Suchergebnisse

Cover -- Front Matter -- Preface -- Contents -- 1 Understanding Mortality Patterns in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies -- APPENDIX: FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS OF UNCERTAINTY: MORTALITY IN AFGHANISTAN, BOSNIA, NORTH KOREA, RWANDA, AND SIERRA LEONE -- 2 The Evolution of Mortality Among Rwandan Refugees in Zaire Between 1994 and 1997 -- 3 Famine, Mortality, and Migration: A Study of North Korean Migrants in China -- 4 Methods of Determining Mortality in the Mass Displacement and Return of Emergency-Affected Populations in Kosovo, 1998-1999 -- 5 The Demographic Analysis of Mortality Crises: The Case of Cambodia, 1970-1979 -- 6 Reflections -- Index.

Objective. We explore, first, whether wealth relates to mortality risk independent of income and education, and second, whether wealth closes the black-white gap in U.S. adult mortality while controlling for other socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors. Methods. We employ the Cox proportional hazards models on data from the 1992 wave of the Health and Retirement Study linked to deaths through 1998, to analyze pre-retirement adult mortality in the United States. Results. The findings suggest that broader measures of SES, including wealth, are significant for understanding adult mortality. Further, vastly lower asset holdings among blacks, compared to whites, not only affects their financial well-being but also their survival prospects. Conclusions. Research and social policies that aim to understand and close health disparities in the United States may be poorly conceived if they ignore the impact of wealth on premature adult mortality. (Original abstract)

This study examines the potential role that information about trends in causes of death could have in improving projections of mortality in low‐mortality countries. The article first summarizes overall trends in mortality by cause since the middle of the twentieth century. Special attention is given to the crucial impact of the smoking epidemic on mortality and on cause‐of‐death patterns. The article then discusses the implications for projections and reaches two conclusions. First, mortality projections can be improved by taking into account the distorting effects of smoking. Mortality attributable to smoking has risen in the past but has now leveled off or declined, thus boosting improvements in life expectancy. Second, making cause‐specific projections is not likely to be helpful. Trends in specific medical causes of death have exhibited discontinuities in the past, and future trends are therefore difficult to predict.

Abstract
Insurance companies, employer pension plans, and the U.S. government all provide annuities and therefore assume aggregate mortality risk. Using the widely-cited Lee-Carter mortality model, we quantify aggregate mortality risk as the risk that the average annuitant lives longer than is predicted by the model, and we determine that annuities expose providers to substantial risk. We also find that other recent actuarial forecasts lie at the edge or outside of Lee-Carter's 95% confidence interval, suggesting even more uncertainty about future mortality.We then evaluate the implications of aggregate mortality risk for insurance companies; this analysis can be extended to private pension providers and Social Security. Given the forecasts of the Lee-Carter model, we calculate that a markup of 3.9% on an annuity premium (or shareholders' capital equal to 3.9% of the expected present value of annuity payments) would be required to reduce the probability of insolvency resulting from aggregate mortality shocks to 5%, and a markup of 5.7% would reduce the probability of insolvency to 1%. Based on the same model, we find that a projection scale commonly referred to by the insurance industry underestimates aggregate mortality improvements and would leave annuities underpriced.Annuity providers could manage aggregate mortality risk more efficiently by transferring it to financial markets through mortality-contingent bonds. We calculate the returns that one recently proposed mortality bond would have paid had it been available over a long period. Using both the Capital and the Consumption Capital Asset Pricing Models, we determine the risk premium that investors would have required to hold the bond. At plausible coefficients of risk aversion, annuity providers should be able to hedge aggregate mortality risk via such bonds at very low cost.