Health and Income: A Robust Comparison of Canada and the US

Duclos, Jean-Yves () and Damien Echevin ()
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Duclos, Jean-Yves: Université Laval

No 4506, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

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 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I32 I38 D63 D30 H51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ltv
Date: 2009-10
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Related works:
Working Paper: Health and Income: A Robust Comparison of Canada and the US (2009)
Working Paper: Health and income: A robust comparison of Canada and the US (2008)
Working Paper: Health and Income: a Robust Comparison of Canada and the US (2009)
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