Abstract
It is believed that income affects health directly but it is argued that indirect income effects due to relative deprivation may be equally important. This paper investigates these relationships using parametric and semiparametric panel data models which ameliorate problems of misspecification and unobservable heterogeneity. By allowing for a flexible functional form of income we ensure that coefficients on relative deprivation variables are not an artefact of a highly non-linear relationship between health and income. The results provide strong evidence for the impact of income on self-reported measures of health for men and women. These results are robust across a range of techniques and are resilient to the inclusion of measures of relative deprivation. The parametric results for relative deprivation largely reject its influence on health, although there is some evidence of an effect in the semiparametric models. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 308-324 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Journal of health economics |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2008 |
Bibliographical note
M1 - 2Keywords
- determinants of health
- panel data
- semiparametric estimation
- absolute income
- relative deprivation
- SELF-ASSESSED HEALTH
- BRITISH CIVIL-SERVANTS
- PANEL-DATA
- POPULATION HEALTH
- UNITED-STATES
- INEQUALITY
- BRITAIN
- TIME
- SATISFACTION
- MORTALITY