IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/hal-00441880.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rational Impatience ?

Author

Listed:
  • Antoine Bommier

    (GREMAQ - Groupe de recherche en économie mathématique et quantitative - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

This paper introduces a life-cycle model where impatience, instead of being driven by an exogenous discount function, results from the combination of risk aversion and mortality risks. Opting for such a formulation provides novel views on the impact of longevity extension on welfare, saving behavior and capital accumulation. In particular, we show that longevity extension may have much larger impacts on capital accumulation and equilibrium rate of interest than is usually thought. Moreover, we show that the adherence to the additive life cycle model introduced by Yaari (1965) may lead to significantly overstimating the welfare gains due to mortality risk reduction.

Suggested Citation

  • Antoine Bommier, 2008. "Rational Impatience ?," Working Papers hal-00441880, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00441880
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00441880
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-00441880/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Feldstein, Martin & Liebman, Jeffrey B. (ed.), 2002. "The Distributional Aspects of Social Security and Social Security Reform," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226241067, October.
    2. Martin Feldstein & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2002. "The Distributional Aspects of Social Security and Social Security Reform," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number feld02-1, June.
    3. Gary S. Becker & Tomas J. Philipson & Rodrigo R. Soares, 2005. "The Quantity and Quality of Life and the Evolution of World Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 277-291, March.
    4. Francisco Gomes & Alexander Michaelides, 2003. "Portfolio Choice With Internal Habit Formation: A Life-Cycle Model With Uninsurable Labor Income Risk," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(4), pages 729-766, October.
    5. Antoine Bommier & Bertrand Villeneuve, 2012. "Risk Aversion and the Value of Risk to Life," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 79(1), pages 77-104, March.
    6. Valery Polkovnichenko, 2007. "Life-Cycle Portfolio Choice with Additive Habit Formation Preferences and Uninsurable Labor Income Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(1), pages 83-124, January.
    7. Kihlstrom, Richard E. & Mirman, Leonard J., 1974. "Risk aversion with many commodities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 361-388, July.
    8. Frederick van der Ploeg, 1993. "A Closed-form Solution for a Model of Precautionary Saving," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(2), pages 385-395.
    9. Larry G. Epstein & Stanley E. Zin, 2013. "Substitution, risk aversion and the temporal behavior of consumption and asset returns: A theoretical framework," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 12, pages 207-239, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. Rogers, Alan R, 1994. "Evolution of Time Preference by Natural Selection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 460-481, June.
    11. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 2007. "The Value of Life and the Rise in Health Spending," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 39-72.
    12. Eytan Sheshinski, 2005. "Longevity and Aggregate Savings," Discussion Paper Series dp403, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    13. Menahem E. Yaari, 1965. "Uncertain Lifetime, Life Insurance, and the Theory of the Consumer," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 32(2), pages 137-150.
    14. Antoine Bommier, 2006. "Uncertain Lifetime And Intertemporal Choice: Risk Aversion As A Rationale For Time Discounting," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1223-1246, November.
    15. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 2003. "The equity premium in retrospect," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 889-938, Elsevier.
    16. Boucekkine, Raouf & de la Croix, David & Licandro, Omar, 2002. "Vintage Human Capital, Demographic Trends, and Endogenous Growth," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 340-375, June.
    17. Saul Pleeter & John T. Warner, 2001. "The Personal Discount Rate: Evidence from Military Downsizing Programs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 33-53, March.
    18. Jeffrey Brown & Jeffrey B. Liebman & Joshua Pollet, 2002. "Appendix. Estimating Life Tables That Reflect Socioeconomic Differences In Mortality," NBER Chapters, in: The Distributional Aspects of Social Security and Social Security Reform, pages 447-458, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Scott F. Richard, 1975. "Multivariate Risk Aversion, Utility Independence and Separable Utility Functions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 12-21, September.
    20. Kevin M. Murphy & Robert H. Topel, 2006. "The Value of Health and Longevity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(5), pages 871-904, October.
    21. Sandra J. Peart, 2000. "Irrationality and intertemporal choice in early neoclassical thought," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 33(1), pages 175-189, February.
    22. George J. Stigler, 1950. "The Development of Utility Theory. II," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(5), pages 373-373.
    23. Antoine Bommier & Ronald D. Lee, 2003. "Overlapping generations models with realistic demography," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 16(1), pages 135-160, February.
    24. repec:bla:jfinan:v:44:y:1989:i:5:p:1411-20 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Arthur Robson & Larry Samuelson, 2008. "The Evolution of Decision and Experienced Utilities," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1678, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Feb 2010.
    26. Sandra J. Peart, 2000. "Irrationality and intertemporal choice in early neoclassical thought," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(1), pages 175-189, February.
    27. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1985. "Debt, Deficits, and Finite Horizons," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(2), pages 223-247, April.
    28. Antoine Bommier & Jean-Charles Rochet, 2006. "Risk Aversion and Planning Horizons," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(4), pages 708-734, June.
    29. Siegel, Jeremy J., 1992. "The real rate of interest from 1800-1990 : A study of the U.S. and the U.K," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 227-252, April.
    30. Lawrance, Emily C, 1991. "Poverty and the Rate of Time Preference: Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(1), pages 54-77, February.
    31. Paul A. Samuelson, 1937. "A Note on Measurement of Utility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 4(2), pages 155-161.
    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. Bommier, Antoine & Leroux, Marie-Louise & Lozachmeur, Jean-Marie, 2011. "On the public economics of annuities with differential mortality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 612-623.
    2. dʼAlbis, Hippolyte & Lau, Sau-Him Paul & Sánchez-Romero, Miguel, 2012. "Mortality transition and differential incentives for early retirement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 261-283.
    3. 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.
    4. Antoine Bommier, 2013. "Life-Cycle Preferences Revisited," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(6), pages 1290-1319, December.
    5. Bommier, Antoine, 2009. "Mortality Decline and Aggregate Wealth Accumulation," TSE Working Papers 09-050, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    6. repec:hal:pseose:hal-00659868 is not listed 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. 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.
    2. Antoine Bommier, 2005. "Life-Cycle Theory for Human Beings," Working Papers hal-00441890, HAL.
    3. Bommier, Antoine & Lanz, Bruno & Zuber, Stéphane, 2015. "Models-as-usual for unusual risks? On the value of catastrophic climate change," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1-22.
    4. Bommier, Antoine, 2009. "Mortality Decline and Aggregate Wealth Accumulation," TSE Working Papers 09-050, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    5. Antoine Bommier & Bertrand Villeneuve, 2012. "Risk Aversion and the Value of Risk to Life," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 79(1), pages 77-104, March.
    6. Maik T. Schneider & Ralph Winkler, 2021. "Growth and Welfare under Endogenous Lifetimes," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(4), pages 1339-1384, October.
    7. Bommier, Antoine & Leroux, Marie-Louise & Lozachmeur, Jean-Marie, 2011. "On the public economics of annuities with differential mortality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 612-623.
    8. Antoine Bommier & François Grand, 2014. "Too risk averse to purchase insurance?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 135-166, April.
    9. Bommier, Antoine & Schernberg, Hélène, 2021. "Would you prefer your retirement income to depend on your life expectancy?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    10. Antoine Bommier, 2006. "Mortality, Time Preference and Life-Cycle Models," Working Papers hal-00441888, HAL.
    11. Antoine Bommier, Francois Le Grand, "undated". "Too Risk Averse to Purchase Insurance? A Theoretical Glance at the Annuity Puzzle," Working Papers ETH-RC-12-002, ETH Zurich, Chair of Systems Design.
    12. Antoine Bommier & Daniel Harenberg & François Le Grand & Cormac O'Dea, 2020. "Recursive Preferences, the Value of Life, and Household Finance," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2231, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    13. Antoine Bommier, 2013. "Life-Cycle Preferences Revisited," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(6), pages 1290-1319, December.
    14. St-Amour, Pascal, 2024. "Valuing life over the life cycle," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    15. Svetlana Pashchenko & Ponpoje Porapakkarm, 2022. "Value of life and annuity demand," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 89(2), pages 371-396, June.
    16. Cordoba, Juan Carlos & Ripoll, Marla, 2012. "Life, Death and World Inequality," Staff General Research Papers Archive 34945, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    17. Antoine Bommier, 2010. "Portfolio Choice under Uncertain Lifetime," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(1), pages 57-73, February.
    18. Kuhn, Michael & Prettner, Klaus, 2016. "Growth and welfare effects of health care in knowledge-based economies," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 100-119.
    19. Augeraud-Véron, Emmanuelle & D'Albis, Hippolyte, 2009. "Continuous-Time Overlapping Generations Models," TSE Working Papers 09-047, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    20. Sánchez-Romero, Miguel & Prskawetz, Alexia, 2017. "Redistributive effects of the US pension system among individuals with different life expectancy," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 10(C), pages 51-74.

    More about this item

    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:hal:wpaper:hal-00441880. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.