Lifestyle Choices and Wealth-Health Dynamics in Germany (Life-Cycle Model Data)

Lukas Mahler and Minchul Yum

2024/07/12

This dataset supports the Econometrica article by Mahler and Yum (2024), which examines the mechanisms behind observed wealth disparities across health statuses in Germany—a country with universal healthcare. The authors develop a heterogeneous-agent life-cycle model in which health and wealth co-evolve based on individual lifestyle efforts subject to adjustment costs. The dataset includes model simulation outputs, parameter estimates, and replication materials for decomposing wealth-health gaps into savings, earnings, and behavioral effort channels. The materials allow researchers to replicate and extend the structural estimation that attributes approximately one-quarter of the wealth gap to differential lifestyle behaviors.