The Effects of Health Status on Household Portfolio Allocations

Changwoo Lee; Chun, Sungju

doi:10.23842/jif.2016.27.4.002

There have been many empirical studies in the United States to find a linkage between health status and portfolio choice of the individual households. In particular, it is important to account for the existence of unobserved characteristics such as risk attitudes, motivation, and information in the analysis because both health status and portfolio choice can be influenced by the unobserved heterogeneity. In this empirical study, we analyze how much the household portfolio decision is correlated with health status and whether this correlation is causal in Korea, where they have an obligatory national health care system different from the one in the United States. Most korean household panel data do not survey the subjective health status or, if ever, they do not survey the risky asset holdings of the households. We use the 2009-2013 waves of the National Survey of Tax and Benefit panel containing detailed information about the financial asset holdings of the households. As a proxy for the household's underlying health status, we construct a ratio of inpatient hospital costs over total medical costs of a household that can reflect its “poor” health status. Employing the random-effect probit and tobit models, we find that there is a statistically significant correlation between health status and portfolio choice. However, once we control for unobserved heterogeneity by applying the correlated random-effects models, we find that health status no longer serves as a significant independent variable for the individual household to decide whether to hold a risky asset or how much financial assets to be allocated in a risky asset.

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* 2021년 이후 발행 논문의 참고문헌은 현재 구축 중입니다.

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