Money can buy me life. The Effect of a Basic Pension on Mortality: a Regression Discontinuity Design

Enrico Miglino, Nicolas Navarrete H., Gonzalo Navarrete H. and Pablo Navarrete H.

No 1245, Research Department working papers from CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica

Abstract: This paper estimates the effect of a permanent income increase for the elderly on their health outcomes. Our regression discontinuity design exploits an eligibility cutoff in a Chilean basic pension program that grants monthly payments of 40 percent of the minimum wage to pensionless retirees. Four years after applying pension, recipients are 2.5 percentage points less likely to die, with lower incidence of respiratory and circulatory diseases. The effect is concentrated on pension recipients living without working-age relatives, who have more children if living with recipients. This seems explained by pre-existing income transfers from working-age relatives to retirees, which cease when payments begin. Results suggest that increasing income for older individuals could reduce health inequalities across income groups, and mitigate the inter-generational transmission of poverty by alleviating the financial burden imposed on younger relatives.

Keywords: Desarrollo; Economía; Productividad (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age and nep-hea
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/1245

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dbl:dblwop:1245

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Research Department working papers from CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Pablo Rolando ().