Going from bad to worse: Adaptation to poor health, health spending, longevity, and the value of life

Johannes Schünemann, Holger Strulik and Timo Trimborn

No 268, University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics from University of Goettingen, Department of Economics

Abstract: Aging humans adapt to their worsening state of health and old people are usually happier than estimated by young individuals. In this paper we investigate how adaptation to a deteriorating state of health affects health spending, life expectancy, and the value of life. We set up a a life cycle model in which individuals are subject to physiological aging, calibrate it with data from gerontology, and compare behavior and outcomes of adapting and non-adapting individuals. While adaptation generally increases the value of life (by about 2 to 5 percent), its impact on health behavior and longevity depends crucially on whether individuals are aware of their adaptive behavior.

Keywords: health; adaption; aging; longevity; health care demand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 I12 J17 J26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Going from bad to worse: Adaptation to poor health health spending, longevity, and the value of life (2017)
Working Paper: Going from Bad to Worse: Adaptation to Poor Health, Health Spending, Longevity, and the Value of Life (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:cegedp:268

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