Past Seminars

Geography and Racial Differences in Health Outcomes among the Elderly U.S. Population

Jonathan S. Skinner - Dartmouth College - Joint work with Weiping Zhou, and Amitabh Chandra
Date: Monday, April 30 , 2007
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: There is an ongoing debate about why health outcomes for African-Americans are so much worse than for other racial or ethnic groups. Skinner et al. explore patterns of geographic and racial disparities in mortality rates using the 100 percent sample of Medicare enrollees over the age 65 in 2004 (N = 42 million). Skinner et al. consider a variety of competing (or complementary) factors that can potentially explain the patterns Skinner et al. observe, including early-life factors, access to health care, current income, environmental, socioeconomic, and neighborhood effects at the zip-code level. Based on these and other evidence, their results point to a large and highly significant elevated risk of mortality for the elderly African-American population that is both consistent across nearly every region in the U.S., and that does not appear to be explained by conventional factors.

The Economics of Treatment Disparities in Healthcare: Evidence from the Treatment of Heart-Attacks (PPT)

Amitabh Chandra - Harvard JFK School of Government and NBER
Date: Monday, April 23 , 2007
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: A large literature in medicine documents substantial racial and gender disparities in healthcare, and attributes their presence to provider discrimination. Chandra uses simple economic insights to characterize two competing views of physician behavior— under prejudicial behavior, physician use a higher benefit hurdle before providing care to members of minority groups; minority members should therefore have higher returns from being treated. Under statistical-discrimination, race and gender are markers for the benefit from treatment; average returns are lower for minority members. The two models generate different testable implications that we examine using data on heart-attack treatments from the Cooperative Cardiovascular Project (CCP). Chandra rejects the model of prejudicial behavior by providers.

Annamaria Lusardi - Dartmouth College and NBER, Joint work with Maarten van Rooij, Dutch Central Bank and Rob Alessie, Utrecht School of Economics
Date: Monday, April 9 , 2007
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: As individuals become responsible for their financial security after retirement and the supply of complex financial products increases, financial knowledge and skills are becoming more and more important. To better understand financial literacy and its relation to financial decision-making, Lusardi and colleagues have devised two special modules for the DNB Household Survey (DHS). They have devised questions to measure basic knowledge and cognitive abilities related to numeracy and the working of inflation and interest rates, as well as more advanced financial knowledge related to financial market instruments (stocks, bonds, and mutual funds). They assess the importance of financial literacy by studying its relation to the stock market participation. To assess the direction of causality, we make use of questions measuring exposure to financial literacy in school. Lusardi finds that, while the understanding of basic economic concepts related to inflation and interest rate compounding is far from perfect, it outperforms the limited knowledge of stocks and bonds, the concept of interest compounding, and the working of financial markets. We also find that the measurement of financial literacy is quite sensitive to the wording of survey questions. This provides additional evidence for limited financial knowledge. Finally, Lusardi reports evidence of an independent effect of financial literacy on stock market participation; those who have low financial literacy are significantly less likely to invest in stocks.

Tamara Awerbuch-Friedlander and Richard Levins - Harvard School of Public Health (PPT)
Date: Monday, March 12, 2007
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: Awerbuch-Friedlander and Levins studied the intervals between heart beats from sequences of several thousand beats each for 5 young and 5 old participants. One line of research started with the data and looked for descriptive measures that might differentiate young from old hearts. We used familiar descriptive statistics and properties of the trajectories suggested by mathematical analysis of non-linear equations. The old hearts showed somewhat longer mean intervals(slower rates), less variability, lower kurtosis(peakedness), larger autocorrelations between intervals for lags up to ten, longer cycle lengths, and a greater number of troughs above the mean and peaks below the mean in their trajectories. They also showed evidence of weaker influence from earlier states (two or more beats ago). One of the five younger participants differed from the others in the direction of the old for most measures but in the opposite direction for cycle length. The mathematical analysis of non-linear dynamics is developing tools for interpreting changes in the regulation of heart rate with age.

The Economic Lifecycle, Intergenerational Transfers, and the Macroeconomy (PDF) (PPT)

Andrew Mason - University of Hawaii at Manoa
Date: Monday, March 5, 2007
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: The population age structure of virtually every country is changing with important implications for development, wealth, and generational equity. Population age structure is important because children and the elderly are economically dependent - consuming more than they are producing through their current labor. How this lifecycle of dependency interacts with population age structure to influence the economy depends on the social and economic systems by which resources are shifted from the working ages to the dependent ages. The purpose of this seminar is to present results from an international effort to construct a comprehensive system for analyzing the macroeconomic effects of changes in population age structure.

