Much of the theoretical literature on inequality assumes that the equalisand is a cardinal variable like income or wealth. However, health status is generally measured as a categorical variable expressing a qualitative order. Traditional solutions involve reclassifying the variable by means of...

The measurement of health inequalities usually involves either estimating the concentration of health outcomes using an income-based measure of status or applying conventional inequalitymeasurement tools to a health variable that is non-continuous or, in many cases, categorical. However, these...

The health status of people is a precious commodity and central to economic, socio-political, and environmental dimensions of any country. Yet it is often the missing statistic in all general statistics, demographics, and presentations about the portrait of immigrants and natives. In this paper...

We investigate the evolution of global welfare in two dimensions: income per capita and life expectancy. First, we estimate the marginal distributions of income and life expectancy separately. More importantly, in contrast to previous univariate approaches, we consider income and life expectancy...

In this paper, we examine the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on individual aging and longevity with special focus on socioeconomic disparities in health outcomes. We also explore the individual-specific effects of Long Covid. We develop and calibrate a health economic model based on principles...

Natural disasters have been a major cause of human suffering. Countries with higher income, lower inequality, lower corruption, and more democratic regimes have been found to experience less casualties from disasters. Government repression, however, could also play a role in disaster...

We examine the economic and social determinants of suicide mortality in a panel of 25 OECD countries over the period 1970 - 2011 and explicitly analyze the effects of unemployment and labor market institutions on suicide rates. In line with a large body of literature our results suggest that...

This paper evaluates whether the level of public corruption influences COVID-19 case fatality rates. Using cross-section data, including 64 countries and multiple regression techniques, we find that the level of corruption is positively and significantly associated with COVID-19 human costs....

Mortality and economic contraction during the 1918-1920 Great Influenza Epidemic provide plausible upper bounds for outcomes under the coronavirus (COVID-19). Data for 43 countries imply flu-related deaths in 1918-1920 of 39 million, 2.0 percent of world population, implying 150 million deaths...

Using data from late 19th and early 20th century US prisons, this study estimates the basal metabolic rates and calories for Americans of European descent. Throughout the 19th century, white basal metabolic rates (BMRs) and calories declined across their respective distributions, and much of the...