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Old Age Savings and House Price Shocks

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Abstract

Elderly households hold most of their wealth in housing, maintain high levels of wealth throughout retirement, and often leave bequests. The value of their houses are subject to large shocks. To what extent do these shocks affect their savings, consumption, and bequests? Answering this question requires separating precautionary savings, bequest motives, and the desire to remain in one's home. I develop and estimate a structural model of retirement savings decisions with realistic risks, housing, and heterogeneity in bequest preferences. I exploit policy changes to the taxation of housing and bequests to separately identify the different motives for holding wealth. Estimates show approximately half of retirees have no bequest motive. House price changes are quantitatively important, with 1/4 of increases passed on to future generations. I use the estimated model to evaluate means-tested programs insuring retirees' LTC expenses. I find exemptions providing marginal liquidity have larger insurance value than fully eliminating LTC expense risk per pound it costs the government.

Suggested Citation

  • Rory McGee, 2021. "Old Age Savings and House Price Shocks," University of Western Ontario, Departmental Research Report Series 20214, University of Western Ontario, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:uwo:uwowop:20214
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    File URL: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1840&context=economicsresrpt
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    Cited by:

    1. Gizem Koşar & Cormac O'Dea, 2022. "Expectations Data in Structural Microeconomic Models," NBER Working Papers 30094, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Fella, Giulio & Blomhoff Holm, Martin & Pugh, Thomas M., 2024. "Saving after Retirement and Preferences for Residual Wealth," CEPR Discussion Papers 19233, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Etgeton, Stefan & Fischer, Björn & Ye, Han, 2023. "The effect of increasing retirement age on households’ savings and consumption expenditure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    4. Mariacristina De Nardi & Eric French & John Bailey Jones & Rory McGee & Rachel Rodgers, 2020. "Medical Spending, Bequests, and Asset Dynamics around the Time of Death," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 4, pages 135-157.
    5. Bertrand Achou, 2020. "Housing in Medicaid: Should it Really Change?," Cahiers de recherche / Working Papers 3, Institut sur la retraite et l'épargne / Retirement and Savings Institute.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    savings; housing; long term care; ageing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • D15 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Intertemporal Household Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • G5 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance

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