American Economic Review Vol. 103 No. 5 2013

Limited Life Expectancy, Human Capital and Health Investments

Emily Oster¹; Ira Shoulson²; E. Ray Dorsey³

¹ University of Chicago Booth School of Business, 5807 S. Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637 and NBER. · ² Georgetown University, 2115 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Suite 603, Washington, DC 20007. · ³ Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University, 600 N. Wolfe St., Baltimore, MD 21287.

Abstract

Human capital theory predicts that life expectancy will impact human capital attainment. We estimate this relationship using variation in life expectancy driven by Huntington disease, an inherited neurological disorder. We compare investments for individuals who have ex-ante identical risks of HD but differ in disease realization. Individuals with the HD mutation complete less education and job training. The elasticity of demand for college attendance with respect to life expectancy is around 1.0. We relate this to cross-country and over-time differences in education. We use smoking and cancer screening data to test the corollary that health capital responds to life expectancy.

DOI

10.1257/aer.103.5.1977

Volume

103

Issue

5

Pages

1977-2002

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite

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