Life expectancy, schooling and lifetime labor supply: the Ben-Porath mechanism revisited

Pan Liu

Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Hansen and Lonstrup [Journal of Population Economics, 2012] construct a three-period, life-cycle model to study the famed Ben-Porath mechanism and attempt to reconcile it with the empirical findings in Hazan [Econometrica, 2009]: increased life expectancy has a positive effect on schooling but a negative effect on expected lifetime labor supply. This paper shows that within the framework of Hansen and Lonstrup (2012), as life expectancy increases, expected lifetime labor supply may not decline even when labor supplies at the two end stages of life do. I fully characterize the conditions under which the model in Hansen and Lonstrup (2012) can produce the empirical findings in Hazan (2009).

Keywords: Life expectancy; schooling; lifetime labor supply; Ben-Porath model. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E2 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-03-11
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Published in Economics Bulletin, March 2015, vol. 35 no. 1, pp. 133-139

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:isu:genres:39135

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