Has anyone ever done a study comparing the average life expectancy of societies and their time-preferences? It would seem logical that there should be a correlation.
The one problem that I would forsee in such econometrics is to find a reliabe method of measuring time-preference since interest-rates, the most logical measurment, are mostly set by central banks.
Couldn’t we just use saving as a percent of national income?
Time preference reaches beyond death. In some cultures the tradition is to leave large estates to children, meaning that people would withold consumption to their deaths.
I know this but a non-monetary example of what I mean is (at least in the United States) the willingness of people in poor neighborhoods to cross dangerous streets without using crosswalks and while cars are speeding toward them. It is not the illegality I am commenting on but the physical danger. You do not see that very often in Middle Class or Upper Class neighborhoods. There is something about lower-income people (who also have a lower average life span) that causes them to value their current desire (crossing the street) above their safety. It got me thinking that there might be a deeper cause to all of this - one that is perhaps rooted in meta-economics.
I grew up in a lower class/poor neighborhood and encountered this daily, I found that if you don’t slow down they will run off the road at the last minute - so they do value their life when it comes down to actually seeing a threat.
I think this has more to do with a peacock type gesture - proving they can make traffic stop or just bucking the law and seeing if anyone does anything about it. Notice it is generally young men who do this.
Perhaps this is a clear demonstration of a sexual signal that they send to other members of their group for dominance - kind of a genetic game of chicken if you will. If one could do a study which shows sexual selection results as a corollary to this behavior then that would be something worth reading.
Perhaps you’re confusing cause with effect?
Alas, the controlled interest-rates also skew savings rates; however, it is still possibe to use saving as percent of national income.
Also the interest-rate control would probably have a greater influence on the savings of the lower-class since they usually (someone correct me if I’m wrong) don’t invest their money into stocks, bonds, and capital but rather either save it in a bank account or spend it. I could see the time-preferance of lower-classes being low enough that it would reinforce many peope’s bias without keeping in mind the effect of the interest-rate thus the study perhaps doing more harm than good.