We estimate a health investment equation, derived from a health capital model that is an extension of the well-known Grossman model. Of particular interest is whether the health production function has constant returns to scale, as in the standard Grossman model, or decreasing returns to scale,...

There is a well-established debate between Heckman sample selection and two-part models in health econometrics, particularly when no obvious exclusion restrictions are available. Most of this debate has focussed on the application of these models to health care expenditure. This paper revisits...

as absolute levels in explaining the education-health gradient. We show that relative education impacts smoking, when direct utility is relative, or when there is signalling in the labour market. We use data from the "Enquête sur les Conditions de Vie des Ménages 2001" and a major reform of...

This paper addresses the extent to which there is an intergenerational transmission of mental health and subjective well-being within families. Specifically it asks whether parents' own mental distress influences their child's life satisfaction, and vice versa. Whilst the evidence on daily...

We explain the main features of the results of the four-country ultimatum bargaining experiments of Roth, Prasnikar, Okuno-Fujiwara, and Zamir (1991) by a social utility model. The specification of social utility of a player has two parts: a linear combination of the monetary payoffs of the...

We present and estimate a parametric learning model of players' dynamic and possible out-of-equilibrium beliefs about other players'social preferences using the data from the four-country ultimatum game experiments of Roth et al. (1991). The model allows for each of the three leading factors...

This paper studies how spouses' life satisfaction levels are correlated. Using the British Household Panel Survey, it tests whether the observed positive correlation in life satisfaction is due to assortative mating, shared social environment, or spillover effect of well-being between partners....

This paper investigates formation of expected longevity in an elderly popu- lation. We use Italian data from the early (2004) release of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The SHARE provides a numerical measure for subjective survival probability (SSP). To assess...

The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) is frequently used as a measure of mental well-being with those people with values below a certain threshold regarded as suffering from mental stress. Comparison of mental stress levels across populations may then be sensitive to the chosen threshold. This...

The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) is frequently used as a measure of mental well-being. A consistent pattern across countries is that women report lower levels of mental well-being, as measured by the GHQ. This paper applies decomposition techniques to Irish data for 1994 and 2000 to...