survey data, we assess six possible explanations for this upsurge in mortality. Most find little support in the data: the … deterioration of the health care system, changes in diet and obesity, and material deprivation fail to explain the increase in … mortality rates. The two factors that do appear to be important are alcohol consumption, especially as it relates to external …

We investigate whether changes in economic inequality affect mortality in rich countries. To answer this question we … the population in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland … expectancy and positively related to infant mortality. However, in our preferred fixed-effects specification these relationships …

We examine the relationship between education and mortality in a young population of Italian males. In 1981 several … schooling or lower mortality rates, thus excluding that the main findings reflect direct effects of military service on … subsequent mortality rather than a causal effect of schooling. We conclude that increasing the proportion of high school …

: a retirement account (covering pensions), an unemployment account (covering unemployment support), a human capital … account (covering education and training), and a health account (covering insurance against sickness and disability). Unlike … reducing unemployment, encouraging labour force participation, promoting skills, reducing governments’ budgetary pressures …

Were cash benefits and welfare services available to the unemployed sufficient to protect them from ill-health? Recent …, confidential reports of the Ministry of Health and Board of Education, to point out that expert witnesses were increasingly … concerned that unemployment relief and social services were inadequate to meet the needs of the community in 'Special Areas'. It …

better health care implies that mortality could be the source of a poverty trap. In our regressions, adult mortality explains …Analyzing a variety of cross-national and sub-national data, we argue that high adult mortality reduces economic growth … by shortening time horizons. Higher adult mortality is associated with increased levels of risky behaviour, higher …

Payer-driven competition has been widely advocated as a means of increasing efficiency in health care markets. The 1990 …s reforms to the UK health service followed this path. We examine whether competition led to better outcomes for … and space to identify the impact of competition. Using data on mortality as a measure of hospital quality and exploiting …

The socio-economic gradient in health remains a controversial topic in economics and other social sciences. In this … paper we develop a new duration model that allows for unobserved persistent individual-specific health shocks and provides … leads to a 12% decline in the probability of death. We find a large role of unobserved health shocks, with 5-years of shocks …

increased competition. We assemble a large data set on elderly care services in Sweden between 1990 and 2009 and estimate how … opening to private provision affected mortality rates – an important and not easily contractible quality dimension – using a … competition significantly improved non-contractible quality as measured by mortality rates. It also reduced the cost per resident …