Estimating the Trend in Health Time Preference Rate (A Case Study of High-Income Countries)

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Economic Development and Planning, Faculty of Management and Economics, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

2 Economic Research Institute, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

10.22059/ier.2024.343547.1007462

Abstract

People’s behavior is related to their time horizon. As people’s time preference rate increases, planning becomes increasingly myopic. This study employs the MIMIC model to evaluate the shifts in the health-related time preference rate in several developed countries (France, Sweden, Netherlands, Switzerland, United States, Australia, Germany, Canada, Norway, and United Kingdom) between 2000 and 2019. The results show that the time preference rate for health has different trends, regarding the slope and intercept of the changes. These differences show the different effects of the policies implemented in the field of health on people’s attitudes toward healthier living in the future. In France, the trend in time preference rates for health is downward with a small slope, in Sweden, and the US, whereas it is downward with a large slope in the Netherlands and Switzerland. Due to the severity of the changes in the slope of time preference rates for health, people in the Netherlands and Switzerland are more concerned about and invested in improving their health. The time preference rate for health has an upward trend in Australia, Germany, and Canada, and its slope is higher in Germany and Australia. Therefore, people prefer the interests of the present to the future in these three countries. In Norway and the UK, this trend has a constant slope, implying that people's attitudes have insignificantly changed toward health-related behaviors.

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References

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Iranian Economic Review
Volume 28, Issue 3
September 2024
Pages 946-974

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