IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jhecon/v71y2020ics0167629619302279.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Living up to expectations: Experimental tests of subjective life expectancy as reference point in time trade-off and standard gamble

Author

Listed:
  • Lipman, Stefan A.
  • Brouwer, Werner B.F.
  • Attema, Arthur E.

Abstract

Earlier work suggested that subjective life expectancy (SLE) functions as reference point in time trade-off (TTO), but has not tested or modelled this explicitly. In this paper we construct a model based on prospect theory to investigate these predictions more thoroughly. We report the first experimental test of reference-dependence with respect to SLE for TTO and extend this approach to standard gamble (SG). In two experiments, subjects’ SLEs were used to construct different versions of 10-year TTO and SG tasks, with the gauge duration either described as occurring above or below life expectation. Our analyses suggest that both TTO and SG weights were affected by SLE as predicted by prospect theory with SLE as reference point. Subjects gave up fewer years in TTO and were less risk-tolerant in SG below SLE, implying that weights derived from these health state valuation methods for durations below SLE will be biased upwards.

Suggested Citation

  • Lipman, Stefan A. & Brouwer, Werner B.F. & Attema, Arthur E., 2020. "Living up to expectations: Experimental tests of subjective life expectancy as reference point in time trade-off and standard gamble," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:71:y:2020:i:c:s0167629619302279
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2020.102318
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629619302279
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2020.102318?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Han Bleichrodt & Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2009. "Additive Utility in Prospect Theory," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(5), pages 863-873, May.
    2. Sylvie M. C. van Osch & Peter P. Wakker & Wilbert B. van den Hout & Anne M. Stiggelbout, 2004. "Correcting Biases in Standard Gamble and Time Tradeoff Utilities," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 24(5), pages 511-517, October.
    3. Donkers, Bas & Melenberg, Bertrand & Van Soest, Arthur, 2001. "Estimating Risk Attitudes Using Lotteries: A Large Sample Approach," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 165-195, March.
    4. George Loewenstein & Ted O'Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 2003. "Projection Bias in Predicting Future Utility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1209-1248.
    5. F. E. van Nooten & X. Koolman & W. B. F. Brouwer, 2009. "The influence of subjective life expectancy on health state valuations using a 10 year TTO," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 549-558, May.
    6. Arthur E. Attema & Han Bleichrodt & Peter P. Wakker, 2012. "A Direct Method for Measuring Discounting and QALYs More Easily and Reliably," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 32(4), pages 583-593, July.
    7. Camerer, Colin F & Hogarth, Robin M, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 7-42, December.
    8. Jonathan R. Treadwell & Leslie A. Lenert, 1999. "Health Values and Prospect Theory," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 19(3), pages 344-352, August.
    9. Attema, Arthur E. & Brouwer, Werner B.F. & l’Haridon, Olivier, 2013. "Prospect theory in the health domain: A quantitative assessment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1057-1065.
    10. Arthur E. Attema & Werner B.F. Brouwer & Olivier l'Haridon, 2013. "A quantification of prospect theory in the health domain," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 201321, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    11. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Olivier L’Haridon, 2008. "A tractable method to measure utility and loss aversion under prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 245-266, June.
    12. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    13. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    14. Brouwer, Werner B.F. & van Exel, N. Job A., 2005. "Expectations regarding length and health related quality of life: Some empirical findings," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(5), pages 1083-1094, September.
    15. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1991. "Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1039-1061.
    16. Charles Noussair & Ping Wu, 2006. "Risk tolerance in the present and the future: an experimental study," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(6), pages 401-412.
    17. Arthur E. Attema & Han Bleichrodt & Olivier L'Haridon, 2018. "Ambiguity preferences for health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(11), pages 1699-1716, November.
    18. Brazier, John & Roberts, Jennifer & Deverill, Mark, 2002. "The estimation of a preference-based measure of health from the SF-36," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 271-292, March.
    19. Han Bleichrodt & Jose Luis Pinto & Peter P. Wakker, 2001. "Making Descriptive Use of Prospect Theory to Improve the Prescriptive Use of Expected Utility," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(11), pages 1498-1514, November.
    20. Lia C.G. Verhoef & Anton F.J. De Haan & Willem A.J. Van Daal, 1994. "Risk Attitude in Gambles with Years of Life," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 14(2), pages 194-200, April.
    21. Attema, Arthur E. & Brouwer, Werner B.F. & l’Haridon, Olivier & Pinto, Jose Luis, 2016. "An elicitation of utility for quality of life under prospect theory," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 121-134.
    22. Simon Gächter & Eric J. Johnson & Andreas Herrmann, 2022. "Individual-level loss aversion in riskless and risky choices," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 599-624, April.
