 The tax-free year in Iceland: A natural experiment to explore the impact of a short-term increase in labor supply on the risk of heart attacksThorhildur Ólafsdóttir, Birgir Hrafnkelsson, Gudmundur Thorgeirsson and Tinna Laufey Ásgeirsdóttir Journal of Health Economics, 2016, vol. 49, issue C, 14-27 Abstract: Evidence is mixed on whether society-wide economic conditions affect cardiovascular health and the reasons for the suggested relationship are largely untested. We explore whether a short-term increase in labor supply affects the probability of acute myocardial infarctions, using a natural experiment in Iceland. In 1987 personal income taxes were temporarily reduced to zero, resulting in an overall increase in labor supply. We merge and analyze individual-level, registry-based data on earnings and AMIs including all Icelandic men and women aged 45–74 during the period 1982–1992. The results support the prominent hypothesis of increased work as a mechanism explaining worsening heart health in upswings, for men aged 45–64 who were self-employed. We furthermore find a larger increase in probability of AMIs during the tax-free year in men aged 45–54 than men aged 55–64. Keywords: Coronary heart disease; Acute myocardial infarction; Labor supply; Natural experiment; Iceland (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:49:y:2016:i:c:p:14-27 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2016.06.006 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Health Economics is currently edited by J. P. Newhouse, A. J. Culyer, R. Frank, K. Claxton and T. McGuire More articles in Journal of Health Economics from Elsevier |
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