Controlling for Causality in the Link from Income to Mortality.

While previous research shows that wealthier people tend to live longer, it is not clear whether this occurs because wealthy people make greater investments in health and safety or because inherently healthy people tend to make more money. This article uses measures of initial health to focus on the flow from wealth to good health. While the estimated link between income and mortality is less than in other articles, we find that a significant link still remains. In particular, we estimate that health and safety regulations, which cost more than $12.2 million per life saved, are likely to kill more people through increased poverty than they save directly. Estimates of costs per life saved provided by the Office of Management and Budget suggest that many health and safety programs implemented in the last 20 years would be eliminated using this criterion. Copyright 1994 by Kluwer Academic Publishers