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Using subjective expectations to forecast longevity: do survey respondents know something we don't know?

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Author Info
Maria G. Perozek
Abstract

Future old-age mortality is notoriously difficult to predict because it requires not only an understanding of the process of senescence, which is influenced by genetic, environmental and behavioral factors, but also a prediction of how these factors will evolve going forward. In this paper, I argue that individuals are uniquely qualified to predict their own mortality based on their own genetic background, as well as environmental and behavioral risk factors that are often known only to the individual. Using expectations data from the 1992 HRS, I construct subjective cohort life tables that are shown to predict the unusual direction of revisions to U.S. life expectancy by gender between 1992 and 2004; that is, the SSA revised up male life expectancy in 2004 and at the same revised down female life expectancy, narrowing the gender gap in longevity by 25 percent over this period. Further, the subjective expectations of women suggest that female life expectancies produced by the Social Security Actuary might still be on the high side, while the subjective life expectancies for men appear to be roughly in line with the 2004 life tables.

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Paper provided by Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.) in its series Finance and Economics Discussion Series with number 2005-68.

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Date of creation: 2005
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2005-68

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  3. James W. Vaupel & Annette Baudisch & Martin Dölling & Deborah A. Roach & Jutta Gampe, 2004. "The case for negative senescence," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2004-002, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  4. Jeff Dominitz, 1998. "Earnings Expectations, Revisions, And Realizations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(3), pages 374-388, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. J. Dominitz & C. F. Manski, . "Using expectations data to study subjective income expectations," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1050-94, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Li Gan & Michael Hurd & Daniel McFadden, 2003. "Individual Subjective Survival Curves," NBER Working Papers 9480, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Ronald Lee, 2003. "The Demographic Transition: Three Centuries of Fundamental Change," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 167-190, Fall. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. repec:att:wimass:19895 is not listed on IDEAS
  9. B. Douglas Bernheim, 1988. "How Do the Elderly Form Expectations? An Analysis of Responses to New Information," NBER Working Papers 2719, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Michael D. Hurd & Kathleen McGarry, 2002. "The Predictive Validity of Subjective Probabilities of Survival," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(482), pages 966-985, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. James Vaupel & Hans Lundstrom, 1994. "Longer Life Expectancy? Evidence from Sweden of Reductions in Mortality Rates at Advanced Ages," NBER Chapters, in: Studies in the Economics of Aging, pages 79-102 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  12. 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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