"A considerable amount of uncertainty surrounds life expectancy at birth, the average length of life. The standard deviation in adult life spans is about 15 years in the U.S., and theory and evidence suggest it is costly. In this paper, I calibrate a standard intertemporal model to show that one...

We back out an estimate of a personal discount rate of between 3 and 4 percent for a person with a life expectancy of 74 years who dies at age 30 (or 40) and has a value of statistical life of $6.3 million. Central to these calculations is the series generated by Murphy and Topel of value of...

We find that a discount rate of 3.8% allows us to derive the schedule of "value of life years" in Murphy and Topel [2006] from their schedule of "value of remaining years of life", this latter presumably being based on a "value of statistical life" of $6.3 million. We draw on the Makeham...