returns. This paper separates the impact of ability, family background, and policies on intellectual youth and finds that their rustication had a significant negative effect for the sent-down cohorts. Correction for sent-down cohorts’ working experience from the year they went to the countryside decreases the income inequality among low-income sent-down cohorts, and compensates for the negative effects of the sent-down experience.     

LONGITUDINAL MEASURES OF POVERTY: ACCOUNTING FOR INCOME AND ASSETS OVER TIME

This paper uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to estimate durations of poverty spells and to determine whether temporarily poor families have sufficient assets to cover the shortfall of their incomes below poverty—their personal poverty gaps. If poverty is measured using monthly rather than annual income data, four times as many persons enter poverty, but most spells are short: the median duration is between four and six months. More than one-third of all poverty spells are eliminated if financial assets are used to fill poverty gaps, but remaining poverty spells are longer. Separate estimates are made for the elderly and for families with children.     

The Effects of Health, Wealth, and Wages on Labour Supply and Retirement Behaviour

This paper estimates a life cycle model of labour supply, retirement, and savings behaviour in which future health status and wages are uncertain. Individuals face a fixed cost of work and cannot borrow against future labour, pension, or Social Security income. The method of simulated moments is used to match the life cycle profiles of labour force participation, hours worked, and assets that are estimated from the data to those that are generated by the model. The model establishes that the tax structure of the Social Security system and pensions are key determinants of the high observed job exit rates at ages 62 and 65. Removing the tax wedge embedded in the Social Security earnings test for individuals aged 65 and older would delay job exit by almost one year. By contrast, Social Security benefit levels, health, and borrowing constraints are less important determinants of job exit at older ages. For example, reducing Social Security benefits by 20% would cause workers to delay exit from the labour force by only three months.