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on Health Economics |
| By: | Alfredo R. Paloyo |
| Abstract: | The reliability of general self-rated health status is examined using the reform of the public health insurance system of Germany in 2004 as a source of exogenous variation. Among others, the reform introduced a co-payment for ambulatory doctor visits and increased the co-payments for prescription drugs. This natural experiment allows identification of the causal impact of the program on self-assessed health and hence reveals the sensitivity of this subjective measure to a perturbation in the insurance system. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, the results indicate that after the policy intervention, the respondents in the treated group perceived their own health status as better than their hypothetical untreated state even when there is no discernible impacton actual health.The reliability of general self-rated health status is examined using the reform of the public health insurance system of Germany in 2004 as a source of exogenous variation. Among others, the reform introduced a co-payment for ambulatory doctor visits and increased the co-payments for prescription drugs. This natural experiment allows identification of the causal impact of the program on self-assessed health and hence reveals the sensitivity of this subjective measure to a perturbation in the insurance system. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, the results indicate that after the policy intervention, the respondents in the treated group perceived their own health status as better than their hypothetical untreated state even when there is no discernible impacton actual health. |
| Keywords: | natural experiment,cognitive dissonance,self-rated health status |
| JEL: | G22 H43 I18 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp225&r=hea |
| By: | Duclos, Jean-Yves (Université Laval); Échevin, Damien (University of Sherbrooke) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses sequential stochastic dominance procedures to compare the joint distribution of health and income across space and time. It is the first application of which we are aware of methods to compare multidimensional distributions of income and health using procedures that are robust to aggregation techniques. The paper’s approach is more general than comparisons of health gradients and does not require the estimation of health equivalent incomes. We illustrate the approach by contrasting Canada and the US using comparable data. Canada dominates the US over the lower bi-dimensional welfare distribution of health and income, though not generally in terms of the uni-dimensional distribution of health or income. The paper also finds that welfare for both Canadians and Americans has not unambiguously improved during the last decade over the joint distribution of income and health, in spite of the fact that the uni-dimensional distributions of income have clearly improved during that period. |
| Keywords: | health inequality, self-reported health status, income distribution, stochastic dominances, social welfare |
| JEL: | I10 I32 I38 D63 D30 H51 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4506&r=hea |
| By: | Nordström, Jonas (Department of Economics, Lund University); Thunström, Linda (The Swedish Retail Institute) |
| Abstract: | This paper simulates the impact across household types of fully funded tax reforms designed to increase consumers’ fiber intake from grain consumption. Our results suggest that household types with the highest initial consumption share of fiber-rich products – i.e., households without children (seniors, couples without children, and single women without children) – experience the highest increase in fiber intake from these reforms. However, they also experience high increases in unhealthy nutrients from the reforms, making the net health effects difficult to evaluate. Seniors and couples without children also gain the most financially, paying less food taxes and facing, depending on the reform, either a lower price level than before the reform or a lower increase in the price level than the average household. These household types also face the lowest initial price level. Households with the lowest initial consumption share of fiber-rich products – families with children – appear to gain the least financially from the reforms: they pay more food taxes and face relatively high increases in price levels. Further, in general they experience an increase in fiber intake smaller than the average household. However, they do generally see reductions in the intake of added sugar, and in many cases saturated fat, which positively affects the health of families with children, who often overconsume these nutrients. |
| Keywords: | consumer economics; food; health; taxation |
| JEL: | D12 H23 I18 |
| Date: | 2009–10–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2009_014&r=hea |
| By: | Timothy J. Halliday (Department of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)); Mijung Park (Department of Nursing, School of Nursing & Dental Hygiene, University of Hawaii at Manoa) |
| Abstract: | This article documents a robust negative relationship between household size and medical expenditures. Residing in a larger family is associated with less consumption of medical care ceteris paribus. An additional household member is associated with between $255.60 and $277.36 fewer expenditures on health care on average. Using quantile regression, we found that the magnitude of cost saving associated with living in a larger family increases with the demand for medical care. Based on these findings, we conclude that larger family size may be beneficial to a person’s health. Future research is needed to verify the mechanisms underlying this correlation. |