    23. Abellan-Perpiñan, Jose Maria & Bleichrodt, Han & Pinto-Prades, Jose Luis, 2009. "The predictive validity of prospect theory versus expected utility in health utility measurement," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1039-1047, December.
    24. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    25. Chris Starmer, 2000. "Developments in Non-expected Utility Theory: The Hunt for a Descriptive Theory of Choice under Risk," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 332-382, June.
    26. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Enrico Diecidue & Ayse Öncüler, 2011. "Risk Preferences at Different Time Periods: An Experimental Investigation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(5), pages 975-987, May.
    27. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Olivier L’haridon & Dennie van Dolder, 2016. "Measuring Loss Aversion under Ambiguity: A Method to Make Prospect Theory Completely Observable," Post-Print halshs-01242616, HAL.
    28. Brouwer, Werner B. F. & van Exel, N. Job A. & Stolk, Elly A., 2005. "Acceptability of less than perfect health states," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 237-246, January.
    29. Emelie Heintz & Marieke Krol & Lars-Åke Levin, 2013. "The Impact of Patients’ Subjective Life Expectancy on Time Tradeoff Valuations," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 33(2), pages 261-270, February.
    30. Manel Baucells & Franz H. Heukamp, 2012. "Probability and Time Trade-Off," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(4), pages 831-842, April.
    31. Emmanuel Kemel & Corina Paraschiv, 2018. "Deciding about human lives: an experimental measure of risk attitudes under prospect theory," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 51(1), pages 163-192, June.
    32. Marjon Pol & Larissa Roux, 2005. "Time preference bias in time trade-off," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 6(2), pages 107-111, June.
    33. Adrian Bruhin & Helga Fehr-Duda & Thomas Epper, 2010. "Risk and Rationality: Uncovering Heterogeneity in Probability Distortion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(4), pages 1375-1412, July.
    34. de Dreu, Carsten K. W. & Carnevale, Peter J. D. & Emans, Ben J. M. & van de Vliert, Evert, 1994. "Effects of Gain-Loss Frames in Negotiation: Loss Aversion, Mismatching, and Frame Adoption," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 90-107, October.
    35. Han Bleichrodt & John Miyamoto, 2003. "A Characterization of Quality-Adjusted Life-Years Under Cumulative Prospect Theory," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(1), pages 181-193, February.
    36. Slovic, Paul & Finucane, Melissa L. & Peters, Ellen & MacGregor, Donald G., 2007. "The affect heuristic," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 177(3), pages 1333-1352, March.
    37. Nancy J. Devlin & Koonal K. Shah & Yan Feng & Brendan Mulhern & Ben van Hout, 2018. "Valuing health‐related quality of life: An EQ‐5D‐5L value set for England," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 7-22, January.
    38. Stefan A. Lipman & Werner B.F. Brouwer & Arthur E. Attema, 2019. "QALYs without bias? Nonparametric correction of time trade‐off and standard gamble weights based on prospect theory," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 843-854, July.
    39. José‐María Abellán‐Perpiñán & José‐Luis Pinto‐Prades & Ildefonso Méndez‐Martínez & Xabier Badía‐Llach, 2006. "Towards a better QALY model," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(7), pages 665-676, July.
    40. J. Leighton Read & Robert J. Quinn & Donald M. Berwick & Harvey V. Fineberg & Milton C. Weinstein, 1984. "Preferences for Health Outcomes," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 4(3), pages 315-329, August.
    41. Sylvie M. C. van Osch & Wilbert B. van den Hout & Anne M. Stiggelbout, 2006. "Exploring the Reference Point in Prospect Theory: Gambles for Length of Life," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 26(4), pages 338-346, July.
    42. Floortje van Nooten & Werner Brouwer, 2004. "The influence of subjective expectations about length and quality of life on time trade‐off answers," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(8), pages 819-823, August.
    43. Han Bleichrodt, 2002. "A new explanation for the difference between time trade‐off utilities and standard gamble utilities," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(5), pages 447-456, July.
    44. Birnbaum, Michael H., 2006. "Evidence against prospect theories in gambles with positive, negative, and mixed consequences," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 737-761, December.
    45. Miyamoto, John M. & Eraker, Stephen A., 1989. "Parametric models of the utility of survival duration: Tests of axioms in a generic utility framework," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 166-202, October.
    46. Sylvie M. C. van Osch & Anne M. Stiggelbout, 2008. "The construction of standard gamble utilities," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(1), pages 31-40, January.
    47. Bleichrodt, Han & Johannesson, Magnus, 1997. "Standard gamble, time trade-off and rating scale: Experimental results on the ranking properties of QALYs," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 155-175, April.
    48. John Payne, 2005. "It is Whether You Win or Lose: The Importance of the Overall Probabilities of Winning or Losing in Risky Choice," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 5-19, January.
    49. Mohammed Abdellaoui, 2000. "Parameter-Free Elicitation of Utility and Probability Weighting Functions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(11), pages 1497-1512, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Thesis Thursday: Stefan Lipman
      by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog on 2021-01-21 07:00:04

