> The paper develops methods to
> identify and estimate the mortality implicit in the market
> prices of such claims by identifying survival functions from
> prices of contracts that differ in their duration. Utilizing
> these methods, we provide estimates using cohort-specific
> prices of US term life insurance contracts in 1990-96 for
> individuals aged 60 in each calendar year. Our main finding
> is that the mortality patterns inferred from these prices
> indicate a continued decline in cohort-specific mortality
> at rates equal to or greater than recent historical trends;
> about a 5 percent reduction in relative terms in the
> mortality hazards per successive cohort.
Any idea what this fellow means by "cohort"? I've always understood it to
mean the group of people sharing a birth-year. Does this mean 5% per year?
I'd like to believe that it does, but this seems very optimistic.
Greg Burch <Gburch1@aol.com>----<burchg@liddellsapp.com>
Attorney ::: Director, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
"Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must
be driven into practice with courageous impatience."
-- Admiral Hyman G. Rickover