In any discussion of income inequality one commonly finds assertions of
negative consequences that arise in societies that experience persistent
income inequality. For example, the public health literature has devoted
much attention to the negative correlation between income inequality and
health in and across countries. This relationship has been found for
infant mortality, life expectancy, and self-reported health. Despite the
consistent negative relationship, the interpretation and robustness of the
correlations have been severely criticized because most studies lack data
on individuals or because they fail to use those data to provide tests of
alternative hypotheses.
I use US data to investigate whether a person reports being in worse
health if, over the course of his life, he lived in states where income
was more unequally distributed. I offer three innovations to this
literature. First, I sketch some mechanisms by which income inequality
might be functionally related to different measures of health. Second, I
use longitudinal data that follows individuals for up to 37 years. Third,
I construct measures of income inequality experienced over each person’s
whole lifetime. These data allow me to examine not only the correlation
between outcomes and lifetime exposure to inequality but also with
inequality experienced during theoretically critical periods. Finally, I
examine the extent to which income inequality proxies for systematic
cross-state differences in other determinants of health.
Presented by:
Thomas Scotto (Department of Government)
Date & time:
March 5, 2008 1:00 pm - March 5, 2008 12:00 am
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