TY  - JOUR
AU  - Feinstein,Jonathan S.
TI  - Elderly Health, Housing, and Mobility
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 4572
PY  - 1993
Y2  - December 1993
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4572
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4572.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jonathan Feinstein
Yale School of Management
Box 20-8200
New Haven, CT 06520-8200
Tel: 203/432-5978
Fax: 203/432-6974
E-Mail: jonathan.feinstein@yale.edu
M1  - published as Jonathan Feinstein. "Elderly Health, Housing, and Mobility," in David A. Wise, editor, "Advances in the Economics of Aging" University of Chicago Press (1996)

AB  - I construct dynamic economic models which focus on an elderly person's decision whether to move in response to changes in his or her health status.  The models specify three health states (good, moderately disabled, and poor), three matching housing states (conventional, transitional, and institutional), and explicitly include several different kinds of mobility costs, including the direct utility costs, the indirect health effects of mobility, and, in the more complex model, financial transaction costs. The first model I present examines elderly mobility in a simple environment in which utility depends only on the match between housing and health, and a bequest.  The second model extends the first to incorporate housing prices, household wealth, and elderly consumption decisions. Extensive simulations of the two models show that both predict considerable mobility, even when mobility costs are large.  The results also highlight the importance of transitional housing, and provide evidence on the relationship between housing, mobility, household wealth, and consumption.
ER  -