Health and Income: A Robust Comparison of Canada and the US

Jean-Yves Duclos and Damien Échevin

No 4506, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper uses sequential stochastic dominance procedures to compare the joint distribution of health and income across space and time. It is the first application of which we are aware of methods to compare multidimensional distributions of income and health using procedures that are robust to aggregation techniques. The paper’s approach is more general than comparisons of health gradients and does not require the estimation of health equivalent incomes. We illustrate the approach by contrasting Canada and the US using comparable data. Canada dominates the US over the lower bi-dimensional welfare distribution of health and income, though not generally in terms of the uni-dimensional distribution of health or income. The paper also finds that welfare for both Canadians and Americans has not unambiguously improved during the last decade over the joint distribution of income and health, in spite of the fact that the uni-dimensional distributions of income have clearly improved during that period.

Keywords: stochastic dominances; income distribution; self-reported health status; health inequality; social welfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D30 D63 H51 I10 I32 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2009-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Journal of Health Economics, 2011, 30 (2), 293 - 302

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https://docs.iza.org/dp4506.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Health and income: A robust comparison of Canada and the US (2015)
Journal Article: Health and income: A robust comparison of Canada and the US (2011)
Working Paper: Health and Income: A Robust Comparison of Canada and the US (2009)
Working Paper: Health and Income: a Robust Comparison of Canada and the US (2009)
Working Paper: Health and income: A robust comparison of Canada and the US (2008)
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