Portfolio Choice in Retirement: Health Risk and the Demand for Annuities, Housing, and Risky Assets

This paper develops a consumption and portfolio-choice model of a retiree who allocates wealth in four asset classes: a riskless bond, a risky asset, a real annuity, and housing. The retiree chooses health expenditure endogenously in response to stochastic depreciation of health. The model is calibrated to explain the joint dynamics of health expenditure, health, and asset allocation for retirees in the Health and Retirement Study, aged 65 and older. The calibrated model is used to assess the welfare gain from private annuitization. The welfare gain ranges from 13 percent of wealth at age 65 for those in worst health, to 18 percent for those in best health.