Ryan D. Edwards - Queens College - CUNY
Date: Monday, February 26, 2007
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: Much uncertainty surrounds the length of life. Based on period rates, the standard deviation in the adult age at death in the U.S., S10, has hovered around 15 years since 1960, while the average adult life span, M10 _ e10+10, has increased steadily from about 72 years to 78. In this paper, Edwards shows that for reasonable parameter values, this variance in life span represents a significant cost. He constructs a simple model that shows each standard deviation in life span is currently worth about half a life year. Numerical simulations suggest this estimate is conservative, and they demonstrate that even full annuitization cannot offset the costs of life-span variance. Viewed in this light, differences in S10 and differences in life expectancy are of comparable importance in assessing well-being. An extension is that procyclical fluctuations in mortality, although undeniably costly to some, translate into extremely small increases in S10 and thus barely any real cost.

Ashley Lester - Brown University
Date: Monday, February 12, 2007
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: On almost any measure, health varies widely across countries and is highly correlated with cross-country income differences. The humanitarian benefits of improving health outcomes in developing countries are obvious. It is also sometimes claimed, however, that improving health in developing countries would lead to a substantial convergence in the world income distribution. Bloom and Canning (2005), examining cross-country data, find that variation in health alone is probably about as important in explaining the world income distribution as (non-health related) human capital. Summarizing a variety of recent microeconometric evidence and adding it to a standard model of production, Weil (2005) finds a smaller but still economically significant effect of health on GDP variation among countries. On the other hand, Acemoglu and Johnson (2006), using evidence from a panel of countries that experienced large and plausibly exogenous increases in health in the mid-20th Century, find that improvements in life expectancy had either zero effect on per capita income or a small negative effect. This study investigates the extent to which these different findings can be reconciled. In particular, we investigate the extent to which beneficial microeconomic effects can be offset by short-run effects including capital dilution and increased dependency ratios, or long-run effects such as a reduced per capita supply of land. Our preliminary results suggest that even short-run effects may take around 60 years to stabilize. Since this is a little longer than the time that has elapsed since the health improvements considered by Acemoglu and Johnson, there may be grounds for cautious optimism in coming decades.

Chris Foote - Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Date: Monday, February 5, 2007
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: Donohue and Levitt [2001 QJE] claims that the legalization of abortion in the early 1970s led to the sudden and persistent decline in crime during the 1990s. Foote and colleagues assess this claim by re-running the paper's final test, which is a regression of arrests on abortion exposure of cohorts defined on the state-year-age level. When Foote corrects a computer coding error and transform the dependent variable into per capita terms, compelling evidence in favor of an abortion-crime link disappears. Furthermore, analysis of state-level abortion and crime rates prior to the 1990’s indicates that other tests in the paper may be plagued by omitted variables bias. Finally, Foote suggest a specification defined on the age-year level as a means to address some of these econometric concerns, and show that results generated by this test do not support the Donohue-Levitt hypothesis. Taken together, Foote finds little evidence that abortion reduces the criminal propensities of future cohorts.

Reassessing the Standard of Living in the Soviet Union: An Analysis Using Archival and Anthropometric Data (PDF) (PPT)

Elizabeth Brainerd - Williams College
Date: Monday, January 29, 2007
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: Both Western and Soviet estimates of GNP growth in the USSR indicate that GNP per capita grew in every decade – sometimes rapidly – from 1928 to 1985. While this measure suggests that the standard of living improved in the USSR throughout this period, it is unclear whether this economic growth translated into improved well-being for the population as a whole. This paper uses previously unpublished archival data on infant mortality and anthropometric studies of children conducted across the Soviet Union to reassess the standard of living in the USSR using these alternative measures of well-being. In the prewar period these data indicate a population extremely small in stature and sensitive to the political and economic upheavals visited upon the country by Soviet leaders and outside forces. Remarkably large and rapid improvements in infant mortality, birth weight, child height and adult stature were recorded from approximately 1940 to the late 1960s. While this period of physical growth was followed by stagnation in heights and an increase in adult male mortality, it appears that the Soviet Union avoided the sustained declines in stature that occurred in the United States and United Kingdom during industrialization in those countries.

