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Inequality and Mortality: Long-Run Evidence from a Panel of Countries

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Author Info
Andrew Leigh
Christopher Jencks

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Abstract

We investigate whether changes in economic inequality affect mortality in rich countries. To answer this question we use a new source of data on income inequality: tax data on the share of pretax income going to the richest 10 percent of the population in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the US between 1903 and 2003. Although this measure is not a good proxy for inequality within the bottom half of the income distribution, it is a good proxy for changes in the top half of the distribution and for the Gini coefficient. In the absence of country and year fixed effects, the income share of the top decile is negatively related to life expectancy and positively related to infant mortality. However, in our preferred fixed-effects specification these relationships are weak, statistically insignificant, and likely to change their sign. Nor do our data suggest that changes in the income share of the richest 10 percent affect homicide or suicide rates.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 533.

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Date of creation: Aug 2006
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Handle: RePEc:auu:dpaper:533

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Related research
Keywords: health; inequality; mortality; top incomes; homicide; suicide;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Production
N30 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth - - - General, International, or Comparative

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson & Pierre Yared, 2005. "From Education to Democracy?," NBER Working Papers 11204, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Hugh Gravelle & John Wildman & Matthew Sutton, . "Income, Income Inequality and Health: What can we Learn from Aggregate Data?," Discussion Papers 00/26, Department of Economics, University of York. [Downloadable!]
  3. Angus S. Deaton & Christina Paxson, 2004. "Mortality, Income, and Income Inequality over Time in Britain and the United States," NBER Chapters, in: Perspectives on the Economics of Aging, pages 247-286 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Angus Deaton, 2001. "Relative Deprivation, Inequality, and Mortality," NBER Working Papers 8099, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Meltzer, Allan H & Richard, Scott F, 1981. "A Rational Theory of the Size of Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 914-27, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Thomas Maag, 2008. "Economic Correlates of Suicide Rates in OECD Countries," KOF Working papers 08-207, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich. [Downloadable!]
  2. Lixin Cai, 2008. "Be Wealthy to Stay Healthy: An Analysis of Older Australians Using the HILDA Survey," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2008n08, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne. [Downloadable!]
  3. Katja Hanewald, 2008. "Beyond the business cycle - factors driving aggregate mortality rates," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2008-031, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. [Downloadable!]
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