Individual Subjective Survival Curves

   (371 K)

Testing life-cycle models and other economic models of saving and consumption at micro level requires knowledge of individuals' subjective believes of their mortality risk. Previous studies have shown that individual responses on subjective survival probabilities are generally consistent with life tables. However, survey responses suffer serious problems caused by focal responses of zero and one. This paper suggests using a Bayesian update model that accounts for the problems encountered in focal responses. We also propose models that help us to identify how much each individual deviates from life table in her subjective belief. The resulting individual subjective survival curves have considerable variations and are readily applicable in testing economic models that require individual subjective life expectancies.

Published:

• Wise, David (ed.) Analyses in Economics of Aging. The University of Chicago Press, 2005. ,
• Individual Subjective Survival Curves, Li Gan, Michael D. Hurd, Daniel L. McFadden, in Analyses in the Economics of Aging (2005), University of Chicago Press
  

This paper is available as PDF (371 K) or via email.

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX