Uncertain Medical Expenses and Precautionary Saving Near the End of the Life Cycle
构建了一个动态结构模型，研究老年家庭在面临未来不确定医疗支出时的消费决策，发现预防性储蓄动机有助于解释美国退休家庭缓慢的资产消耗速度。
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.