Malaria in the Americas: A Retrospective Analysis of Childhood Exposure (Presentation) (Paper)

Hoyt Bleakley – University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business
Date: Monday, December 11, 2006
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: This study considers the malaria-eradication campaigns in the United States (circa 1920), and in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico (circa 1955) in order to measure how much childhood exposure to malaria depresses labor productivity. The campaigns began because of advances in health technology, which mitigates concerns about reverse causality. Malarious areas saw large drops in the disease thereafter. Relative to non-malarious areas, cohorts born after eradication had higher income as adults than the preceding generation. These changes coincided with childhood exposure to the campaigns rather than to pre-existing trends.

Race and Health in the Past: Infection and Arteriosclerosis (PPT) (PDF)

Dora Costa – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Monday, December 4, 2006
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: Using data on Union Army veterans Costa shows that black veterans faced higher rates of heart conditions, particularly arteriosclerosis, than white veterans and that infectious disease at different points in the life-cycle predicts arteriosclerosis. Respiratory infections at older ages and rheumatic fever and syphilis at younger ages were statistical predictors of arteriosclerosis. Additional risk factors for arteriosclerosis were being born in the 2nd relative to the 4th quarter and a low BMI. Costa hypothesizes that an environment in which infectious diseases were prevalent and in which poor nutritional status increased susceptibility to infectious disease accounts for the high rates of heart disease observed in 1910 and for black-white differences in heart disease rates.

AIDS, Reversal of the Demographic Transition and Economic Development: Evidence from Africa (PDF) (PPT)

Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan – University of Houston
Date: Monday, November 27, 2006
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: Using a panel of African countries during 1985- 2000, Kalemli-Ozcan shows that HIV/AIDS affects fertility rates positively and enrollment rates negatively. The evidence provides support for models of fertility transition emphasizing the demand for children, highlighting a specific mechanism through which demographic transition affects economic growth. Parents who are faced with high mortality rates for adolescents choose to have more children and provide each of them with less education. The empirical estimates predict that a country with a high level of HIV/AIDS prevalence, such as Congo, have 2 more children per woman and 38 percentage points less school enrollment compared to a country with a low level of HIV/AIDS prevalence, such as Madagascar.

The Effect of Subjective Survival Probabilities on Retirement and Saving (PPT)

Younghwan Song – Union College, Department of Economics
Date: Monday, November 20, 2006
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: Song explores the proposition that expected longevity affects retirement decisions and wealth using micro data drawn from the Health and Retirement Survey for the United States, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. Song and his colleagues use data on a person’s subjective probability of survival to age 75 as a proxy for their prospective lifespan. Their estimates for the US and UK indicate that increased subjective probabilities of survival result in increased household wealth among couples, with no effect on the length of the working life. These findings are consistent with the view that retirement decisions are driven by institutional constraints and incentives and that a longer expected lifespan leads to increased wealth. The SHARE results are less informative, mainly due to small sample sizes.

Abstract: Partisanship is the single strongest predictor of voting behavior, with roughly 90% of self-identified Democrats and Republicans supporting their party's candidate in recent presidential elections. Political science has long found that partisan attachments increase and intensify with age, suggesting that older partisans should be among the most loyal party voters. Yet, President Bush's recent failure to reform Social Security also highlights the extent to which older Americans have strong policy preferences on this issue. This raises an interesting puzzle as to how voters behave when they disagree with their affiliated political party on a salient policy issue. In this project, Hillygus examines the relationship between age, partisanship, policy preferences, and presidential voting.

The Impact of "Rural Mutual Health Care" on Access to Care: Evaluation of a Social Experiment in Rural China (PPT)

Winnie Yip – Harvard School of Public Health
Date: Monday, November 6, 2006
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: The hypothesis tested in this study was that the “traditional build” is the culturally valued body shape by Ghanaian women. Culturally sensitive figural stimuli were designed to assess the current body image and the ideal body image of Ghanaian women.

