Mortality Contingent Claims, Health Care, and Social Insurance

Author / Creator

Philipson, Tomas

Available as

Online

Summary

This paper analyzes the savings and health care impacts of mortality contingent claims, defined here as income measures, such as annuities and life-insurance, under which earned income is contingen...

This paper analyzes the savings and health care impacts of mortality contingent claims, defined here as income measures, such as annuities and life-insurance, under which earned income is contingent on the length of one's life. The postwar increase in mandatory annuity and life-insurance programs, as well as the rapid increase in life-expectancy, motivates a better understanding of the effects that mortality contingent claims have on resources devoted to life-extension. We analyze the incentives that such claims imply for life-extension when resources may affect mortality endogenously and argue that these incentives dramatically alter the standard conclusions obtained when mortality is treated exogenously.

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