Jens Sørlie Kværner

Review of Finance 26(2) p. 407-442 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfab022

We examine the personal investment decisions of 60,000 households following a cancer diagnosis. To create a control group that minimizes the likelihood that the results are confounded by lifestyle factors, we rely on households diagnosed with the same diagnosis but a few years later. Our estimates show that a cancer diagnosis reduces households’ willingness to take risks with their financial wealth. We use the vast heterogeneity among cancers regarding its impact on life expectancy and income to analyze through which channels cancer impact risk-taking. We find that cancers that have a greater impact on life expectancy and income cause a larger reduction in risk-taking. These two channels account for about 40 to 90 percent of the estimated effects of cancer on personal investment decisions. We do not find any association between having dealt with cancer many years ago and current portfolio choices.

BMJ Open Doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-021608

AbstrACt Objective The dynamic and interactive mobile application Vett was designed to help change behaviour and is based on cognitive, motivational and visual techniques. Our aim is to investigate the acceptability, usability and utility of Vett as a personalised application for goal achievement. setting The trial took place at the rheumatology clinic at Diakonhjemmet Hospital, Oslo, Norway from January to June 2015. Participants Twelve participants with osteoarthritis were recruited from a 3.5-hour multidisciplinary group-based educational programme (osteoarthritis school). Interventions With the help of a physician, each participant followed a customised 12-week mixed-mode goal achievement plan with digital support based on preset goals, self-monitoring and individual feedback. Acceptability was measured as the perceived degree of goal achievement using a validated habit questionnaire scaled from 0 to 100. Utility and usability were assessed via 10 weekly questions and adherence by fulfilment of predetermined tasks. results Mean goal achievement was 73 (95% CI 68 to 78), an increase of 22 (95% Cl 17 to 26, p<0.01), which equals 48% improvement (95% CI 32% to 59%). Mean user satisfaction was 81 (95% CI 76 to 85), and technical usability was 80 (95% CI 75 to 84), which both increased during the study period. Conclusion The high levels of acceptability, usability and utility support the feasibility of the pers

Paris Financial Management Conference

FIBE XXXIII 2016. Fagkonferanse i bedriftsøkonomiske emner

We analyze how health shocks impact portfolio choice. By using detailed cancer data merged with tax data, we identify the casual impact of cancer on financial portfolio rebalancing. Our high-quality comprehensive micro data allow us to follow the entire Norwegian population for ten years. We find that it is 25 % more likely that a household with cancer exit the stock market than a non-cancer household. Among the different consequences of cancer, we find that the reduction in life expectancy has the largest impact on portfolio choice after the diagnosis. If life expectancy decreases with 70 % or more, the risky share is reduced with about 23 %. In contrast, if the change in life expectancy is less than 30%, cancer has no impact on portfolio choice. Taken together, these findings reveal a non-linear relation between a change in life expectancy and risktaking. Overall, the effects are largest for individuals with above median wealth, or an initial risky share above median. When reconciling our empirical results with normative models for health and portfolio choice, we find that many models exaggerate the effects from a health shock.