Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Resource allocations are jointly determined by the actions of social planners and households. In this paper we highlight the distinction between planner optimization and household optimization. We show that planner optimization is a substitute for household optimization and that this is true even when there are information asymmetries, so that households know more about their preferences than planners. Our analysis illustrates the scope for mis-attribution in economic analysis. Are seemingly optimal allocations caused by optimizing households, or are such allocations caused by planners who paternalistically influence myopic and passive households? We show that widely studied allocative optimality conditions that are implied by household optimization also arise in an economy with a rational planner who uses tools such as default savings and Social Security to influence the choices of non-optimizing households. Many classical optimization conditions do not resolve the question of household optimization. Pseudo-rationality arises when rational planners elicit approximately optimal behavior from non-optimizing households.

Zonder onderwerpscode: economie

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper studies how health behaviors and investments are shaped through family spillovers. Leveraging administrative healthcare data, we identify the effects of health shocks to individuals on their family members' consumption of preventive care and health-related behaviors. Our identification strategy utilizes the timing of shocks to construct counterfactuals for affected households using households that experience the same shock but a few years in the future. We find that spouses and adult children immediately increase their health investments and improve their health behaviors in response to family shocks, and that these effects are both significant and persistent. Notably, we show that these spillover effects are far-reaching and cascade to siblings, stepchildren, sons and daughters in-law, and even "close" coworkers. While some responses are consistent with learning new information about one's own health, evidence from cases where shocks are likely uninformative points to salience as a major operative explanation. Our results underscore the importance of one's family and social network for models of health behaviors and have potential implications for policies that aim to improve population health.

Zonder onderwerpscode: economie