We explore mortality beliefs by eliciting individual-level belief distributions for participants' remaining lifespan. Across two independent samples, from Germany and the USA, we find that individuals — while accurately forecasting their life expectancy — substantially overestimate the...

We study the effect of subjective mortality beliefs on life-cycle behavior. With new survey evidence, we document that survival is underestimated by the young and overestimated by the old. We calibrate a canonical life-cycle model to elicited beliefs. Relative to calibrations using actuarial...