This paper investigates the persistence in health limitations for individuals within the member states of the European Union. We use the full 8 waves of data available in the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) to explore the relative contributions of state dependence, unobserved...

This paper explores reporting bias and heterogeneity in the measure of self-assessed health (SAH) used in the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). The ninth wave of the BHPS includes the SF-36 general health questionnaire, which incorporates a different wording to the self-assessed health...

Individual heterogeneity plays a key role in explaining variation in self-reported well-being and, in particular, health satisfaction. It is hypothesised that the inuence of this heterogeneity varies over levels of health and increases over the life-cycle. These hypotheses are tested with data...

The nature of the relationship between health and income is still not clearly defined. It is believed that personal income affects health but this may not be the end of the story. Income may also play its part through issues of relativity and deprivation. It may even be possible that these...

This paper estimates the impact of BMI, obesity and overweight on direct medical costs. We apply panel data econometrics and use a two-part model with a longitudinal dataset of medical and administrative records of patients in primary and secondary healthcare centres in Spain followed up over...

In this study I use improved data of fiscal decentralization to re-examine the hypothesis that shifts towards more fiscal decentralization would be accompanied by improvements in population health on a panel of 19 OECD countries. The advantage of the new measure of decentralization is that it...

The paper investigates the effect of local economic conditions on crime. The study focuses on Italy’s local labor markets and analyzes the short-term response of crime to the severe slump of 2007-2009. It shows that the downturn led to a significant increase in economic-related offenses that...

Mental illness accounts for a massive share of the total burden of disease. Even when we include the burden of premature death mental illness accounts for 23% of the total burden of disease. Yet, despite the existence of cost-effective treatments, it receives only 13% of NHS health expenditure....

The Government’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) programme aims to implement NICE Guidance for people with depression and anxiety disorders. In the first phase of the programme, two demonstration sites were established in Doncaster and Newham with funding to provide increased...

Gaps in welfare attainment between boys and girls in China have attracted international attention. In this paper demand analysis is used to try and uncover the factors which may be driving the emergence of the gender gaps. Drawing on household expenditure data from a poor (Sichuan) and rich...