Saving future lives: a comparison of three discounting models

John Alexander Cairns, Marjon van der Pol

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

49 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper compares three models of intertemporal choice concerning saving future lives: the constant discounting model, the proportional discounting model and the hyperbolic discounting model. The three models were investigated using data collected from the general public. Since these data have a multilevel structure, ordinary least-squares (OLS) estimates were supplemented by multilevel analysis. There is evidence in favour of the proportional (and to a lesser extent) the hyperbolic model over the constant discounting model. There is clear evidence for this data set that multilevel analysis is more appropriate than OLS.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)341-350
Number of pages10
JournalHealth Economics
Volume6
Issue number4
Publication statusPublished - 1997

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