IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/inn/wpaper/2010-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Health Status Convergence at the Local Level: Empirical Evidence from Austria

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Gächter
  • Engelbert Theurl

Abstract

Health is an important dimension of welfare comparisons across individuals, regions or states. In the following paper we focus on the question whether the health status between geographical subunits (local communities) converged/diverged in the time period 1969 - 2004 in Austria. We use age standardized mortality rates as indicators for the health status and analyze the convergence/divergence of overall mortality for (i) the whole population, (ii) females, (iii) males and (iv) the gender gap in overall mortality. Convergence/Divergence is studied by applying different concepts of cross-regional inequality (weighted standard deviation, coefficient of variation, Theil-Coefficient of inequality). Various econometric techniques (weighted OLS, Quantile Regression, Kendall's Rank Concordance) are used to test for absolute and conditional beta-convergence in mortality. We find mixed results for the applied inequality measures. Absolute and conditional beta-convergence are confirmed, both in weighted OLS as well as in Quantile Regression estimations, but we also find strong evidence for the existence of convergence clubs in mortality in Austria.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Gächter & Engelbert Theurl, 2010. "Health Status Convergence at the Local Level: Empirical Evidence from Austria," Working Papers 2010-23, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck, revised Mar 2011.
    • Handle: RePEc:inn:wpaper:2010-23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.uibk.ac.at/downloads/c4041030/wpaper/2010-23.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xavier X. Sala-i-Martin, 1997. "I Just Ran Four Million Regressions," NBER Working Papers 6252, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1997. "I Just Ran Two Million Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 178-183, May.
    3. Andrea Leiter & Gerald Pruckner, 2009. "Proportionality of Willingness to Pay to Small Changes in Risk: The Impact of Attitudinal Factors in Scope Tests," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 42(2), pages 169-186, February.
    4. David Mayer-Foulkes, 2001. "Convergence Clubs in Cross-Country Life Expectancy Dynamics," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2001-134, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Francesco Feri & Bernd Irlenbusch & Matthias Sutter, 2010. "Efficiency Gains from Team-Based Coordination—Large-Scale Experimental Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1892-1912, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lukas Schrott & Martin Gaechter & Engelbert Theurl, 2015. "Regional Development in Advanced Countries: A Within-country Application of the Human Development Index for Austria," DANUBE: Law and Economics Review, European Association Comenius - EACO, issue 1, pages 1-23, March.
    2. Brijesh C. Purohit, 2015. "Health Policy, Inequity and Convergence in India," Working Papers id:7155, eSocialSciences.
    3. José Villaverde & Adolfo Maza & María Hierro, 2014. "Health care expenditure disparities in the European Union and underlying factors: a distribution dynamics approach," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 251-268, September.
    4. Fanny Janssen & Leo van Wissen & Joop de Beer & Anthe van den Hende, 2016. "Sigma and beta convergence in regional mortality: A case study of the Netherlands," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 35(4), pages 81-116.
    5. Florian Bonnet & Hippolyte d'Albis, 2020. "Spatial Inequality in Mortality in France over the Past Two Centuries," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 46(1), pages 145-168, March.
    6. Haan, Peter & Hammerschmid, Anna & Schmieder, Julia, 2019. "Mortality in midlife for subgroups in Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 14.
    7. Brijesh C. Purohit, 2012. "Health Policy, Inequity and Convergence in India," Working Papers 2012-074, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.
    8. Luca Maria Pesando & GFC team, 2019. "Global Family Change: Persistent Diversity with Development," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 45(1), pages 133-168, March.
    9. Sulekha Hembram & Sushil Kr. Haldar, 2020. "Is India experiencing health convergence? An empirical analysis," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 53(4), pages 591-618, November.
    10. Jenny Garcia, 2020. "Urban–rural differentials in Latin American infant mortality," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 42(8), pages 203-244.
    11. Mukhopadhyay, Debabrata, 2015. "Regional disparities in health outcome indicators : A study across Indian states," MPRA Paper 66239, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Kuropka Ireneusz & Krupowicz Joanna, 2021. "Spatial convergence of mortality in Poland," Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, Sciendo, vol. 54(54), pages 7-20, December.
    13. Cavalieri, Marina & Ferrante, Livio, 2020. "Convergence, decentralization and spatial effects: An analysis of Italian regional health outcomes," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 164-173.
    14. Rok Hrzic & Tobias Vogt & Helmut Brand & Fanny Janssen, 2021. "The Short-Term Effects of European Integration on Mortality Convergence: A Case Study of European Union’s 2004 Enlargement," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(4), pages 909-931, November.

