Quantifying the mortality impact of the 1935 old-age assistance
Fecha
2022Versión
Acceso abierto / Sarbide irekia
Tipo
Artículo / Artikulua
Versión
Versión publicada / Argitaratu den bertsioa
Impacto
|
10.1093/ereh/heab001
Resumen
In 1935, the United States introduced the old-age assistance (OAA) program, a means-tested program to help the elderly poor. The OAA improved retirement conditions and aimed to enable older persons to live independently. We use the transition from early elderly plans to OAA and the large differences in payments and eligibility across states to show that OAA reduced mortality by between 30 and 39 ...
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In 1935, the United States introduced the old-age assistance (OAA) program, a means-tested program to help the elderly poor. The OAA improved retirement conditions and aimed to enable older persons to live independently. We use the transition from early elderly plans to OAA and the large differences in payments and eligibility across states to show that OAA reduced mortality by between 30 and 39 percent among those older than 65 years. This finding, based on an event study design, is robust to a range of specifications, a range of fixed effects, placebo tests, and a border-pair policy discontinuity design using county-level data. The largest mortality reductions came from drops in communicable and infectious diseases, such as influenza and nephritis, and mostly affected white citizens. [--]
Materias
Old-age assistance (OAA),
Elderly poor,
Mortality
Editor
Oxford
Publicado en
European Review Of Economic History, 2022, 26 (1), pp. 62-77
Departamento
Universidad Pública de Navarra. Departamento de Economía /
Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa. Ekonomia Saila
Versión del editor
Entidades Financiadoras
DS is funded by a Wellcome Trust and European Research Council Investigator Award (ERC HRES 313590).