The Fiscal Consequences of Trends in Population Health

Dana Goldman, Pierre-Carl Michaud, Darius Lakdawalla, Yuhui Zheng, Adam Gailey and Igor Vaynman

National Tax Journal, 2010, vol. 63, issue 2, 307-30

Abstract: The public burden of shifting trends in population health remains uncertain. Sustained increases in obesity, diabetes, and other diseases could reduce life expectancy — with a concomitant decrease in the public sector’s annuity burden — but these savings may be offset by worsening functional status which increases health care spending, reduces labor supply, and increases public assistance. Using a health microsimulation model, we quantify the competing public finance consequences of shifting trends in population health for medical care costs, labor supply, earnings, wealth, tax revenues, and government expenditures. We find that the trends in obesity and smoking have different fiscal consequences and that, because of its more profound effects on morbidity and health care expenditures, obesity represents a larger immediate risk from a fiscal perspective. Uncertainty in residual mortality improvements represents by far the largest risk.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.17310/ntj.2010.2.07 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.17310/ntj.2010.2.07 (text/html)
Access is restricted to subscribers and members of the National Tax Association.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ntj:journl:v:63:y:2010:i:2:p:307-30

Access Statistics for this article

National Tax Journal is currently edited by Stacy Dickert-Conlin and William M. Gentry

More articles in National Tax Journal from National Tax Association, National Tax Journal Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The University of Chicago Press ().