Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Economic Inquiry
Publication Date
9-2011
ISSN
0095-2583
Page Number
959
Keywords
time preference, fatality risk, health risk, life expectancy
Disciplines
Health Law and Policy | Law
Abstract
Individuals with higher personal rates of time preference will be more likely to smoke. Although previous studies have found no evidence of a relationship between smoking and rates of time preference, analysis of implicit rates of time preference associated with workers' wage fatality risk trade-offs indicates that smokers have higher rates of time preference with respect to years of life. Current smokers have an implied rate of time preference of 13.8% as compared to 8.1% for nonsmokers. Current smokers who are blue-collar workers have rates of time preference with respect to years of life of 16.3% compared to 7.8% for nonsmoking blue-collar workers.
Recommended Citation
W. Kip Viscusi and Robert L. Scharff,
Heterogeneous Rates of Time Preference and the Decision to Smok, 49 Economic Inquiry. 959
(2011)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/1570