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Journal Articles
December 2009 (MIT Press)
Article
The impact of income shocks on health: evidence from cohort data
Type: Journal Articles
Authors: Jerome Adda, James Banks and Hans Martin von Gaudecker
Volume, issue, pages: Vol. 7, No. 6, pp. 1361-1399
JEL classification: I10, D31
Previous version: IFS Working Papers [Details]

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We study the effect of permanent income innovations on health for a prime-aged population. Using information on more than half a million individuals sampled over a 25-year period in three different cross-sectional surveys we aggregate data by date-of-birth cohort to construct a "synthetic cohort" data set with details of income, expenditure, socio-demographic factors, health outcomes, and selected risk factors. We then exploit structural and arguably exogenous changes in cohort incomes over the 1980s and 1990s to uncover causal effects of permanent income shocks on health. We find that such income innovations have little effect on a wide range of health measures, but do lead to increases in mortality and risky health behaviour.

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