Anticipation of Deteriorating Health and Information Avoidance

Johannes Schünemann, Holger Strulik and Timo Trimborn

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University

Abstract: We integrate anticipatory utility and endogenous beliefs about future negative health shocks into a life-cycle model of physiological aging. Individuals care about their future utility derived from their health status and form endogenous beliefs about the probability of a negative health shock. We calibrate the model with data from gerontology and use the model to predict medical testing decisions of individuals. We find that anticipation in combination with endogenous beliefs provides a quantitatively strong motive to avoid medical testing for Huntington's disease which explains the low testing rates found empirically. We also study the case of breast and ovarian cancer and provide an explanation for why testing rates depend on the individual's income when treatment is available.

Keywords: Health; Anticipation; Longevity; Health behavior; Beliefs; Information avoidance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D11 D91 I12 J17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40
Date: 2020-09-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-dge, nep-hea and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://repec.econ.au.dk/repec/afn/wp/20/wp20_14.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Anticipation of deteriorating health and information avoidance (2023)
Working Paper: Anticipation of deteriorating health and information avoidance (2019)
Working Paper: Anticipation of Deteriorating Health and Information Avoidance (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aah:aarhec:2020-14

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