Prof. Michael D. Hurd, PhD
NAR-Colloquium: 10. Dezember 2007, 18 Uhr, DKFZ Kommunikationszentrum
RAND, Santa Monica | USA
Subjective mortality expectations and their influence on economic decision-making
An input into intertemporal decision-making by individuals is the likelihood or probability of important future events such as health change or survival. Yet, until fairly recently we had little useful quantifiable information about the subjective probabilities held by individuals of these and other events. This talk will review the measurement of subjective probabilities, particularly survival and health, in household surveys. It will present data on their properties such as their predictive power for actual survival and for change. It will give some results on how subjective probabilities can be used to overcome empirical difficulties caused by individual heterogeneity. Applications will included the bereavement hypothesis (the death of a spouse leads to an early death of the other spouse), and the puzzling age-gradient in self-rated health.
Zur Person
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Economics, 1967-1971, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley
M.S., Statistics, 1967-1971, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley
B.S., Electrical Engineering, 1959-1964, University of Utah, Salt Lake Cit
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Current Position: Senior Economist and Director, RAND Center for the Study of Aging
Current Position: Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research
1971-1978: Assistant Professor, Stanford University
1978-1987: Associate Professor, SUNY at Stony Brook
1981-1982: Visiting Associate Professor of Economics, Stanford University
1984-1985: Visiting Professor, School of Business Administration, University of California, Berkeley
1985: Visiting Associate Professor of Economics, Stanford University
1987- 2000: Professor, SUNY at Stony Brook
1991-1992: Chairman, Department of Economics, SUNY at Stony Brook
1997: Visiting Senior Scientist, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND HONORS
National Science Foundation Graduate Traineeship
Ford Foundation Career Fellowship
Department of Labor Manpower Dissertation Grant
Mellon Fellowship, 1974
NBER Faculty Research Fellowship, 1977-1978
Hoover Institution National Fellow, 1981-1982
Member, National Academy of Social Insurance, 1989-
Chair, Economics of Aging Formal Interest Group, Gerontological Society, 1995-1996
Fulvio Guerrini Lecture, University of Turin, 1998
