The Impact of Health on Wealth: Empirical Evidence

This paper empirically evaluates the impact of health on wealth. Using frailty index as a measure and carefully accounting for dynamic relationship between wealth, I find that su˙ering one more deficit leads, average, to 2.45 percent decline in household net worth individuals age 50 100. The with no college degree, poor health, over 70 is significantly negatively a˙ected by health. results pass tests instrument validity are consistent across several alternative definitions financial definition average wealth largest, while it smallest when defined include only housing worth.