    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. Martin Gächter & Engelbert Theurl, 2010. "Convergence of the Health Status at the Local Level: Empirical Evidence from Austria," NRN working papers 2010-09, The Austrian Center for Labor Economics and the Analysis of the Welfare State, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    2. Wolfgang Brunauer & Stefan Lang & Nikolaus Umlauf, 2010. "Modeling House Prices using Multilevel Structured Additive Regression," Working Papers 2010-19, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    3. Mothuti Gosego & Phiri Andrew, 2018. "Inflation-Growth Nexus in Botswana: Can Lower Inflation Really Spur Growth in the Country?," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 18(4), pages 1-11, December.
    4. Vikram Nehru, 2013. "Manufacturing in India and Indonesia: performance and policies," Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(1), pages 35-60, April.
    5. Pal Sudeshna, 2011. "Media Freedom and Socio-Political Instability," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 17(1), pages 1-23, March.
    6. Carmen Fernandez & Eduardo Ley & Mark F. J. Steel, 2001. "Model uncertainty in cross-country growth regressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(5), pages 563-576.
    7. Magdalena Florek & Jakub Gazda, 2021. "Traditional Food Products—Between Place Marketing, Economic Importance and Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-14, January.
    8. Adrian Penalver, 2003. "Capital flows to emerging markets," Bank of England working papers 183, Bank of England.
    9. de Haan, Jakob & Sturm, Jan-Egbert, 2000. "On the relationship between economic freedom and economic growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 215-241, June.
    10. Axel Dreher, 2002. "Does Globalization Affect Growth?," Development and Comp Systems 0210004, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 16 Jun 2003.
    11. Salem Kanoun, 2012. "Linkages Between Fiscal Debt Sustainability, Growth And Poverty: An Application To Tunisia," Book Chapters, in: João Sousa Andrade & Marta C. N. Simões & Ivan Stosic & Dejan Eric & Hasan Hanic (ed.), Managing Structural Changes - Trends and Requirements, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 214-249, Institute of Economic Sciences.
    12. Altinok, Nadir & Aydemir, Abdurrahman, 2017. "Does one size fit all? The impact of cognitive skills on economic growth," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 176-190.
    13. C. Alper & S. Cakici, 2009. "Financial Liberalization, Fiscal Prudence and Growth: Panel Evidence from 1980–2003," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 509-524, September.
    14. J. Benson Durham, 2001. "The effect of monetary policy on monthly and quarterly stock market returns: cross-country evidence and sensitivity analyses," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2001-42, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Jeon, Heesang, 2015. "Knowledge and Contemporary Capitalism in Light of Marx's Value Theory," Thesis Commons g5njk, Center for Open Science.
    16. Barthélémy Biao, 2017. "Analyse des effets de l'instabilité de l'aide publique au développement (APD) sur la croissance économique dans les pays africains," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 29(3), pages 416-428, September.
    17. Arellano, Cristina & Bulír, Ales & Lane, Timothy & Lipschitz, Leslie, 2009. "The dynamic implications of foreign aid and its variability," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 87-102, January.
    18. Folster, Stefan & Henrekson, Magnus, 2001. "Growth effects of government expenditure and taxation in rich countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(8), pages 1501-1520, August.
    19. Cho, Seo-Young & Dreher, Axel & Neumayer, Eric, 2013. "Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 67-82.
    20. Chen, Binkai & Lin, Justin Yifu, 2021. "Development strategy, resource misallocation and economic performance," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 612-634.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    mortality; convergence; gender; health status; life expectancy; Austria;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:inn:wpaper:2010-23. 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: Judith Courian The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Judith Courian to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fuibkat.html .

    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.