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The Cost of Cyclical Mortality

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  • Edwards Ryan D

    (Queens College, City University of New York)

Abstract

Sustained growth in both incomes and life spans are the hallmarks of modern development. Fluctuations around trend in the former, or business cycles, have been a traditional focus in macroeconomics, while similar cyclical patterns in mortality are also interesting and are now increasingly studied. In this paper, I assess the welfare implications of cyclical fluctuations in mortality using a new utility-theoretic model of preferences over uncertain length of life. Echoing the classic result of Lucas (1987) regarding business cycles, my findings suggest that short-term fluctuations in mortality are not very costly. While consumption fluctuations are relatively large, cyclical fluctuations in mortality are tiny compared to the much larger static uncertainty in length of life that derives from naturally rising mortality rates through age. Secular improvements in life expectancy and gains against static health inequalities appear to be much more important than cyclical mortality.

Suggested Citation

  • Edwards Ryan D, 2009. "The Cost of Cyclical Mortality," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-19, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejmac:v:9:y:2009:i:1:n:7
    DOI: 10.2202/1935-1690.1729
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Henry T Robertson & David B Allison, 2012. "A Novel Generalized Normal Distribution for Human Longevity and other Negatively Skewed Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(5), pages 1-7, May.
    2. Marko Korhonen & Suvi Kangasrääsiö & Rauli Svento, 2017. "Climate change and mortality: Evidence from 23 developed countries between 1960 and 2010," Proceedings of International Academic Conferences 5107635, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    3. St-Amour, Pascal, 2024. "Valuing life over the life cycle," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    4. Ryan Edwards, 2013. "The cost of uncertain life span," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1485-1522, October.
    5. Shripad Tuljapurkar & Ryan Edwards, 2011. "Variance in death and its implications for modeling and forecasting mortality," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 24(21), pages 497-526.

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