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Title: Wealth is Health: Pensions and Disease Onset in the Gilded Age

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2010

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Abstract: How did increases in individual income contribute to improvements in adult health during the late 19th and early 20th century? To disentangle the effect of income as opposed to medical advancements or public health interventions, I use exogenous variation in income from the first wide-scale entitlement program in the U.S. the Union Army pensions. Documenting that Republican Congressional candidates boosted veterans pensions in order to secure votes, I exploit exogenous increases in income stemming from Republican corruption to estimate income effects on morbidity and mortality. The effects of income on disease onset are large - an extra $1 of monthly pension income, a 9% average real income increase, lowered the probability of infectious disease onset by 38%. In addition, I find that an extra $1 of monthly income lowers the crude death rate by .008. I find the largest income effects for infectious illnesses, smaller effects for respiratory and digestive illnesses, and no effect for the onset of most endocrine diseases. Results shape our understanding of the U.S. mortality transition and inform todays debates on the health benefits of cash transfers to adults in regions with wide SES gradients in health, as was the case in the U.S. a century ago.

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Authors: Eli, Shari

Conference Name: Population Association of America

Publisher Location: Washington, D.C.

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Health, Other

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