The Evolution of Elderly Health in Taiwan: Static Characteristics versus Dynamic Shocks
2011/08/30
研討會日期 : 2011-08-30
時間 : 14:30
主講人 : Professor Te-Fen Lo
地點 : Conference Room B110
演講者簡介 : Te-Fen Lo got her Ph.D. in Economics from Michigan State University in 2000. She is currently serving as Associate Professor of Economics at National Dong Hwa University. Her research field is in applied econometrics, labor economics, macroeconomics, and education economics.
演講摘要 : A considerable number of studies have sought to examine the determinants of elderly health. Nevertheless, few of them incorporate a life-course perspective to analyze the dynamics of transition for both health conditions and their predictors. We utilize a nationally representative longitudinal data set of the elderly in Taiwan and employ discrete-time duration models to investigate the determinants of annual mortality over a nearly twenty-year period. Based on Grossman’s model of the demand for health, we place particular emphasis on the inherently dynamic character of the model. Our results confirm the existence of downward bias if they fail to take into account the evolution of time-varying covariates. Overall, our estimation results are consistent with the predictions of the health investment model. Specifically, we find strong beneficial effects of implementing a national health insurance program on reducing elderly mortality. The magnitude of this policy effect is roughly equal to the effect of changing a person’s smoking status from current smoker to non-smoker. In addition, we find that marriage helps to prolong the length of life for the elderly, but by contrast income does not have a strong effect on longevity. After controlling for the initial stock of health capital and unobserved individual heterogeneity, the favorable effect of education on the survival rate evaporates.
