Calendrier du 29 mai 2019
Economic History Seminar
Du 29/05/2019 de 12:30 à 14:00
Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris
PONTHIÈRE Grégory ()
Human lifetime entropy in a historical perspective (1750-2014)
Abstract
This paper uses Shannon's entropy index to the base 2 to quantify
the risk relative to the age at death in terms of bits (i.e. the amount of
information revealed by tossing a fair coin). We first provide a simple
decomposition of Shannon's lifetime entropy index that allows us to an-
alyze the determinants of lifetime entropy (in particular its relation with
Wiener's entropy of the event death at a particular age conditional on
survival to that age) and to study how the risk about the duration of
life is resolved as the individual becomes older. Then, using data on 37
countries from the Human Mortality Database, we show that, over the
last two centuries, (period) lifetime entropy at birth has exhibited, in all
countries, an inverted U shape pattern with a maximum in the ?rst half
of the 20th century (at 6 bits), and reaches, in the early 21st century, 5.6
bits for men and 5.5 bits for women. It is also shown that the entropy
age profile shifted from a non-monotonic profile (in the 18th and 19th
centuries) to a strictly decreasing profile (in the 20th and 21st centuries).
Keywords: mortality risk, longevity, age at death, entropy, measure-
ment.
WIP (Work in progress) Working Group
Du 29/05/2019 de 11:00 à 11:30
salle R1-11, campus Jourdan - 75014 Paris
ÖZGÜZEL Cem(CES & IZA)
LUKSIC Juan Diego(PSE)
SCHNEIDER-STRAWCZYNSKI Sarah(PSE)
Impact of migration on learning opportunity