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The Effect of Growth and Inequality in Incomes on Health Inequality: Theory and Empirical Evidence from the European Panel

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Author Info
Tom Van Ourti () (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam)
Eddy Van Doorslaer () (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam)
Xander Koolman (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam)

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Abstract

Europe aims at combining income growth with improvements in social cohesion as measured by income and health inequalities. We show that, theoretically, both aims can be reconciled only under very specific conditions concerning the type of growth and the income responsiveness of health. We investigate whether these conditions held in Europe in the nineties using panel data from the European Community Household Panel surveys. We use pooled interval regressions and inequality decompositions to demonstrate that (i) in all countries except Austria, the income elasticity of health is positive and increases with income, and (ii) that income growth was not pro-rich in most EU countries, resulting in little or no reductions in income inequality and modest increases in income-related health inequality in the majority of countries. Keywords: income inequality, health inequality, income elasticity of health, Europe. Classification-JEL: D30, D31, I10, I12.

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Paper provided by Tinbergen Institute in its series Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers with number 06-108/3.

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Date of creation: 12 Dec 2006
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Handle: RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20060108

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Related research
Keywords: income inequality; health inequality; income elasticity of health; Europe;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General
D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Production

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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.:
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    Other versions:
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    Other versions:
  7. Jones, Andrew M., 2000. "Health econometrics," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 265-344 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Mills, Jeffrey A & Zandvakili, Sourushe, 1997. "Statistical Inference via Bootstrapping for Measures of Inequality," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(2), pages 133-50, March-Apr. [Downloadable!]
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  15. Eddy van Doorslaer & Xander Koolman & Andrew M. Jones, 2004. "Explaining income-related inequalities in doctor utilisation in Europe," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(7), pages 629-647. [Downloadable!]
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(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. Madden, D, 2008. "Ordinal and Cardinal Measures of Health Inequality: An Empirical Comparison," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 08/09, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York. [Downloadable!]
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