This paper addresses estimation of an outcome characterized by mass at zero, significant skewness, and heteroscedasticity. Unlike other approaches suggested recently that require retransformations or arbitrary assumptions about error distributions, our estimation strategy uses sequences of...

Using data from the Health and Retirement Survey, we estimate preference and expectations parameters of a structural model of the employment and medical care decisions of older men in order to evaluate the role of health insurance. The budget constraint incorporates detailed cost-sharing...

There is much debate about whether the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill -- the greatest expansion of Medicare benefits since its creation in 1965 -- will improve the health of elderly Americans, and how much it will cost. We model how insurance affects medical care utilization, and subsequently,...

Most health insurance in the USA is provided by employers until eligibility for public health insurance (Medicare) begins at age 65. Retiring before 65 exposes workers who lack retiree health insurance coverage to the risk of catastrophic medical expenditure. We solve and estimate a dynamic...

We estimate the impact of employer-provided retiree health insurance (EPRHI) on the labor force transitions of men aged 51 to 62. Data from the Health and Retirement Survey provide detailed and accurate measures of retiree health insurance. Availability of EPRHI increases the rate of exit from...