We investigate age-specific mortality in Britain and the United States since 1950. Neither trends in income nor in … patterns of mortality decline. Patterns of income inequality were similar in both countries, but adult and elderly mortality … rates declined most rapidly during the period when inequality increased. Changes in the rate of mortality decline in the US …

deprivation. I review the evidence on the effects of income inequality on the rate of decline of mortality over time, on … geographical pattens of mortality, and on individual-level mortality. Much of the literature needs to be treated skeptically, if …

I present a model of mortality and income that integrates the 'gradient,' the negative relationship between income and … mortality, with the Wilkinson hypothesis, that income inequality poses a risk to health. Individual health is negatively … reference groups, which may be as large as whole populations, mortality declines with income, but at a decreasing rate; the …

' arises from differences in mortality risk, marital status, risk aversion, and the presence of pre-existing annuities such as …

cyclical increases in income may raise mortality, even when the long-run effects of income are in the opposite direction. There … is no evidence that recent increases in inequality raised mortality beyond what it would otherwise have been …

The future course of old-age mortality is of great importance to public sector expenditures in countries where old …-age programs account for large fractions of the public budget. This paper argues that the competitive market prices of mortality … mortality implicit in the market prices of such claims by identifying survival functions from prices of contracts that differ in …