Inequality aversion in income, health, and income-related health

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Health Economics
Year: 2020
Volume: 70
Issue: C

Authors (3)

Hurley, Jeremiah (not in RePEc) Mentzakis, Emmanouil (City University) Walli-Attaei, Marjan (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

0.670 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Based on a survey of a sample of the general public, we estimate inequality aversion across income, health, and bivariate income-health. Inequality aversion is domain specific: mean inequality aversion is greater for income than for health, but the underlying distributions of aversion attitudes differ, with a highly bi-modal distribution of inequality-aversion values for health in which nearly half the participants display very low aversion and nearly half display very high aversion. Aversion to income-related health inequality is greater than that to income or health alone. Consistent with previous literature, we find only weak associations between aversion attitudes and individual characteristics. The magnitude of the estimates implies potentially large gains in welfare from reducing inequality in these domains.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:jhecon:v:70:y:2020:i:c:s0167629619304722
Journal Field
Health
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-26