An aging population may affect economic performance by shifting aggregate risk attitudes. If individuals become increasingly risk-averse with age, older societies may allocate resources to safer, less productive activities, potentially slowing economic growth. Understanding how risk preferences evolve over the life course is therefore crucial. Previous research in economics and psychology has yielded mixed results, partly due to differing definitions and methods. Psychological studies often use decisions under ambiguity, emphasizing the role of learning when probabilities are unknown. Economic approaches typically assess risk preferences via self-reports or incentivized lottery tasks with known probabilities. This study investigates how learning influences risk preferences across age groups by combining psychological and economic methods. We will conduct an online lab experiment on the Prolific platform with two UK-based cohorts: 1{,}000 participants under age 50 and 1{,}000 over age 50. This study aims to clarify the role of learning, and underlying cognitive factors, in shaping age-related differences in risk preferences, potentially reconciling inconsistencies in prior research.

This paper develops and estimates a dynamic life-cycle model to quantify why households save and work. The model incorporates multiple sources of risk—health, marital status, wages, medical expenses, and mortality—as well as endogenous labor supply and human capital accumulation, retirement, and bequest motives at the death of the first and last household member. We estimate it using PSID and HRS data for the 1941–1945 cohort via the Method of Simulated Moments. Eliminating bequest motives reduces aggregate wealth by 23.8% and labor earnings by 1.2%; removing medical expenses lowers them by 13.1% and 0.7%. Wage risk is crucial for early-life saving: its removal reduces wealth by 10.4% but raises earnings by 2.3%. Eliminating marriage and divorce dynamics leads couples—numerous and wealthier—to save and work slightly less, and singles—fewer and poorer—to save and work considerably more. These effects largely offset in the aggregate. Removing all saving motives beyond retirement needs and lifespan uncertainty lowers wealth by 56.9% and earnings by 2.7%. These findings show that capturing multiple risks and behavioral margins jointly is essential to understanding household saving and labor supply.

This study aims at providing an analysis of workplace injuries in Italy from 2008 to 2021, focusing on both general trends and demographic-specific patterns. By employing INAIL data, key indicators such as injury rates and fatality rates have been examined in order to identify vulnerable groups of workers and risk factors. The analysis explores yearly injury occurrences by gender and age, providing a focus on specific sectors of economic activity as well. Further insights come from an analysis of the major causes of such occurrences. Findings show a general declining trend in fatal and non-fatal injuries, albeit differences have been highlighted for several specific groups of workers.

This study investigates the long-term impact of working conditions on health across the life course, with a focus on older European workers approaching retirement. Grounded in the health capital framework, we conceptualize health as a durable stock affected by both aging and cumulative exposure to occupational stressors. Using rich longitudinal data from the SHARE Job Episode Panel, we reconstruct individuals’ working lives and link them to physical and mental health outcomes. To quantify detrimental exposures, we integrate information from the 1965 Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and the O*NET database, which provides detailed measures of physical, psychosocial, and environmental stressors, harmonized with ISCO-08 codes. This allows us to track career-long exposure across jobs, weighted by job duration and working time arrangement

Preliminary findings suggest a significant detrimental effect of cumulative exposure to adverse working conditions on physical health, particularly in the later stages of the working life. For instance, prolonged exposure to high physical strain appears to have an impact on health comparable to aging by more than one year. Our findings underline the importance of job quality and employment stability in shaping health trajectories. The results have policy relevance in light of pension reforms and population aging, highlighting the need to reduce harmful exposures throughout the working life and support healthier transitions into retirement.