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Longevity Expectations and Death: Can People Predict Their Own Demise?

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Author Info
Smith, V. Kerry
Taylor, Donald H., Jr.
Sloan, Frank A.

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Abstract

Using four waves of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) this paper tests whether longevity expectations predict actual mortality at the individual level. The results suggest longevity expectations do predict mortality reasonably well. Serious health shocks and new activity limitations do reduce longevity expectations. Given one is prepared to accept that other unobserved causal factors have the same means for those who die and those who survive in each wave it is possible to test whether longevity expectations can serve as a sufficient statistic. The test findings imply that they do not appear to reflect all that individuals know about their personal odds of living to seventy-five.

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Paper provided by Duke University, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number 00-15.

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Date of creation: 2000
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Handle: RePEc:duk:dukeec:00-15

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Production
J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped
D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Heckman, James J, 1979. "Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(1), pages 153-61, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Michael D. Hurd & Kathleen McGarry, 1997. "The Predictive Validity of Subjective Probabilities of Survival," NBER Working Papers 6193, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Michael Hurd & Daniel McFadden & Angela Merrill, 1999. "Predictors of Mortality Among the Elderly," NBER Working Papers 7440, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Viscusi, W Kip & O'Connor, Charles J, 1984. "Adaptive Responses to Chemical Labeling: Are Workers Bayesian Decision Makers?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(5), pages 942-56, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Van de Ven, Wynand P. M. M. & Van Praag, Bernard M. S., 1981. "The demand for deductibles in private health insurance : A probit model with sample selection," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 229-252, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. V. Kerry Smith & Donald H. Taylor & Frank A. Sloan & F. Reed Johnson & William H. Desvousges, 2001. "Do Smokers Respond To Health Shocks?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(4), pages 675-687, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1985. "Expectations, Life Expectancy, and Economic Behavior," NBER Working Papers 0835, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. White, Halbert, 1982. "Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Misspecified Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 1-25, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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