Efficiency of Health Investment: Education or Intelligence?

B-Tier
Journal: Health Economics
Year: 2016
Volume: 25
Issue: 9
Pages: 1056-1072

Authors (2)

Govert e. Bijwaard (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) Hans Van Kippersluis (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

1.005 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

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

Abstract

In this paper, we hypothesize that education is associated with a higher efficiency of health investment, yet that this efficiency advantage is solely driven by intelligence. We operationalize efficiency of health investment as the probability of dying conditional on a certain hospital diagnosis and estimate a multistate structural equation model with three states: (i) healthy, (ii) hospitalized, and (iii) death. We use data from a Dutch cohort born around 1940 that links intelligence tests at age 12 years to later‐life hospitalization and mortality records. The results indicate that intelligent individuals have a clear survival advantage for most hospital diagnoses, while the remaining disparities across education groups are small and not statistically significant. © 2016 The Authors. Health Economics Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:wly:hlthec:v:25:y:2016:i:9:p:1056-1072
Journal Field
Health
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-24