We use an income supplementation experiment we designed in the state of Yucatan in Mexico for residents 70 y and older to evaluate health impacts of additional income. Two cities in the State of Yucatan, Valladolid (treatment) and Motul (control), were selected for the income supplementation experiment. Elderly residents of Valladolid were provided the equivalent of an additional $67 per month,...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To determine whether measures of income and wealth are associated with poor self rated health and GHQ depression. DESIGN Whitehall II study of London based civil servants re-interviewed between 1997-1999; 7162 participants. MAIN RESULTS A twofold age adjusted difference in morbidity was observed between the top and bottom of the personal income hierarchy for both sexes. For ...

Background: The link between poverty and poor health outcomes is well known; more recently there is some evidence that suggests an independent effect of income inequality on health. However this association of income inequality with health appears to be weaker at smaller spatial levels. The paper examines the question whether socioeconomic segregation at the neighbourhood level, which is the sp...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to investigate whether more sickness absence is reported in countries with higher income inequality than elsewhere, and whether the level of income inequality moderates the association between psycho-social job demands and sickness absence. METHODS Our analysis is based on the Fifth European Working Conditions Survey that compared 23 European countries. We...

T he U.S. government subjects corporate dividends to double taxation: It first taxes corporate income, then taxes the same income again when shareholders receive dividends paid out of corporate income. Until 2003, individuals were taxed on dividend income at the same rates as on other forms of income, resulting in overall taxes on dividends much higher than those in most other countries (PriceW...

The old age provisions of the Medicaid program were designed to insure poor retirees against medical expenses. However, it is the rich who are most likely to live long and face expensive medical conditions when very old. We estimate a rich structural model of savings and endogenous medical spending with heterogeneous agents, and use it to compute the distribution of lifetime Medicaid transfers ...

In this paper we characterize, both theoretically and quantiatively, the optimal mix of progressive income taxes and education subsidies in a model with endogeous human capital formation, borrowing constraints and income risk.

The last twenty years have seen a rapid growth in the expansion of consumer credit. Figures for the U.K, for example, show that in 1988 consumer credit represented just 50% of national income, compared with 70% in 2001. This paper looks at some of the issues that now need addressing following this expansion in credit, particularly how it may have affected families on low incomes. 1 Experian Cen...