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Comments on Formal Home Health Care, Informal Care, and Family Decision Making by David Byrne, Michelle S. Goeree, Bridget Hiedemann and Steven Stern. Denis Beninger European Conference on Long-Term Care ZEW Mannheim, October 21-22 2005. What’s the paper about?.
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Comments onFormal Home Health Care, Informal Care, and Family Decision Makingby David Byrne, Michelle S. Goeree, Bridget Hiedemann and Steven Stern Denis Beninger European Conference on Long-Term Care ZEW Mannheim, October 21-22 2005
What’s the paper about? • Elderly care (informal care, formal care) • Consumption + formal care • Time: informal care, leisure, work (c) Parent 1 Parent 2 Child 1 Sp 1 Child 2 Sp 2 Child 3 Sp 3 “takes care of” • Behavioral parameters? • Nash game (parents <-> children)
Positive aspects • Well written • Ambitious • Innovative theoretical model • Estimations are properly done (very complex…) • Simulation of effects due to policy change • Appropriate data
General comment: Identification of the household behavior • Information only on aggregate consumption at household level • Players are the couples and not the individuals • Time use is not very detailed • No information on household production (cleaning, cooking,…) An essential aspect is missing to understand relations within and between the couples
Remarks (1) • Nash Game (NG): • NG may lead to non-unique solutions The solution is unique in the paper. Have you set restrictions to guarantee uniqueness? • Solution of NG may be a conflictual situation • NG is non cooperative suboptimal outcomes but: caregiving ~ repeated game parents and children know each other well • Testable restrictions for NG • Have you estimated alternative models?
Remarks (2) • Specification of the utility function • Log-linear (matters of simplicity?) • No cross terms
Remarks (3) • Definition of the relations within the couples • Couples ‘Children + Sp’ are “unitary” • When separate preferences for parents, the allocation rule of the resources between the parents is very simple (each one receives the half) • Father and mother are both Nash-players more structure on the intra-household decision process in the parental couple would be useful
Other points • ‘Subjective’ variables (happiness, satisfaction): • Relation between parents and children “How close are you to your children / parents?” • Opinion on caregiving “Do you find normal to take care for your parents?” • Definition of the budget constraint • Linearization of the budget constraint at optimum • Work in progress