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Inequality aversion in income, health, and income-related health

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  • Hurley, Jeremiah
  • Mentzakis, Emmanouil
  • Walli-Attaei, Marjan

Abstract

Based on a survey of a sample of the general public, we estimate inequality aversion across income, health, and bivariate income-health. Inequality aversion is domain specific: mean inequality aversion is greater for income than for health, but the underlying distributions of aversion attitudes differ, with a highly bi-modal distribution of inequality-aversion values for health in which nearly half the participants display very low aversion and nearly half display very high aversion. Aversion to income-related health inequality is greater than that to income or health alone. Consistent with previous literature, we find only weak associations between aversion attitudes and individual characteristics. The magnitude of the estimates implies potentially large gains in welfare from reducing inequality in these domains.

Suggested Citation

  • Hurley, Jeremiah & Mentzakis, Emmanouil & Walli-Attaei, Marjan, 2020. "Inequality aversion in income, health, and income-related health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:70:y:2020:i:c:s0167629619304722
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2019.102276
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    4. Attema, Arthur E. & L'Haridon, Olivier & van de Kuilen, Gijs, 2023. "Decomposing social risk preferences for health and wealth," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    5. Xu, Aiting & Qiu, Keyang & Jin, Canyang & Cheng, Caijuan & Zhu, Yuhan, 2022. "Regional innovation ability and its inequality: Measurements and dynamic decomposition," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    6. Hongpeng Guo & Yang Yang & Chulin Pan & Shuang Xu & Nan Yan & Qingyong Lei, 2022. "Study on the Impact of Income Gap on Health Level of Rural Residents in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-17, June.
    7. McNamara, Simon & Tsuchiya, Aki & Holmes, John, 2021. "Does the UK-public's aversion to inequalities in health differ by group-labelling and health-gain type? A choice-experiment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inequality aversion; Income inequality; Health inequality; Social preferences; Empirical social choice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

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