 Can public spending reduce mortality disparities? Findings from East Germany after reunificationTobias C. Vogt and Fanny A. Kluge The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, 2015, vol. 5, issue C, 7-13 Abstract: Following the reunification of Germany, eastern Germans experienced large increases in life expectancy. The introduction of the West German welfare system was accompanied by mortality reductions, particularly for older East Germans. We use this natural experiment to investigate to what extent increased public social security transfers contributed to the rise in life expectancy. We find that every euro invested in East German pensions and health care yielded on average three hours of additional life expectancy. The rise in public spending was particularly beneficial for older age groups. Investments in health care were more beneficial for reducing all-cause mortality in the East. Still, investments in pensions were important for closing the life expectancy gap to West Germany. Our results suggest that public policy measures geared toward equalizing living standards can also help to narrow mortality differentials. Keywords: Mortality differentials; Pension income; Health care spending; Natural experiment; Germany (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:joecag:v:5:y:2015:i:c:p:7-13 DOI: 10.1016/j.jeoa.2014.09.001 Access Statistics for this article The Journal of the Economics of Ageing is currently edited by D.E. Bloom, A. Sousa-Poza and U. Sunde More articles in The Journal of the Economics of Ageing from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.