Arbeitspapier

Externalities in a life-cycle model with endogenous survival

We study socially vs. individually optimal lifecycle allocations of consumption and health care, when individual health expenditure curbs own mortality but also has a spillover effect on other persons' survival. Such spillovers arise, for instance, when health care activity at aggregate level triggers improvements in treatment through learningbydoing (positive externality) or a deterioration in the quality of care through congestion (negative externality). We combine an agestructured optimal control model at population level with a conventional lifecycle model to derive the social and private value of life. We then examine how individual incentives deviate from social incentives and how they can be aligned by way of a transfer scheme. The agepatterns of socially and individually optimal health expenditure and the transfer rate are derived. Numerical analysis illustrates the workings of our model.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: Vienna Institute of Demography Working Papers ; No. 1/2010

Classification
Wirtschaft
Subject
Demand for health
externality
life-cycle-model
optimal control
tax-subsidy
value of life
Lebenszyklus
Gesundheitskosten
Gesundheitsversorgung
Einkommenshypothese
Wert des Lebens
Externer Effekt
Theorie

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Kuhn, Michael
Wrzaczek, Stefan
Prskawetz, Alexia
Feichtinger, Gustav
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), Vienna Institute of Demography (VID)
(where)
Vienna
(when)
2010

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET

Data provider

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Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Kuhn, Michael
  • Wrzaczek, Stefan
  • Prskawetz, Alexia
  • Feichtinger, Gustav
  • Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), Vienna Institute of Demography (VID)

Time of origin

  • 2010

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