Exploring Contingent Inequalities: Building the Theoretical Health Inequality Model

Michael Wolfson (), Steve Gribble () and Reed Beall ()
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Michael Wolfson: University of Ottawa
Steve Gribble: University of Ottawa
Reed Beall: University of Ottawa

Chapter Chapter 17 in Agent-Based Modelling in Population Studies, 2017, pp 487-513 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract There is considerable controversy whether a population’s extent of income inequality (not just individual income levels) affects a population’s health. Very provocative evidence is provided by a comparison of Canadian and US cities. There is a clear correlation in the US between city-level income inequality and working age mortality. But highly comparable data for Canada show no correlation. One hypothesis is that this major observed difference is due to greater income segregation (in turn highly correlated with racial segregation) in US cities compared to Canada. In this chapter, we develop and present an agent-based model called the Theoretical Health Inequality Model (THIM). THIM embodies a theory of this correlation wherein it is contingent on a range of factors that are plausibly important, and that differ between Canada and the US in empirically verifiable ways. Drawing on both empirical evidence and various social science theoretical work, we posit a formal algorithmic structure for THIM, and then a set of parameters reflecting the “stylized facts” for Canada and the US. The focus of this chapter is on the development of THIM as an agent-based model, including its conceptualization, and the realization of these concepts as a virtual in silico laboratory for simulation experiments and hypothesis exploration.

Keywords: Income Inequality; Average Income; Stylize Fact; Lorenz Curve; Permanent Income (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:ssdmcp:978-3-319-32283-4_17

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-32283-4_17

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