IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reecon/v75y2021i3p203-214.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Health and Earnings: a General Equilibrium Evaluation

Author

Listed:
  • Antunes, António
  • Ercolani, Valerio

Abstract

We study the economic impact of changes in health focusing on one specific transmission channel: earnings. We develop a general equilibrium model where earnings are affected by health status and shocks, and workers may influence the level of their health status through investment. After calibrating the model for the U.S., we perform two sets of exercises. First, we simulate the occurrence of a large and transitory health shock that has the characteristics of one of the worst health catastrophes in modern times, the 1918 influenza pandemic. We estimate that efficient labor drops on impact by more than 4%, inducing a fall of approximately 30 basis points in the return to assets and a moderate increase in the wage rate. The implied output loss amounts to roughly 3%. These effects—especially on prices and consumption—are persistent. Second, we do a comparative steady-state analysis in order to measure the effects of permanent changes in health resulting from policy changes. We show that omitting general equilibrium effects (e.g., prices effects) produces a bias in measuring the impact of health risks’ changes.

Suggested Citation

  • Antunes, António & Ercolani, Valerio, 2021. "Health and Earnings: a General Equilibrium Evaluation," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 203-214.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reecon:v:75:y:2021:i:3:p:203-214
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rie.2021.05.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090944321000181
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rie.2021.05.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angus Deaton, 2003. "Health, Inequality, and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 113-158, March.
    2. Anne Case & Angus S. Deaton, 2005. "Broken Down by Work and Sex: How Our Health Declines," NBER Chapters, in: Analyses in the Economics of Aging, pages 185-212, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Mariacristina De Nardi & Eric French & John B. Jones, 2010. "Why Do the Elderly Save? The Role of Medical Expenses," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(1), pages 39-75, February.
    4. Jeske, Karsten & Kitao, Sagiri, 2009. "U.S. tax policy and health insurance demand: Can a regressive policy improve welfare?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 210-221, March.
    5. Amy Finkelstein & Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2013. "What Good Is Wealth Without Health? The Effect Of Health On The Marginal Utility Of Consumption," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11, pages 221-258, January.
    6. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3309-3416 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 659-684.
    8. Jonathan Heathcote & Kjetil Storesletten & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "The Macroeconomic Implications of Rising Wage Inequality in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(4), pages 681-722, August.
    9. Svetlana Pashchenko & Ponpoje Porapakkarm, 2013. "Quantitative Analysis of Health Insurance Reform: Separating Regulation from Redistribution," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(3), pages 383-404, July.
    10. Dirk Krueger & Fabrizio Perri, 2005. "Understanding Consumption Smoothing: Evidence from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Data," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 340-349, 04/05.
    11. John Karl Scholz & Ananth Seshadri, 2010. "Health and Wealth in a Life Cycle Model," Working Papers wp224, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    12. Huggett, Mark, 1993. "The risk-free rate in heterogeneous-agent incomplete-insurance economies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 17(5-6), pages 953-969.
    13. Thomas A. Garrett, 2008. "Pandemic economics: the 1918 influenza and its modern-day implications," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 90(Mar), pages 74-94.
    14. Currie, Janet & Madrian, Brigitte C., 1999. "Health, health insurance and the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 50, pages 3309-3416, Elsevier.
    15. Svetlana Pashchenko & Ponpoje Porapakkarm, 2013. "Quantitative Analysis of Health Insurance Reform: Separating Regulation from Redistribution," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(3), pages 383-404, July.
    16. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    17. Orazio Attanasio & Sagiri Kitao & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "Financing Medicare: A General Equilibrium Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Demography and the Economy, pages 333-366, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. David A. Wise, 2005. "Analyses in the Economics of Aging," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number wise05-1.
    19. Greg Kaplan & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "How Much Consumption Insurance beyond Self-Insurance?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 53-87, October.
    20. Brainerd, Elizabeth & Siegler, Mark V, 2003. "The Economic Effects of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic," CEPR Discussion Papers 3791, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Michael G. Palumbo, 1999. "Uncertain Medical Expenses and Precautionary Saving Near the End of the Life Cycle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(2), pages 395-421.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jang, Youngsoo, 2019. "Credit, Default, and Optimal Health Insurance," MPRA Paper 95705, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Reona Hagiwara, 2022. "Welfare Effects of Health Insurance Reform: The Role of Elastic Medical Demand," IMES Discussion Paper Series 22-E-05, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    3. Jung, Juergen & Tran, Chung & Chambers, Matthew, 2017. "Aging and health financing in the U.S.: A general equilibrium analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 428-462.
    4. Jung, Juergen & Tran, Chung, 2022. "Social health insurance: A quantitative exploration," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    5. FUKAI Taiyo & ICHIMURA Hidehiko & KANAZAWA Kyogo, 2018. "Quantifying Health Shocks over the Life Cycle," Discussion papers 18014, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    6. Mariacristina De Nardi & Eric French & John Bailey Jones, 2016. "Savings After Retirement: A Survey," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 177-204, October.
    7. Pelgrin, Florian & St-Amour, Pascal, 2016. "Life cycle responses to health insurance status," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 76-96.
    8. Juergen Jung, 2022. "Estimating transition probabilities between health states using US longitudinal survey data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 901-943, August.
    9. Juergen Jung & Chung Tran, 2016. "Market Inefficiency, Insurance Mandate and Welfare: U.S. Health Care Reform 2010," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 20, pages 132-159, April.
    10. Fehr, Hans & Feldman, Maria, 2024. "Financing universal health care: Premiums or payroll taxes?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    11. Ferreira, Pedro Cavalcanti & Gomes, Diego B.P., 2017. "Health care reform or more affordable health care?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 126-153.
    12. Youngsoo Jang, 2023. "Credit, Default, And Optimal Health Insurance," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 64(3), pages 943-977, August.
    13. Juergen Jung & Chung Tran, 2008. "The Macroeconomics of Health Savings Accounts," CAEPR Working Papers 2007-023, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington.
    14. Conesa, Juan Carlos & Costa, Daniela & Kamali, Parisa & Kehoe, Timothy J. & Nygard, Vegard M. & Raveendranathan, Gajendran & Saxena, Akshar, 2018. "Macroeconomic effects of Medicare," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 11(C), pages 27-40.
    15. Svetlana Pashchenko & Ponpoje Porapakkarm, 2016. "Cross-Subsidization in Employer-Based Health Insurance and the Effects of Tax Subsidy Reform," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 69(3), pages 583-612, September.
    16. Jeske, Karsten & Kitao, Sagiri, 2009. "U.S. tax policy and health insurance demand: Can a regressive policy improve welfare?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 210-221, March.
    17. Svetlana Pashchenko & Ponpoje Porapakkarm, 2013. "Quantitative Analysis of Health Insurance Reform: Separating Regulation from Redistribution," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(3), pages 383-404, July.
    18. Julien Hugonnier & Florian Pelgrin & Pascal St‐Amour, 2020. "Closing down the shop: Optimal health and wealth dynamics near the end of life," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 138-153, February.
    19. Hansen, Gary D. & Hsu, Minchung & Lee, Junsang, 2014. "Health insurance reform: The impact of a Medicare buy-in," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 315-329.
    20. Minchung Hsu & Tomoaki Yamada, 2019. "Population Aging, Health Care, and Fiscal Policy Reform: The Challenges for Japan," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(2), pages 547-577, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health shocks; Health risk; Earnings; Endogenous health; General equilibrium effects; 1918 Spanish flu;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:reecon:v:75:y:2021:i:3:p:203-214. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622941 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.