2016 Fiscal Year Research-status Report

Population Aging, Social Insurance and Public Policy: a Cross-Country Study（国際共同研究強化）

Research Project

Project/Area Number	16KK0052
Research Institution	National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies
Principal Investigator	Hsu Minchung 政策研究大学院大学, 政策研究科, 准教授 (20467062)
Project Period (FY)	2016 – 2017
Keywords	Aging / Long-term care
Outline of Annual Research Achievements	We have collected household level panel data (PSID/HRS/MEPS data sets) from the US that allows us to understand the demand of long-term care and to analyze the consumption/saving/medical care behaviors in old ages. We have also developed a life-cycle model with single and married households to analyze the behaviors of consumption, saving and long-term expenditures. We have also developed an approach to solve for the model. We are working on computer programing to provide quantitative analysis.
Current Status of Research Progress	Current Status of Research Progress 2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned. Reason I have started to work on the project at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as planned. In particular, I work intensively with the joint researcher, Prof. Gary Hansen, who has recently studied the fiscal problem in Japan and health insurance reform in the US. We have discussed the main issues for the project to focus on and coordinated joint researchers to review related literature and to collect/analyze relevant data. We also have had an overview of the data analysis, and then we design a research strategy and develop a theoretical framework consistent with the empirical findings for the 1st part of this project. I have also discussed the modeling strategy and numerical solutions together with Gary Hansen.
Strategy for Future Research Activity	We will keep working on computer programing to provide quantitative analysis. Once a benchmark is set up, we will perform a series of policy experiments. In addition, we plan to study the Japanese LTC insurance system to provide a comparison on alternative institutions. After that, we will extend the focus on population aging in a group of developing economies. We plan to present our work at the SED 2017 conference in Edinburg.