【主讲】赵波 助教授 (北京大学国家发展研究院)
【主题】Too Poor to Retire? House Prices and Retirement
【时间】2012年10月29日 (周一) 15：30-17：00
【地点】上海财经大学经济学院楼710室
【语言】英文
【摘要】This paper finds that the retirement probability for old home owners(but not for renters) decreases more in the area where home price declines more. It argues that the wealth effect of home prices on retirement can account for this fact. The paper builds up a calibrated incomplete-market life-cycle partial-equilibrium model with risky housing consumption and endogenous retirement. The joint response of retirement and non-durable consumption implied by the structural models consistent with the consumption and retirement elasticity of home prices found in the empirical studies using Health and Retirement Survey data, i.e., home owners’ retirement probability drops by .9 percentage points and their non-durable consumption drops by 2.5 percent when home price declines by 10 percent. Counterfactual experiments find that after one-time unexpected 28 percent home price decline, the home owners aged 50-65 will reduce their non-durable consumption by 11.6 percent and delay their retirement by 5.8 months. The counterfactual experiment quantifies three channels (resizing effect, bequest motive, and collateral borrowing) through which home prices can affect retirement. The structural model also quantifies the endogenous retirement as self-insurance for the old homeowners against home price risk. It finds that after the one-time unexpected 28 percent home price decline, the drops in non-durable consumption for the home owners aged 50-65 with endogenous retirement is 14 percent smaller than the drops in the consumption of the home owners with exogenous retirement.
