There is an ambiguity in Amartya Sen's capability approach as to what constitutes an in-dividual's resources, conversion factors and valuable functionings. What we here call the\circularity problem" points to the fact that all three concepts seem to be mutually en-dogenous and interrelated. All...

Using data for six OECD countries, this paper studies the effect of macroeconomic conditions on the mortality index kt in the well-known Lee-Carter model. Significant correlations are found with real GDP growth rates in Australia, Canada, and the United States, and with unemployment rate changes...

Subjective well-being is a complex phenomenon coevolving with events in important do-mains of life. Panel vector autoregressions are a suitable tool to analyze the underlyingstructure of changes in happiness and its coevolution with changes in income, health, wor-ries, marital status and...

Gaps in welfare attainment between boys and girls in China have attractedinternational attention. In this paper demand analysis is used to try and uncoverthe factors which may be driving the emergence of these gender gaps.Drawing on household expenditure data from a poor (Sichuan) and rich...

The paper provides a methodology which is suitable for the analysis of the socialcost of disease and the benefits and cost of health intervention by integrating public healthanalysis and economics. The approach developed in the paper is applied to food-bornediarrhea in Rwanda. The results...

Richer and healthier agents tend to hold riskier portfolios and spend proportionallyless on health expenditures. Potential explanations include health and wealth eects onpreferences, expected longevity or disposable total wealth. Using HRS data, we perform astructural estimation of a dynamic...

We estimate the magnitude of social interaction effects in disability pension participation amongolder workers in Norway. The problem of omitted variable bias is addressed using neighbors’exposure to plant downsizing events as an instrument for the disability entry rate among one’spreviously...

We examine the relationship between common sources of airborne pollution and population mortality in present day England. The current air quality limit values are low by both historical and international standards, and these are set at levels which are believed not to be harmful to health. We...

There is emerging evidence to suggest that initial differentials between thehealth of poor and more affluent children in the UK do not widen over earlychildhood. One reason may be that through the universal public funded healthcare system all children have access to equally effective primary...

Policymakers have been puzzled to observe that food stamp households appear more likely tobe food insecure than observationally similar eligible nonparticipating households. We reexamine this issueallowing for nonclassical reporting errors in food stamp participation and food insecurity....