Human Health and Aging over an Infinite Time Horizon

Dragone, Davide ; Strulik, Holger (2017) Human Health and Aging over an Infinite Time Horizon. Bologna: Dipartimento di Scienze economiche DSE, p. 28. DOI 10.6092/unibo/amsacta/5616. In: Quaderni - Working Paper DSE (1104). ISSN 2282-6483.
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Abstract

Although death occurs with certainty, the time of death is uncertain. In this paper we build on this conceptualization and show that, although life ends at some point in time, human life can be meaningfully conceptualized as a strive for immortality that is never reached. We consider an intertemporal problem where health investments and consumption choices are made, taking into account that mortality depends on environmental factors, which are not controlled by the agent, and the agent's health condition, which is endogenous to lifestyle and health behavior. Formally, the infinite horizon approach has the advantage that adjustment dynamics to the steady state (i.e. human aging) can be discussed analytically. We explore the determinants of health deficits in this framework and show how individuals choose consumption and health expenditure over their lifetime in order to slow down (biological) aging. We compute analytically the impulse response functions for unexpected parameter changes. Specifically, we investigate how higher prices for medical goods and advancing medical technology affect individual behavior and health deficit accumulation.

Abstract
Tipologia del documento
Monografia (Working paper)
Autori
AutoreAffiliazioneORCID
Dragone, DavideUniversità di Bologna0000-0002-2725-4743
Strulik, HolgerUniversity of Gottingen0000-0002-5615-2412
Parole chiave
Endogenous mortality, Life-expectancy, Deficit accumulation, Medical progress
Settori scientifico-disciplinari
ISSN
2282-6483
DOI
Data di deposito
05 Lug 2017 15:15
Ultima modifica
15 Feb 2018 10:17
URI

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