Does rising income inequality affect mortality rates in advanced economies?

Mayvis Rebeira, Paul Grootendorst, Peter C. Coyte and Victor Aguirregabiria ()

No 2017-12, Economics Discussion Papers from Kiel Institute for the World Economy

Abstract: What effect does rising income inequality have on mortality rates in developed countries? In particular, does the rise of the super-wealthy or the top 0.01% of the population effect overall health of the population? This paper focuses on the effect of rising income inequality on mortality rates of men and women in a subset of OECD countries over six decades from 1950-2008. The authors used adult mortality as the outcome measure and the inverted Pareto-Lorenz coefficient as the preferred measure of income inequality and obtained the latest and precise data on the income inequality measure. They used a panel co-integration econometric framework to address some of the challenges posed by more conventional methods. The findings show that for industrialized countries with co-integrated series, income inequality appears to have a long-run significant negative effect on mortality risk for both men and women, that is, an increase in income inequality does not appear to lower annualized adult mortality rates.

Keywords: income inequality; mortality; health; panel co-integration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C1 I1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Does rising income inequality affect mortality rates in advanced economies? (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201712

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