Intertemporal choice with health-dependent discounting

Abstract In this paper I discuss a standard model of life cycle consumption behavior when the discount rate depends on the state of health and health deteriorates with increasing age. I show that this feature allows the introduction of time-consistent discounting at a non-constant rate and to model, in a convenient way, the notion that individuals discount future payoffs at higher rates when the risk of death increases. I show that the model generates an empirically plausible age-consumption pattern even when perfect annuity markets exist.

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