IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/esm/wpaper/esmt-13-03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Mortality beliefs distorted: Magnifying the risk of dying young

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Jarnebrant

    (ESMT European School of Management and Technology)

  • Kristian Ove R. Myrseth

    (ESMT European School of Management and Technology)

Abstract

We explore mortality beliefs by eliciting individual-level belief distributions for participants’ remaining lifespan. Across two independent samples, from Germany and the USA, we find that individuals—while accurately forecasting their life expectancy—substantially overestimate the likelihood of dying young (younger than 50 years) and overestimate the likelihood of reaching very old age (older than 100 years). In other words, the modes of the belief distributions are relatively accurate, but the tails of the belief distributions are significantly ‘fatter’ than the corresponding tails of distributions obtained from demographic data. Our results are robust to variations in belief elicitation techniques, and to assumptions underlying normative longevity forecasts. The results have implications for a range of questions of economic behavior—including intertemporal choice, consumption smoothing, saving, and risk management.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Jarnebrant & Kristian Ove R. Myrseth, 2013. "Mortality beliefs distorted: Magnifying the risk of dying young," ESMT Research Working Papers ESMT-13-03, ESMT European School of Management and Technology.
    • Handle: RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-13-03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://static.esmt.org/publications/workingpapers/ESMT-13-03.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2013
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maria Perozek, 2008. "Using subjective expectations to forecast longevity: do survey respondents know something we don’t know?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(1), pages 95-113, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Rawley Z. Heimer & Kristian Ove R. Myrseth & Raphael S. Schoenle, 2019. "YOLO: Mortality Beliefs and Household Finance Puzzles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(6), pages 2957-2996, December.

    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. Mario Schnalzenberger & Nicole Schneeweis & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer & Martina Zweimüller, 2014. "Job Quality and Employment of Older People in Europe," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 28(2), pages 141-162, June.
    2. Wu, Shang & Stevens, Ralph & Thorp, Susan, 2015. "Cohort and target age effects on subjective survival probabilities: Implications for models of the retirement phase," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 39-56.
    3. Joan Costa-Font & Cristina Vilaplana-Prieto, 2022. "Biased survival expectations and behaviours: Does domain specific information matter?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 65(3), pages 285-317, December.
    4. Padmaja Ayyagari & Daifeng He, 2017. "The Role of Medical Expenditure Risk in Portfolio Allocation Decisions," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(11), pages 1447-1458, November.
    5. Bruno Arpino & Pierluigi Conzo & Francesco Salustri, 2022. "I am a survivor, keep on surviving: early-life exposure to conflict and subjective survival probabilities in adult life," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(2), pages 471-517, April.
    6. Rodrigo R. Soares & Bruno L. S. Falcão, 2008. "The Demographic Transition and the Sexual Division of Labor," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(6), pages 1058-1104, December.
    7. de Bresser, Jochem, 2016. "Test-Retest Reliability of Subjective Survival Expectations," Other publications TiSEM dfd6074d-31ae-4ecb-be25-6, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Vesile Kutlu-Koc & Adriaan Kalwij, 2017. "Individual Survival Expectations and Actual Mortality: Evidence from Dutch Survey and Administrative Data," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 33(4), pages 509-532, October.
    9. Tim Riffe & Pil H. Chung & Jeroen Spijker & John MacInnes, 2016. "Time-to-death patterns in markers of age and dependency," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 14(1), pages 229-254.
    10. Dickie, Mark & Adamowicz, Wiktor & Gerking, Shelby & Veronesi, Marcella, 2022. "Risk Perception, Learning, and Willingness to Pay to Reduce Heart Disease Risk," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 363-382, October.
    11. Adeline Delavande & Jinkook Lee & Joanne K. Yoong, 2012. "Harmonization of Cross-National Studies of Aging to the Health and Retirement Study Expectations," Working Papers WR-861/3, RAND Corporation.
    12. Joanne W. Hsu, 2016. "Aging and Strategic Learning: The Impact of Spousal Incentives on Financial Literacy," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(4), pages 1036-1067.
    13. Celidoni, Martina & Costa-Font, Joan & Salmasi, Luca, 2022. "Too Healthy to Fall Sick? Longevity Expectations and Protective Health Behaviours during the First Wave of COVID-19," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 733-745.
    14. Grevenbrock, Nils & Groneck, Max & Ludwig, Alexander & Zimper, Alexander, 2015. "Biased Survival Beliefs, Psychological and Cognitive Explanations, and the Demand for Life Insurances," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113203, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Bucher-Koenen, Tabea & Kluth, Sebastian, 2013. "Subjective Life Expectancy and Private Pensions," MEA discussion paper series 201214, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    16. de Bresser, Jochem, 2019. "Measuring Subjective Survival Expectations : Do Response Scales Matter?," Other publications TiSEM 53bc2ec3-4126-4dfb-81f3-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    17. Teresa Bago d'Uva & Esen Erdogan Ciftci & Owen O'Donnell & Eddy van Doorslaer, 2015. "Who can predict their Own Demise? Accuracy of Longevity Expectations by Education and Cognition," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 15-052/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    18. Spaenjers, Christophe & Spira, Sven Michael, 2015. "Subjective life horizon and portfolio choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 94-106.
    19. Adeline Delavande & Susann Rohwedder, 2008. "Differential Mortality in Europe and the U.S. Estimates Based on Subjective Probabilities of Survival," Working Papers WR-613, RAND Corporation.
    20. Péter Hudomiet & Robert J. Willis, 2013. "Estimating Second Order Probability Beliefs from Subjective Survival Data," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 10(2), pages 152-170, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    mortality; beliefs; risk perception; judgment;
    All these keywords.

    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:esm:wpaper:esmt-13-03. 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: ESMT Faculty Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/emstbde.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.