| 1. |
- Bolin, Kristian, et al.
(författare)
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CAPABILITY, HEALTH, AND THE LABOUR MARKET – THE RETIREMENT DECISION
- 2021
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The time of retirement is analyzed in a theoretical framework taking capability and health into account. Capability if formalized as a stock characteristic which determines the attained amounts of a composite good which yields utility. The model is purposely simple and comprises one choice variable – the time of retirement. The core assumption is that inherited capability influences the rate of evolvement of health, and vice versa, and that the rates of change of the stocks differ between the pre- and post-retirement periods. The optimal retirement timing decision is characterized and the effects of the model’s exogenous variables on this decision are examined. We derive refutable comparative statistics results with respect to the model’s exogenous variables, and, for example, show – for a specified version of the model – how the timing of retirement depends on the inherited amounts of capability and health.
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| 2. |
- Bolin, Kristian, et al.
(författare)
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Child Human Capital – The Importance of Parenting Style
- 2019
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Investments in the human capital of children during their upbringing determine the opportunities available in adulthood. Recognizing that the parent-child interaction plays a significant role in the accumulation of child human capital, we develop a differential game in which the parent may invest directly in child human capital and the child consumes goods that influence the accumulation of their human capital. We compare the accumulation of child human capital between three different parenting styles, formalized as three different solution concepts to the differential game: (i) the parent and the child maximizes a joint utility function (cooperative solution), (ii) the parent announces a strategy dependent on time only (open-loop Stackelberg), (iii) the parent’s strategy depends on the accrued amount of human capital (feedback Stackelberg). We show that under rather general assumptions the open-loop Stackelberg equilibrium is time consistent, and coincides with a feedback Stackelberg equilibrium. Using cooperative parenting as a benchmark, we find that less or more child human capital may be accumulated over the family’s planning horizon under “open-loop Stackelberg” parenting, depending on parental and child preferences for human capital and wealth at the terminal time of the family’s planning horizon, and on the extent to which child consumption influences the accumulation of their human capital. In particular, if the child’s preference for terminal time wealth is strong enough, more human capital will be accumulated under “open-loop Stackelberg” parenting.
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| 3. |
- Bolin, Kristian, et al.
(författare)
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Individual technologies for health - the implications of distinguishing between the ability to produce health investments and the capacity to benefit from those investments
- 2014
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- People differ in their ability to produce health investments and in their capacity to benefit from such efforts. In this paper, we assume (1) that the individual’s health-investment production function exhibits diminishing returns to scale and (2) that the individual’s capacity to benefit from the investments is diminishing in the stock of health. Previous research has only shown the importance of the first assumption for the health-capital adjustment process. The simultaneous effects go well beyond those results, however. Thus, this paper provides an extended demand-for-health framework that distinguishes between individuals both by their capacities to benefit and by their abilities to produce, when transforming health efforts into health increments. The potential usefulness of this framework for health-policy purposes is demonstrated by solving a numerically specified version of the model, and computing individual welfare effects of medical-care goods changes.
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| 4. |
- Bolin, Kristian, et al.
(författare)
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Non-Life-Threatening Ailments and Rational Patience
- 2019
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The time at which a rational patient might choose an elective medical procedure for a non-life-threatening ailment is contemplated. The resulting model is purposely uncomplicated but general, and accounts for several basic factors that might affect such a decision. One such factor is that a patient cannot know with certainty the degree to which the medical procedure will be successful. Even so, patients have information about the expected outcome of the procedure and its risk, and about how the expected outcome and risk are affected by medical technological progress and surgeon experience. The effect of changes in exogenous variables on the timing of the medical procedure and on patient welfare are investigated. It is shown that risk averse and prudent patients behave in an unambiguous manner in response to changes in all of the exogenous variables.
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| 5. |
- Bolin, Kristian, et al.
(författare)
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Non-monotonic health behaviours - implications for individual health-related behaviour in a demand-for-health framework
- 2014
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A number of behaviours influence health in a non-monotonic way. Physical activity and alcohol consumption, for instance, may be beneficial to one’s health in moderate but detrimental in large quantities. We develop a demand-for-health framework that incorporates the feature of a physiologically optimal level. An individual may still choose a physiologically non-optimal level, because of the trade-off in his or her preferences for health versus other utility-affecting commodities. However, any deviation from the physiologically optimal level will be punished with respect to health. A set of steady-state comparative statics is derived regarding the effects on the demand for health and health-related behaviour, indicating that individuals will react differently to exogenous changes, depending on the amount of the health-related behaviour they demand. We also show (a) that a steady-state equilibrium is a saddle-point and (b) that the physiologically optimal level may be a steady-state equilibrium for the individual. Our analysis suggests that general public-health policies may, to some extent, be counterproductive due to the responses induced in parts of the population.
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| 6. |
- Bolin, Kristian, et al.
(författare)
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Optimal Investment in Health when Lifetime is Stochastic, or, Rational Agents do not Often Follow Health Agency Recommendations
- 2018
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A health-capital model is contemplated which accounts for the consumption of many goods, a stock of health and investment in it, as well as an agent’s random lifetime and accumulation of wealth. It is shown that if an agent maximizes the expected discounted value of lifetime utility, or if an agent maximizes the expected value of their lifetime, then an agent does not follow the health-investment policy that minimizes the conditional probability of dying at each point in time, in general. What is more, simple and intuitive sufficient, and necessary and sufficient, conditions are identified whereby such agents investment more or less in their health than said policy.
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| 7. |
- Bolin, Kristian, et al.
(författare)
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Parental Investments in Child Health – the importance of paternalistic altruism, child egoism and short-sightedness
- 2015
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Parent and child interaction is an important determinant of child health. Typically, parents are more forward-looking than their children and, hence, care about investments in human capital to a larger extent. In this paper we consider the parent-child health-related interaction, when the parent is altruistic and forward-looking and the child is egoistic and short-sighted. The child receives a monetary transfer, from the parent, which is used to finance either health-unrelated consumption or unhealthy behaviour. We apply a simple differential-game approach, assuming linear-state preferences, and study equilibrium time-paths of (a) the parental transfer, (b) the unhealthy behaviour, and (c) the stock of child health capital. We distinguish between the case in which the child is perfectly myopic and the case in which he or she is forward looking.
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| 8. |
- Bolin, Kristian, et al.
(författare)
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Specification of the Health Production Function and its Behavioral Implications
- 2022
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The health production function of the canonical health-capital model is generalized to allow the state of health to affect the total and marginal products of health investment. If the total and marginal products of health investment are nonincreasing functions of the state of health, then the solution of the generalized model is locally qualitatively identical to that of the canonical model. Moreover, in contrast to the canonical model, the generalized model is able to rationalize the cycling of the state of health and health investment observed in some individuals. The necessary conditions on the health production function for cyclical behavior are identified as well.
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