Natural Experiment Evidence on the Effect of Migration on Blood Pressure and Hypertension

John Gibson, Steven Stillman, David McKenzie and Halahingano Rohorua ()
Additional contact information
Halahingano Rohorua: University of Waikato

No 5232, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Over 200 million people live outside their country of birth and experience large gains in material well-being by moving to where wages are higher. But the effect of this migration on health is less clear and existing evidence is ambiguous because of the potential for self-selection bias. In this paper, we use a natural experiment, comparing successful and unsuccessful applicants to a migration lottery to experimentally estimate the impact of migration on measured blood pressure and hypertension. Hypertension is a leading global health problem, as well as being an important health measure that responds quickly to migration. We use various econometric estimators to form bounds on the treatment effects since there appears to be selective non-compliance in the natural experiment. Even with these bounds the results suggest significant and persistent increases in blood pressure and hypertension, which have implications for future health budgets given the recent worldwide increases in immigration.

Keywords: blood pressure; hypertension; lottery; migration; natural experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 I12 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2010-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published - published in: Health Economics, 2013, 22 (6), 655-672

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https://docs.iza.org/dp5232.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: NATURAL EXPERIMENT EVIDENCE ON THE EFFECT OF MIGRATION ON BLOOD PRESSURE AND HYPERTENSION (2013)
Working Paper: Natural Experiment Evidence on the Effect of Migration on Blood Pressure and Hypertension (2010)
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