Health Inequality over the Life-Cycle

Timothy J. Halliday

No 4369, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Abstract: We investigate the evolution of health inequality over the life-course. Health is modeled as a latent variable that is determined by three factors: endowments, and permanent and transitory shocks. We employ Simulated Minimum Distance and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to estimate the model. We estimate that permanent shocks account for under 10% of the total variation in health for the college educated, but between 35% and 70% of total health variability for people without college degrees. Consistent with this, we find that health inequality moves substantially more slowly over the life-course for the college educated.

Keywords: health; dynamic panel data models; variance decomposition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 C5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
Date: 2009-08
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Working Paper: Health Inequality over the Life-Cycle (2009)
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