Room: Phillips 219
Time: Mon 08:30 AM-10:00 AM

Health Econometrics I

Chair: Willard Manning (University of Chicago)

Session Description

This session is one of three sessions on econometric methodology issues in health economics and health policy. The papers deal with issues that are often acknowledged, but rarely well addressed. Each of the issues addressed can have major implications for either bias in estimation or in a substantial loss of precision.
The first paper addresses potential misclassification and error in data from cross-sectional surveys that provide data on individual histories. The context is smoking behavior, especially initiation and cessation, and the tendency to report levels in round numbers (“heaping).. Alternative approaches are identified and compared
The second paper addresses the relationship between variations in mortality and the business cycle. The evidence from assorted methods (panel methods versus time series) are mixed. This paper uses an alternative approach: time-series data for the U.S. on mortality rates and measures of economic conditions to examine the procyclicality of mortality using a Bayesian time-varying parameter vector autoregression (TVP-VAR) with and without stochastic volatility.
The third paper addresses issues of inequality in health to go beyond socioeconomic and family circumstances as sources of inequality in health to include lifestyles (smoking, exercise and obesity). A structural model is proposed and to disentangle causal effects of lifestyles and health shocks. These are estimated using survey and hospital records in the Netherlands.

Key Terms smoking, mortality, obesity

Session Organizer: Willard Manning (University of Chicago)

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Presentations

1. Errors in retrospective data on smoking: Comparing maximum likelihood and ad hoc approaches

   Presenter: Joseph LeCates (Cornell University)

   Discussant: John Mullahy (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

2. Inequality of opportunity in health in the Netherlands: contributions of choices and opportunities regarding lifestyles

   Presenter: Edward Norton (University of Michigan)

   Discussant: Omar Galárraga (National Institute of Public Health, Mexico)