The Influence of Medicare Home Health Payment Incentives: Does Payer Source Matter? (PDF) (PPT)

David Grabowski – Harvard Medical School
Date: Monday, October 2, 2006
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Abstract: During the late 1990s, an interim payment system (IPS) was instituted to constrain Medicare home health care expenditures. Previ

ous research has largely focused on the implications of the IPS for Medicare patients, but our study broadens the analysis to consider patients with other payer sources. Using the National Home and Hospice Care Survey, we found similar effects of the IPS across payer types. Specifically, the IPS was associated with a decrease in care for the sickest patients, less agency assistance with activities of daily living, and shorter length-of-use. However, these changes did not translate into worse discharge outcomes.

“Global Demographic Change, Policy Responses and Their Economic Implications” (PDF) (PPT)

Rod Tyers – Australian National University, School of Economics
Date: Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.
Location: 104 Mount Auburn Street, 3rd Floor | Cambridge

Abstract: The fertility declines associated with the final phase of the global demographic transition have led to accelerated ageing of populations in developed countries and in several advanced developing countries. In his paper, Tyers uses a global demographic model from which emerge the implications of these changes for population sizes, age distributions and gender compositions. Associated changes are inferred in labour force size, and in patterns of consumption and saving, which are then analysed using a correspondingly dynamic global economic model with regional households disaggregated by age group and gender. A base-line projection is constructed through 2030 and, to highlight the impacts of ageing within this base-line, it is compared with a counterfactual scenario in which all regional populations continue to grow at 1997 rates and age distributions remain constant. Compared with this uniform population growth scenario, the effects of ageing include reduced labour supplies and, in the industrial regions, reduced saving. Because population growth slows and saving rates increase in developing regions, however, there is no tightening of global capital markets and rates of return maintain slight downward trends. Aged dependency increases in all regions. One solution to the problems associated with it is delayed retirement. This is found to redistribute investment in favour of regions with already substantial aged populations, and hence to accelerate their per capita income growth, while conferring on the other regions a compensatory terms of trade improvement. The alternative of replacement migration is found to impair real per capita growth in destination regions but by least in Western Europe, where it results in an improvement in the terms of trade.

Multi-alter Bereavement Effects: Consequences of Family-Member Loss for Survivors' Health (PPT)

Kirsten Smith – PGDA Research Fellow in Health Care Policy
Date: Thursday, May 18, 2006
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.
Location: 9 Bow Street | Cambridge

Abstract:A burgeoning literature has looked at spousal bereavement, but few studies have analyzed non-spousal family bereavement effects on health. Yet illnesses and deaths among non-conjugal kin are common, and what evidence exists suggests that the consequences for health may be large. In this study, Smith takes advantage of unique strengths of the Framingham Heart Study Networks (FHS-N) data to analyze non-spousal family bereavement effects on health. Specifically, Smith uses Cox proportional hazards models to evaluate whether the death of a parent, sibling, or child affects one's own mortality risk. To put the magnitude of effects in perspective, Smith also analyzes spousal deaths. She finds that effects vary according to the type of family member considered, the time since the bereavement event, and characteristics of the deceased (the alter) and the referent individual (the ego).

Mortality of the Elderly in the Developing World: What Do We Know?
(PPT)
Kenneth Hill – Harvard Initiative for Global Health, Harvard School of Public Health
Date: Thursday, May 11, 2006
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.
Location: 104 Mount Auburn Street, 3rd Floor | Cambridge

Abstract: Accurate measurement of adult mortality in the developing world where most countries do not have accurate vital registration systems has proved problematic. The Adult Mortality in Developing Countries (AMDC) project has arrived at mortality estimates for older adults (taken as those 50 and over) for some 30 developing countries through the evaluation and attempted adjustment of incomplete counts of deaths. Not surprisingly, there is a wide range in the mortality risks of older adults among developing countries, though the range is by no means as great (in terms of relative risks) as for child mortality. Mortality rates of the elderly have been declining in the countries studied, at rates broadly similar to those recorded at similar levels of mortality in now-developed countries. The male mortality disadvantage at older ages is somewhat greater than in historical populations. Except in one or two low mortality populations, information on cause of death of older adults remains elusive.

