IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/hastef/0085.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Quality of Life and the WTP for an Increased Life Expectancy at an Advanced Age

Author

Listed:
  • Johannesson, Magnus

    (Department of Economics)

  • Johansson, Per-Olov

    (Department of Economics)

Abstract

In this study we report an attempt to measure the value adult Swedes impute to an increased survival probability at high ages. A rating scale between the worst possible quality of life (=1) and the best possible quality of life (=10) is used to indicate the quality of life a person expects to achieve at an advanced age. We find a highly significant correlation between this quality measure and the insurance premium a person is willing to pay in exchange for a programme increasing the expected lengt of life by one year, conditional on having survived until the age of 75 years. The (maximum) insurance premium the average person is willing to pay for such a progrtamme is less than $1,500. The willingness to pay seems to increase with a person's age, but at a low rate. The implied average marginal rate of time preference is in the range 0.5-1.5 percent.

Suggested Citation

  • Johannesson, Magnus & Johansson, Per-Olov, 1995. "Quality of Life and the WTP for an Increased Life Expectancy at an Advanced Age," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 85, Stockholm School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:hastef:0085
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Moore, Michael J & Viscusi, W Kip, 1988. "The Quantity-Adjusted Value of Life," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(3), pages 369-388, July.
    2. Johansson,Per-Olov, 1995. "Evaluating Health Risks," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521478786, September.
    3. Viscusi, W. Kip & Moore, Michael J., 1989. "Rates of time preference and valuations of the duration of life," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 297-317, April.
    4. Rosen, Sherwin, 1988. "The Value of Changes in Life Expectancy," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(3), pages 285-304, September.
    5. Cummings, Ronald G & Harrison, Glenn W & Rutstrom, E Elisabet, 1995. "Homegrown Values and Hypothetical Surveys: Is the Dichotomous Choice Approach Incentive-Compatible?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 260-266, March.
    6. Moore, Michael J & Viscusi, W Kip, 1990. "Models for Estimating Discount Rates for Long-term Health Risks Using Labor Market Data," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 381-401, December.
    7. Cropper, Maureen L & Aydede, Sema K & Portney, Paul R, 1994. "Preferences for Life Saving Programs: How the Public Discounts Time and Age," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 243-265, May.
    8. Suen, Wing, 1990. "Statistical Models of Consumer Behavior with Heterogeneous Values and Constraints," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(1), pages 79-98, January.
    9. W. Michael Hanemann, 1984. "Welfare Evaluations in Contingent Valuation Experiments with Discrete Responses," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 66(3), pages 332-341.
    10. Johannesson, Magnus & Johansson, Per-Olov, 1996. "To Be, or Not to Be, That Is the Question: An Empirical Study of the WTP for an Increased Life Expectancy at an Advanced Age," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 163-174, September.
    11. Peter A. Diamond & Jerry A. Hausman, 1994. "Contingent Valuation: Is Some Number Better than No Number?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 45-64, Fall.
    12. Ehrlich, Isaac & Chuma, Hiroyuki, 1990. "A Model of the Demand for Longevity and the Value of Life Extension," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 761-782, August.
    13. Johannesson, Magnus & Johansson, Per-Olov, 1997. "Quality of life and the WTP for an increased life expectancy at an advanced age," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 219-228, August.
    14. Johansson,Per-Olov, 1995. "Evaluating Health Risks," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521472852, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James Hammitt & Jin-Tan Liu, 2004. "Effects of Disease Type and Latency on the Value of Mortality Risk," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 73-95, January.
    2. Johannesson, Magnus & Johansson, Per-Olov & Soderqvist, Tore, 1998. "Time spent on waiting lists for medical care: an insurance approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 627-644, October.
    3. Richard T. Carson, 2011. "Contingent Valuation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2489.
    4. Revesz, Richard & Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Environmental Law and Policy," Working Paper Series rwp04-023, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Clarke, Philip M., 1998. "Cost-benefit analysis and mammographic screening: a travel cost approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 767-787, December.
    6. Karen Blumenschein & GlennC. Blomquist & Magnus Johannesson & Nancy Horn & Patricia Freeman, 2008. "Eliciting Willingness to Pay Without Bias: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(525), pages 114-137, January.
    7. Vasquez-Lavín, Felipe & Ponce Oliva, Roberto D. & Hernández, José Ignacio & Gelcich, Stefan & Carrasco, Moisés & Quiroga, Miguel, 2019. "Exploring dual discount rates for ecosystem services: Evidence from a marine protected area network," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 63-80.
    8. Viscusi, W Kip & Aldy, Joseph E, 2003. "The Value of a Statistical Life: A Critical Review of Market Estimates throughout the World," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 5-76, August.
    9. A. Freeman, 2006. "Valuing Environmental Health Effects – An Economic Perspective," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 34(3), pages 347-363, July.
    10. Johansson, Per-Olov, 1996. "On the value of changes in life expectancy," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 105-113, February.
    11. Rodríguez, Elsa Mirta M. & Lacaze, María Victoria & Lupín, Beatriz, 2007. "Willingness to pay for organic food in Argentina: evidence from a consumer survey," Nülan. Deposited Documents 1300, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, Centro de Documentación.
    12. Smith, V. Kerry & Mansfield, Carol, 1998. "Buying Time: Real and Hypothetical Offers," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 209-224, November.
    13. Georges Dionne & Paul Lanoie, 2002. "How to Make a Public Choice About the Value of a Statistical Life: The Case of Road Safety," Cahiers de recherche 02-04, HEC Montréal, Institut d'économie appliquée.
    14. Johannesson, Magnus & Johansson, Per-Olov, 1996. "The economics of ageing: on the attitude of Swedish people to the distribution of health care resources between the young and the old," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 153-161, September.
    15. Hugh Gravelle & Dave Smith, 2001. "Discounting for health effects in cost–benefit and cost‐effectiveness analysis," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(7), pages 587-599, October.
    16. K. R. Shanmugam, 2011. "Discount Rate for Health Benefits and the Value of Life in India," Working Papers id:4524, eSocialSciences.
    17. Peter Nijkamp & Chiara Maria Travisi & Gabriella Vindigni, 2002. "Pesticide Risk Valuation in Empirical Economics," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 02-112/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    18. Olivier Chanel & Pascale Scapecchi & Jean-Christophe Vergnaud, 2006. "How to correctly assess mortality benefits in public policies," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(5), pages 759-776.
    19. Agamoni Majumder & S. Madheswaran, 2022. "Discounting Long-Term Job-Related Health Risks in the Context of Indian Workers," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 65(4), pages 1099-1120, December.
    20. Joseph E. Aldy & W. Kip Viscusi, 2007. "Age Differences in the Value of Statistical Life: Revealed Preference Evidence," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 1(2), pages 241-260, Summer.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Expected length of life; time preference; insurance; willingness to pay;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:hastef:0085. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Helena Lundin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erhhsse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.