Robert J. Willis - University of Michigan
Estimating Second Order Probability Beliefs from Subjective Survival Data
Date: 10/04/2012 (Thu)
Time: 3:30pm- 5:00pm
Location: Seminar will be held on-site: Social Sciences 111
Organizer: Amar Hamoudi
Meeting Schedule: Login or email the organizer to schedule a meeting.
All meetings will be held in the same location as the seminar unless otherwise noted.
*** - All meetings (unless otherwise noted) will be in 102 Social-PSYCHOLOGY - ***
7:00pm - WED Oct 3 Dinner (Nana's, Durham): Robert Willis, Amar Hamoudi, Elizabeth Frankenberg, Duncan Thomas, Liz Ananat
10:00am - Keith Whitfield
10:30am - Elizabeth Frankenberg
11:00am - Duncan Thomas
11:30am - Marjorie McElroy
12:00pm - Lunch: V. Joseph Hotz, Seth Sanders, Martin Zelder, Poh Lin Tan
1:00pm - DuPRI Students: Poh Lin Tan, Ryan Brown, Nick Ingwersen, Andrea Velasquez
1:45pm - Amar Hamoudi
2:15pm - Seth Sanders
2:45pm - Giovanna Merli
3:15pm - Protected time: seminar A/V prep
3:30pm - Seminar Presentation (3:30pm to 5:00pm)
Additional Comments: ABSTRACT: Based on subjective survival probability questions in the Health and Retirement Study, we use an econometric model to estimate the determinants of individual-level uncertainty about personal longevity. This model is built around the Modal Response Hypothesis (MRH), a mathematical expression of the idea that survey responses of 0, 50 or 100 percent to probability questions indicate a high level of uncertainty about the relevant probability. We show that subjective survival expectations in 2002 line up very well with realized mortality of the HRS respondents between 2002 and 2010. We show that the MRH model performs better than typically used models in the literature of subjective probabilities. Our model gives more accurate estimates of low probability events and it is able to predict the unusually high fraction of focal 0, 50 and 100 answers observed in many datasets on subjective probabilities.