Publications in Scientific Journals:
J. Schünemann, H. Strulik, T. Trimborn:
"Going from bad to worse: Adaptation to poor health, health spending, longevity, and the value of life";
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization,
140
(2017),
130
- 146.
English abstract:
Unhealthy people adapt to their poor state of health and are usually happier than expected by healthy people. In this paper, we investigate how adapting to a deteriorating state of health affects health spending, life expectancy, and the value of life. We set up 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 lifetime utility (by about 2 percent), its impact on health behavior and longevity depends crucially on whether individuals are aware of their adaptive behavior, i.e. whether they adapt in a naive or sophisticated way. We also compute
the QALY change implied by health shocks and discuss whether and how Adaptation influences results and the desirability of positive health innovations.
Keywords:
Health, adaption, aging, longevity, health care demand, value of life
"Official" electronic version of the publication (accessed through its Digital Object Identifier - DOI)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2017.02.018
Created from the Publication Database of the Vienna University of Technology.