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stefan A. Lipman & Vivian T. Reckers-Droog, 2024. "Comparing heuristic valuation processes between health state valuation from child and adult perspectives," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 25(8), pages 1345-1360, November.
    2. Stefan A. Lipman & Liying Zhang & Koonal K. Shah & Arthur E. Attema, 2023. "Time and lexicographic preferences in the valuation of EQ-5D-Y with time trade-off methodology," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 24(2), pages 293-305, March.
    3. Jorien Veldwijk & Stella Maria Marceta & Joffre Dan Swait & Stefan Adriaan Lipman & Esther Wilhelmina Bekker-Grob, 2023. "Taking the Shortcut: Simplifying Heuristics in Discrete Choice Experiments," The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, Springer;International Academy of Health Preference Research, vol. 16(4), pages 301-315, July.
    4. S. A. Lipman & V. T. Reckers-Droog & M. Karimi & M. Jakubczyk & A. E. Attema, 2021. "Self vs. other, child vs. adult. An experimental comparison of valuation perspectives for valuation of EQ-5D-Y-3L health states," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 22(9), pages 1507-1518, December.
    5. Sebastian Neumann‐Böhme & Arthur E. Attema & Werner B. F. Brouwer & Job N. J. A. van Exel, 2021. "Life satisfaction: The role of domain‐specific reference points," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(11), pages 2766-2779, November.
    6. Stefan A. Lipman & Arthur E. Attema & Matthijs M. Versteegh, 2022. "Correcting for discounting and loss aversion in composite time trade‐off," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(8), pages 1633-1648, August.

    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. Attema, Arthur E. & Brouwer, Werner B.F. & l’Haridon, Olivier, 2013. "Prospect theory in the health domain: A quantitative assessment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1057-1065.
    2. Stefan A. Lipman & Werner B.F. Brouwer & Arthur E. Attema, 2019. "QALYs without bias? Nonparametric correction of time trade‐off and standard gamble weights based on prospect theory," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 843-854, July.
    3. Attema, Arthur E. & Brouwer, Werner B.F. & l’Haridon, Olivier & Pinto, Jose Luis, 2016. "An elicitation of utility for quality of life under prospect theory," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 121-134.
    4. Kpegli, Yao Thibaut & Corgnet, Brice & Zylbersztejn, Adam, 2023. "All at once! A comprehensive and tractable semi-parametric method to elicit prospect theory components," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    5. Attema, Arthur E. & Brouwer, Werner B.F. & l’Haridon, Olivier & Pinto, Jose Luis, 2015. "Estimating sign-dependent societal preferences for quality of life," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 229-243.
    6. Stefan A. Lipman & Arthur E. Attema, 2019. "Rabin's paradox for health outcomes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(8), pages 1064-1071, August.
    7. Aurélien Baillon & Han Bleichrodt & Vitalie Spinu, 2020. "Searching for the Reference Point," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 93-112, January.
    8. Oliver, Adam, 2018. "Your money and your life: risk attitudes over gains and losses," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 88583, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Arthur E. Attema & Marieke Krol & Job Exel & Werner B. F. Brouwer, 2018. "New findings from the time trade-off for income approach to elicit willingness to pay for a quality adjusted life year," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(2), pages 277-291, March.
    10. Adam Oliver, 2018. "Your money and your life: Risk attitudes over gains and losses," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 29-50, August.
    11. Arthur E. Attema & Werner B.F. Brouwer, 2014. "Deriving Time Discounting Correction Factors For Tto Tariffs," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4), pages 410-425, April.
    12. Stefan A. Lipman & Werner B. F. Brouwer & Arthur E. Attema, 2019. "A QALY loss is a QALY loss is a QALY loss: a note on independence of loss aversion from health states," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 20(3), pages 419-426, April.
    13. Attema, Arthur E. & Brouwer, Werner B.F., 2012. "A test of independence of discounting from quality of life," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 22-34.
    14. Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2012. "A genuine foundation for prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 97-113, October.
    15. Yao Thibaut Kpegli, 2023. "Smoothing Spline Method for Measuring Prospect Theory Components," Working Papers 2303, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    16. Arthur E. Attema & Han Bleichrodt & Olivier l’Haridon & Stefan A. Lipman, 2020. "A comparison of individual and collective decision making for standard gamble and time trade-off," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 21(3), pages 465-473, April.
    17. Booij, Adam S. & van de Kuilen, Gijs, 2009. "A parameter-free analysis of the utility of money for the general population under prospect theory," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 651-666, August.
    18. Stefan A. Lipman & Arthur E. Attema & Matthijs M. Versteegh, 2022. "Correcting for discounting and loss aversion in composite time trade‐off," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(8), pages 1633-1648, August.
    19. Mulligan, Karen & Baid, Drishti & Doctor, Jason N. & Phelps, Charles E. & Lakdawalla, Darius N., 2024. "Risk preferences over health: Empirical estimates and implications for medical decision-making," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    20. Simon Gächter & Eric J. Johnson & Andreas Herrmann, 2022. "Individual-level loss aversion in riskless and risky choices," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 599-624, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Time trade-off; Standard gamble; QALY model; Prospect theory; Subjective life expectancy; Reference point;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics

    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:eee:jhecon:v:71:y:2020:i:c:s0167629619302279. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505560 .

    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.