Place-Based Drivers of Mortality: Evidence from Migration

Amy Finkelstein, Matthew Gentzkow and Heidi Williams ()

No 25975, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We estimate the effect of current location on elderly mortality by analyzing outcomes of movers in the Medicare population. We control for movers' origin locations as well as a rich vector of pre-move health measures. We also develop a novel strategy to adjust for remaining unobservables, based on the assumption that the relative importance of observables and unobservables correlated with movers' destinations is the same as the relative importance of those correlated with movers' origins. We estimate substantial effects of current location. Moving from a 10th to a 90th percentile location would increase life expectancy at age 65 by 1.1 years, and equalizing location effects would reduce cross-sectional variation in life expectancy by 15 percent. Places with favorable life expectancy effects tend to have higher quality and quantity of health care, less extreme climates, lower crime rates, and higher socioeconomic status

JEL-codes: H51 I1 I11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-hea and nep-ure
Note: AG EH IO PE
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

Published as Amy Finkelstein & Matthew Gentzkow & Heidi Williams, 2021. "Place-Based Drivers of Mortality: Evidence from Migration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(8), pages 2697-2735, August.

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Journal Article: Place-Based Drivers of Mortality: Evidence from Migration (2021)
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