Limited Life Expectancy, Human Capital and Health Investments
利用亨廷顿病导致的预期寿命差异，估计预期寿命对人力资本投资的影响，发现预期寿命每增加1%，大学入学需求弹性约为1.0，并检验了健康资本对预期寿命的响应。
Human capital theory predicts that life expectancy will impact human capital attainment. We estimate this relationship using variation in life expectancy driven by Huntington disease, an inherited neurological disorder. We compare investments for individuals who have ex-ante identical risks of HD but differ in disease realization. Individuals with the HD mutation complete less education and job training. The elasticity of demand for college attendance with respect to life expectancy is around 1.0. We relate this to cross-country and over-time differences in education. We use smoking and cancer screening data to test the corollary that health capital responds to life expectancy.