Understanding the Causes of Heterogeneity in the Spread of HIV: The Role of Mortality from Competing Risks(PPT)

Jeffrey B. Bingenheimer - Harvard School of Public Health
Date: Thursday, May 4, 2006
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.
Location: 104 Mount Auburn Street, 3rd Floor | Cambridge

Abstract: Conventional epidemiologic models of transmission dynamics predict that sexually transmitted infections will achieve higher equilibrium prevalence levels in popul

ations with low mortality rates. Yet in the case of HIV, the most severe epidemics are found in populations with high rates of mortality from competing risks. This pattern has been observed in international comparisons, and is replicated at the level of neighborhoods in Chicago, Illinois. The notion of longevity complementarities under competing risks provides one explanation for this apparent contradiction: Individuals who expect to die young from other causes have little incentive to take precautions against HIV infection. Analyses of mathematical models of the spread of HIV incorporating mortality-dependent behavior change functions, however, suggest that behavioral response to the spread of HIV would have to be very strongly conditioned by mortality in order for a positive association between mortality from competing risks and the equilibrium prevalence of HIV to arise. In contrast, direct dependence of sexual behavior on mortality (i.e., dependence not generated by differential response to the spread of HIV) has greater potential to generate the observed positive association, and appears to be consistent with patterns in the age of sexual debut among young people in Chicago neighborhoods.

R&D under External Consumption Effects: Applications to Global Health (PDF) (PPT)

Tomas J. Philipson – University of Chicago, Harris School of Public Policy
Date: Thursday, April 20, 2006
Time: 12:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Location: 104 Mount Auburn Street, 3rd Floor | Cambridge

Abstract: Given the rapid growth in health care spending that is often attributed to technological change, many private and public institutions are grappling with how to best assess and adopt new health care technologies. The leading technology adoption criteria proposed in theory and used in practice involve so called “cost-effectiveness” measures. However, little is known about the dynamic efficiency implications of such criteria, in particular how they influence the R&D investments that make technologies available in the first place. We argue that such criteria implicitly concern maximizing consumer surplus, which many times is consistent with maximizing static efficiency after an innovation has been developed. Dynamic efficiency, however, concerns aligning the social costs and benefits of R&D and is therefore determined by how much of the social surplus from the new technology is appropriated as producer surplus. We analyze the relationship between cost-effectiveness measures and the degree of surplus appropriation by innovators driving dynamic efficiency. We illustrate how to estimate the two for the new HIV/AIDS therapies that entered the market after the late 1980’s and find that only 5% of the social surplus is appropriated by innovators. We show how this finding can be generalized to other existing cost-effectiveness estimates by deriving how those estimates identify innovator appropriation for a set of studies of over 200 drugs. We find that these studies implicitly support a low degree of appropriation as well. Despite the high annual cost of drugs to patients, very low shares of social surplus may go to innovators, which may imply that cost-effectiveness is too high in a dynamic efficiency sense.

Michael Hurd – RAND Center for the Study of Aging
Date: Thursday, April 13, 2006
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.
Location: 104 Mount Auburn Street, 3rd Floor | Cambridge

Abstract: The simple one-good model of life-cycle consumption requires “consumption smoothing.” According to previous results based on partial spending and on synthetic panels, British and U.S. households apparently reduce consumption at retirement. The reduction cannot be explained by the simple one-good life-cycle model, so it has been referred to as the retirement-consumption puzzle. An interpretation is that at retirement individuals discover they have fewer economic resources than they had anticipated prior to retirement, and as a consequence reduce consumption. This interpretation challenges the life-cycle model where consumers are assumed to be forward-looking. Using panel data, we find that prior to retirement workers anticipated on average a decline of 13.3% in spending and after retirement they recollected a decline of 12.9%: widespread surprise is not the explanation for the retirement-consumption puzzle. Workers with substantial wealth both anticipated and recollected a decline. Therefore, for many workers the decline is not necessitated by the fall in income that accompanies retirement. Poor health is associated with above-average declines. At retirement time spent in activities that could substitute for market-purchased goods increases. Apparently a number of factors contribute to the decline in spending, which, for most of the population, can be accommodated in conventional models of economic behavior

Warwick McKibbin – Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis
Date: Thursday, February 23, 2006
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.
Location: 104 Mount Auburn Street, 3rd Floor | Cambridge

Abstract: The world is in the midst of a significant demographic transition with important implications for the macroeconomic performance of the global economy. This paper summarizes the key features of the current and projected future demographic change that are likely to have macroeconomic effects. It then applies a new ten region global model (an extended version of the MSG-Cubed model) incorporating demographic dynamics, to examine the consequences of projected global demographic change on the world economy from 2005 to 2050. A distinction is made between the effects on each country of its own demographic transition and the effects on each country of the equally large demographic changes occurring in the rest of the world.