| Keywords: | household size, medical expenditure, family, care-giving |
| Date: | 2009–11–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hai:wpaper:200916&r=hea |
| By: | Layte, Richard; Nolan, Anne |
| Keywords: | qec |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:rb2009/2/1&r=hea |
| By: | David Powell |
| Abstract: | This paper recognizes that compensating differentials are a function of the income tax rate, using this observation to introduce a methodology for estimating compensating differentials with a specific application to the value of a statistical life (VSL). When taxes change, the pre-tax wages of risky jobs should shift relative to the pre-tax wages of safe jobs in a manner proportional to the VSL. This approach controls for fixed effects without using industry-specific changes in risk as a source of identification. The strategy yields VSL estimates between $50 million and $75 million, an order of magnitude higher than the previous literature. |
| Keywords: | income taxes, value of a statistical life, tax incidence |
| JEL: | H22 H24 J17 J28 J31 |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ran:wpaper:706&r=hea |
| By: | Ana Balsa (Health Economics Research Group, Department of Sociology, University of Miami); Máximo Rossi (Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República); Patricia Triunfo (Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes and compares socioeconomic inequalities in the use of healthcare services by the elderly in four South-American cities: Buenos Aires, Santiago, Montevideo and San Pablo. We use data from SABE, a survey on Health, Well-being and Aging administered in 2000. After having accounted for socioeconomic inequalities in healthcare needs, we find socioeconomic inequities favoring the rich in the use of preventive services (mammograms, pap tests, breast examinations, and prostate exams) in all of the studied cities. We also find inequities in the likelihood of having a medical visit in Santiago and Montevideo, and in some measures of quality of access in Santiago, Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires. Santiago depicts the highest inequities in medical visits and Uruguay the worse indicators in mammograms and pap scans tests. For all cities, inequities in preventive services at least double inequities in other services. We do not find evidence of a trade-off between levels of access and equity in access to healthcare services. The decomposition of healthcare inequalities suggests that inequities within each health system are more important than between systems. |
| Keywords: | inequalities, healthcare, medical visit, preventive services |
| JEL: | I1 I11 I12 I18 |
| Date: | 2009–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ude:wpaper:1509&r=hea |
| By: | Drakopoulos, Stavros A.; Economou, Athina; Grimani, Aikaterini |
| Abstract: | The subject of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) is increasingly gaining the interest of policy makers and researchers in European countries given that the economic and social losses from work-related injuries and diseases are quite substantial. Under this light, this paper will present an overview of the Greek legislation framework regarding OSH issues, and the current status of empirical research on the subject in Greece. In addition, the paper identifies the knowledge gaps and methodological shortcomings of the existing literature in order to contribute towards future research in the OSH field in Greece. |
| Keywords: | Accidents at work; Occupational diseases; Safety |
| JEL: | J28 |
| Date: | 2009–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:18509&r=hea |
| By: | David O. Meltzer; Zhuo Chen |
| Abstract: | Growing consumption of increasingly less expensive food, and especially “fast foodâ€, has been cited as a potential cause of increasing rate of obesity in the United States over the past several decades. Because the real minimum wage in the United States has declined by as much as half over 1968-2007 and because minimum wage labor is a major contributor to the cost of food away from home we hypothesized that changes in the minimum wage would be associated with changes in bodyweight over this period. To examine this, we use data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System from 1984-2006 to test whether variation in the real minimum wage was associated with changes in body mass index (BMI). We also examine whether this association varied by gender, education and income, and used quantile regression to test whether the association varied over the BMI distribution. We also estimate the fraction of the increase in BMI since 1970 attributable to minimum wage declines. We find that a $1 decrease in the real minimum wage was associated with a 0.06 increase in BMI. This relationship was significant across gender and income groups and largest among the highest percentiles of the BMI distribution. Real minimum wage decreases can explain 10% of the change in BMI since 1970. We conclude that the declining real minimum wage rates has contributed to the increasing rate of overweight and obesity in the United States. Studies to clarify the mechanism by which minimum wages may affect obesity might help determine appropriate policy responses. |
| JEL: | I1 I28 J3 |
| Date: | 2009–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15485&r=hea |