The Evolution of Health over the Life Cycle

Roozbeh Hosseini (), Karen Kopecky and Kai Zhao

Review of Economic Dynamics, 2022, vol. 45, 237-263

Abstract: We construct a unified objective measure of health status: the frailty index, defined as the cumulative sum of all adverse health indicators observed for an individual. Using this index, we document four stylized facts on health dynamics over the life cycle and show that they are robust to other ways of constructing the index. We also compare the frailty index with self-reported health status and find significant differences in their dynamics and ability to predict health-related outcomes. Finally, we propose and estimate a stochastic process for frailty dynamics over the life cycle accounting for mortality bias. Our frailty measure and dynamic process can be used to study the evolution of health over the life cycle and its economic implications. (Copyright: Elsevier)

Keywords: Health; Frailty index; Self-reported health status; Mortality; Simulated method of moments; Selection bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 I10 I14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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Working Paper: The Evolution of Health over the Life Cycle (2019)
Working Paper: The Evolution of Health over the Life Cycle (2019)
Working Paper: The Evolution of Health over the Life Cycle (2018)
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DOI: 10.1016/j.red.2021.07.001

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