Prof. Pascal St-Amour

Pascal St-Amour is Professor of Economics at the University of Lausanne. His papers have been published in the leading academic journals in economics.

Professor St-Amour specializes in households' health, financial, and labor market choices and in studying optimal human capital dynamics throughout the life cycle. Concerning health capital dynamics, he focuses on optimal financial decisions and health spending in the face of the growing exposure to death and sickness risks associated with aging and on optimal depletion paths for wealth and health toward the end of life. Concerning the economic valuation of health capital, he analyses the value of human life, which is a key variable in societal debates on public safety and health spending issues and one that is also used by courts in wrongful death litigation to determine tangible, such as income loss, and intangible, such as hedonic, damages. His research provides theoretically and empirically integrated measures of alternative life values, such as statistical life, human capital, and gunpoint values. Finally, his current work involves the study of the interactions between optimal choices of financial instruments (reverse mortgages, annuities, and long-term care insurance) to provide sufficient financial liquidity and insurance against health-related shocks during retirement.

• Portfolio Management and Asset Classes
  • Personal Finance and Household Choices
  • Portfolio Management