| This dissertation consists of three distinct yet related essays. In the first essay, entitled Life Insurance and the Value of Spouses, we use data on life insurance holdings of married couples by age, education, and employment status to infer how much non-market value they produce across different demographic stages. We construct a overlapping generation model of multiperson households where individuals face mortality risk, have access to life insurance markets, and consume and save. Then we use the model to find out the profile of home production which generates employment rates, life insurance holdings, and key statistics as in the US data. We find that the profile of women's home production has a very different picture from the profile implied by hours worked at home.;In the second essay, entitled Life Insurance and Household Consumption , we use data of life insurance holdings by age, sex, and marital status to infer how individuals value consumption in different demographic stages. Essentially, we use revealed preference to estimate equivalence scales and altruism simultaneously. Our findings indicate that individuals are very caring for their dependents, that there are large economies of scale in consumption, that children are costly, that wives with children produce a lot of goods in the home and that while females seem to have some form of habits created by marriage, men do not. These findings contrast sharply with the implications of standard notions of equivalence scales.;The third essay is entitled Social Security, Life Insurance and Annuities for Families. In this paper we ask whether some aspects of social security, namely its role as providing insurance against uncertain life spans is welfare enhancing. We pose and calibrate models with agents differing in age, sex and marital histories where we compare the implications of different social security policies under a variety of market structures. We find no support for social security policies for the standard reasons. We do find some support for maintaining the Survivor Benefits program within social security. |
