International Differences in Longevity and Health and their Economic Consequences

Pierre-Carl Michaud, Dana Goldman, Darius Lakdawalla, Adam Gailey, Yuhui Zheng

NBER Working Paper No. 15235
Issued in August 2009
NBER Program(s):   HE

In 1975, 50 year-old Americans could expect to live slightly longer than their European counterparts. By 2005, American life expectancy at that age has diverged substantially compared to Europe. We find that this growing longevity gap is primarily the symptom of real declines in the health of near-elderly Americans, relative to their European peers. In particular, we use a microsimulation approach to project what US longevity would look like, if US health trends approximated those in Europe. We find that differences in health can explain most of the growing gap in remaining life expectancy. In addition, we quantify the public finance consequences of this deterioration in health. The model predicts that gradually moving American cohorts to the health status enjoyed by Europeans could save up to $1.1 trillion in discounted total health expenditures from 2004 to 2050.

(1441 K)

The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this.  You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email.

This paper is available as PDF (1441 K) or via email.

Acknowledgments

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX