Cognition, optimism, and the formation of age-dependent survival beliefs

This article investigates the roles of psychological biases for deviations between subjective survival beliefs (SSBs) and objective survival probabilities. We model these deviations through age-dependent inverse S-shaped probability weighting functions. Our estimates suggest that implied measures for cognitive weakness increase and relative optimism decrease with age. Direct measures of cognitive weakness and optimism share these trends. Our regression analyses confirm that these factors play strong quantitative roles in the formation of SSBs. Our main finding is that cognitive weakness instead of optimism becomes with age an increasingly important contributor to the well-documented overestimation of survival chances in old age.

Metadaten
Author:	Nils Grevenbrock ORCiD GND, Max Groneck ORCiD GND, Alexander Ludwig ORCiD GND, Alexander Zimper ORCiD GND
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-638723
DOI:	https://doi.org/10.1111/iere.12497
ISSN:	1468-2354
Parent Title (English):	International economic review
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell
Place of publication:	Malden, Mass. [u.a.]
Document Type:	Article
Language:	English
Date of Publication (online):	2020/12/02
Date of first Publication:	2020/12/02
Publishing Institution:	Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:	2022/03/15
Volume:	62
Issue:	2
Page Number:	32
First Page:	887
Last Page:	918
Note:	Nils Grevenbrock and Alex Ludwig gratefully acknowledge financial support by the Research Center SAFE, funded by the State of Hessen initiative for research LOEWE.
HeBIS-PPN:	494704683
Institutes:	Wirtschaftswissenschaften
	Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / House of Finance (HoF)
Dewey Decimal Classification:	3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft
Sammlungen:	Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):	Creative Commons - Namensnennung 4.0

Open Access