Empirical Evidence for Decreasing Returns to Scale in a Health Capital Model

Titus Galama, Patrick Hullegie, Erik Meijer and Sarah Outcault

No WR-928, Working Papers from RAND Corporation

Abstract: The authors estimate a health investment equation, derived from a health capital model that is an extension of the well-known Grossman model. Of particular interest is whether the health production function has constant returns to scale, as in the standard Grossman model, or decreasing returns to scale, as in the Ehrlich-Chuma model and extensions thereof. The model with decreasing returns to scale has a number of theoretically and empirically desirable characteristics that the constant returns model does not have. Although their empirical equation does not point-identify the decreasing returns to scale curvature parameter, it does allow them to test for constant versus decreasing returns to scale. The results are suggestive of decreasing returns and in line with prior estimates from the literature. But when they attempt to control for the endogeneity of health by using instrumental variables, the results become inconclusive. This brings into question the robustness of prior estimates in this literature.

Keywords: health investment; lifecycle model; Grossman model; optimal control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 I12 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34
Date: 2012-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Empirical evidence for decreasing returns to scale in a health capital model (2012)
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