The long-standing inverse relationship between education and mortality strengthened substantially later in the 20th century. This paper examines the reasons for this increase. We show that behavioral risk factors are not of primary importance. Smoking has declined more for the better educated,...

We develop a model of induced innovation where research effort is a function of the death rate, and thus the potential to reduce deaths in the population. We also consider potential social consequences that arise from this form of induced innovation based on differences in disease prevalence...

Reports of pain differ markedly across socioeconomic groups and are correlated with outcomes such as functional limitations and disability insurance receipt. This paper examines the differential experience of pain by education. We focus on knee pain, the most common musculoskeletal complaint....

Mortality has declined continuously in the United States over the course of the 20th century, and at relatively constant rates. But the constancy of mortality reductions masks significant heterogeneity by age, cause, and source. Using historical data on death by age and cause, this paper...

We evaluate the costs and benefits of increased medical spending for low birth weight infants. Lifetime spending on low birth weight babies increased by roughly $40,000 per birth between 1950 and 1990. The health improvements resulting from this have been substantial. Infant mortality rates fell...

In this paper, we examine the growth in medical care spending by age over the past 40 years. We show that between 1953 and 1987, medical spending increased disproportionately for infants, those under 1 year, and the elderly, those 65 and older. Annual spending growth for infants was 9.8 percent...

In the last two decades, Medicare spending has doubled in real terms despite the fact that the health of Medicare beneficiaries improved over this period. The goals of this paper are to document how trends in spending by age have changed among elderly Medicare beneficiaries in the last decade...

The hospital industry is one of the most important industries in the U.S., and industry structure can have profound effects on the functioning of markets. Using county-level panel data, we study the effect of public subsidies from the Hospital Survey and Construction Act of 1946, known as the...

Unlike demand studies in other industries, models of provider demand in health care often must omit a price or any other factor that equilibrates the market. Estimates of the consumer response to quality may consequently be attenuated, if the limited capacity of individual providers prevents...

We develop a flexible test for changes in the SES-mortality gradient over time that directly accounts for changes in the distribution of education, the most commonly used marker of SES. We implement the test for the period between 1984 and 2006 using microdata from the Census, CPS, and NHIS...