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Trust me, you will be in better health

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  • Rocco, Lorenzo

Abstract

Along the pathway traced by few recent contributions that attempt to identify the causal effect of social capital on health, this paper analyzes whether individual social capital reduces the probability of experiencing 11 long-lasting and chronic diseases. The empirical problems related to reverse causation and unobserved heterogeneity are addressed by means of a procedure that exploits the within-individual variation between the timings of first occurrence of the 11 diseases considered. Estimates indicate that the probability of occurrence is on average 14 to 18 percent lower among individuals reporting to “trust most of the other people”. This result is robust to two alternative specifications as well as the inclusion or omission of individual controls.

Suggested Citation

  • Rocco, Lorenzo, 2014. "Trust me, you will be in better health," MPRA Paper 91657, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:91657
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    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/91657/1/MPRA_paper_91657.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Liu, Gordon G. & Xue, Xindong & Yu, Chenxi & Wang, Yafeng, 2016. "How does social capital matter to the health status of older adults? Evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 177-189.
    3. De Luca, Giacomo Davide & Lin, Xi, 2024. "The role of health and health systems in promoting social capital, political participation and peace: A narrative review," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    4. Zihan Yang & Xu Cai & Yujia Jiang & Guobiao Li & Guojing Zhao & Peng Wang & Zhaoxin Huang, 2022. "What Are the Recipes of an Entrepreneur’s Subjective Well-Being? A Fuzzy-Set Approach for China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-19, December.
    5. Hollard, Guillaume & Sene, Omar, 2016. "Social capital and access to primary health care in developing countries: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-11.
    6. Mewes, Jan & Giordano, Giuseppe Nicola, 2017. "Self-rated health, generalized trust, and the Affordable Care Act: A US panel study, 2006–2014," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 48-56.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    social capital; health; chronic disease; reverse causation; unobserved heterogeneity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

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