Using data for six OECD countries, this paper studies the effect of macroeconomic conditions on the mortality index kt in the well-known Lee-Carter model. Significant correlations are found with real GDP growth rates in Australia, Canada, and the United States, and with unemployment rate changes in Japan, for the period 1950–2005. In recent years, the relationship between the state of the economy and mortality is found to change from procyclical to countercyclical in all six countries. Based on these findings, variants of the Lee-Carter model are proposed that capture a substantial fraction of the variation in the mortality index.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany in its series SFB 649 Discussion Papers with number
SFB649DP2009-008.
References listed on IDEAS 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.: