Time Preferences, Illness, and Death

Lisa Norrgren ()
Additional contact information
Lisa Norrgren: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: P.O. Box 640, SE 40530 GÖTEBORG, Sweden, https://economics.gu.se/

No 812, Working Papers in Economics from University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper investigates the predictive power of time preferences on the risk of early mortality and illness in adulthood. Using a unique Swedish cohort of 12,956 individuals born in 1953, interviewed in 1966, and followed with register data up to 2018, the paper finds that patient adolescents are 17–21% less likely to die before age 65. Patient adolescents have fewer hospitalizations and diagnoses in their adult life and are less likely to be diagnosed with conditions associated with lifestyle risk factors. Patient adolescents are also more in favor of sports activities and school rules on smoking. The investigated channels for the relationship between time preferences and future health include lifestyle, mother’s time preferences, and the adolescent’s education attainment and future income. Controlling for education and income reduces the coefficient for time preferences on early mortality by one-fourth.

Keywords: Time preferences; illnes; death (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D90 D91 I10 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 101 pages
Date: 2021-10, Revised 2021-10-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hea, nep-ltv and nep-res
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/69776 Full text (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0812

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers in Economics from University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, Box 640, SE 405 30 GÖTEBORG, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jessica Oscarsson ().