Alex Cohen – Harvard Medical School
Date: Thursday, February 16, 2006
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.
Location: 104 Mount Auburn Street, 3rd Floor | Cambridge

Abstract: Cohen et al examined the relationship between socioeconomic status and response to treatment for depression among older adults. Subjects residing in middle-income census tracts were significantly more likely to respond to antidepressant treatment than subjects residing in low-income census tracts. Throughout the course of antidepressant treatment, subjects in the middle- and high-income census tracts were significantly less likely to report suicidal ideation No association was found between socioeconomic status and remission. Residence in a low-income census tract is associated with a less favorable course of depression among older adults receiving a combination of pharmacologic and psychosocial treatment.

Jocelyn Finlay – Australian National University
Date: Thursday, February 2, 2006
Time: 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.
Location: 104 Mount Auburn Street, 3rd Floor | Cambridge

Abstract: In a two period overlapping generations model of endogenous longevity and economic growth, individuals choose to invest in health and education. The investments are costly in terms of foregone first period consumption and the benefit is
in the second period where health has the effect of increasing the probability of
survival, and education investment will bring higher income. These investments
are risky as survival through period two, when the payoffs can be had, is not
certain. Individuals with varying degrees of risk aversion will choose the ordering
in which they invest in health and education. It is only when investment in
education is achieved that an economy will experience endogenous growth.

Alwyn Young – University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
Date: Thursday, December 1, 2005
Time: 3:30 - 5:00 p.m.
Location: 104 Mount Auburn Street, 3rd Floor | Cambridge

Abstract: The HIV epidemic is lowering fertility in sub-Saharan Africa. This decline in fertility appears to reflect a fall in the demand for children, and not any adverse physiological consequences of the disease, as it is matched by changes in the expressed preference for children and the use of contraception, and is not significantly correlated with biological markers of sub-fertility. A fall in fertility lowers dependency ratios and, for a given savings rate, increases future capital per person. These two effects more than offset the loss of prime working age adults and reduced human capital of orphaned children brought by the epidemic, allowing 25 of the nations of sub-Saharan Africa to cumulatively spend US$ 1.2 trillion, or $3300 per patient per year, on patient care without harming the welfare of future generations. In sum, the behavioral response to the HIV epidemic creates the material resources to fight it.

Andrew Noymer - University of California at Berkeley
Date: Monday, December 5, 2005
Time: 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Location: Harvard School of Public Health | FXB G-11 | 651 Huntington Avenue | Boston

Abstract: The famous 1918 'Spanish' influenza pandemic killed over 500,000 people in the United States and over 40 million people worldwide. My findings show that the pandemic mortality was selective, and the population left in its wake was healthier than the pre-pandemic population. The axis of selection was tuberculosis morbidity. Tuberculosis death rates plummeted in the years after 1918. Confirmatory morbidity/mortality patterns are found using microdata from the Union Army data set. The 1918 pandemic is at the center of current concerns about catastrophic influenza, and these results show that countries with high TB prevalence today may be hit hardest by the next pandemic.

Abstract: PGDA held a brainstorming workshop on Aging and Macroeconomics that examined the likely impacts of aging on aggregate savings, labor supply, and economic growth. PGDA is investigating the possibility of publishing the proceedings in a special issue of an economics journal in the fall.

Abstract:The second half of the twentieth century witnessed much convergence in life expectancy around the world. Closer inspection of mortality trends in advanced countries reveals that inequality in adult life spans, which we measure with the standard deviation of ages at death above age 10, S10, is increasingly responsible for the remaining divergence in mortality. Edwards reports striking differences in the levels and trends of S10 across industrialized countries since 1960 that cannot be explained by aggregate socioeconomic inequality or differential external cause mortality. Rather, S10 reflects both within and between-group inequalities in life spans and conveys new information about their combined magnitudes and trends. These findings suggest that the challenge for health policies in this century is to reduce inequality, not just lengthen life.

Event Summary: Wolfgang Lutz, director of the Vienna Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, shared his research and findings with us. Professor Lutz has been a co-principal investigator and leader of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis Population Project since 1992. Lutz’s interests are in population forecasting, family demography and population-environment analysis. He studied philosophy, mathematics and statistics at the Universities of Munich, Vienna, Helsinki and Pennsylvania.


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