Household portfolio choices, health status and health care systems: a cross-country analysis based on SHARE

摘要

Health risk is increasingly viewed as an important form of background risk that affects household portfoliouddecisions. However, its role might be mediated by the presence of a protective full-coverage nationaludhealth service that could reduce households’ probability of incurring current and future out-of-pocketudmedical expenditures. We use SHARE data to study the influence of current health status and futureudhealth risk on the decision to hold risky assets, across ten European countries with different health systems,udeach offering a different degree of protection against out-of-pocket medical expenditures. We findudrobust empirical evidence that perceived health status matters more than objective health status and,udconsistent with the theory of background risk, health risk affects portfolio choices only in countries withudless protective health care systems. Furthermore, portfolio decisions consistent with background riskudmodels are observed only with respect to middle-aged and highly-educated investors.