Using a sample of Europeans aged 50+ from twelve countries in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) we analyse the role of poor material conditions as a determinant of changes in health over a four-year period. We find that poverty defined with respect to relative incomes has no effect on changes in health. However, broader measures of poor material conditions such as subjective ...
This paper estimates the effect of informal care provision on female caregiver's health. We use data from the German Socio-economic Panel and assess effects up to seven years after care provision. A simulation-based sensitivity analysis scrutinizes the sensitivity of the results with respect to potential deviations from the conditional independence assumption in the regression adjusted matching approach. ...
This paper proposes a dynamic life cycle model of health risks, employment, early retirement, and wealth accumulation in order to analyze the health-related risks of consumption and old age poverty. In particular, the model includes a health process, the interaction between health and employment risks, and an explicit modeling of the German public insurance schemes. I rely on a dynamic programming ...
This cumulative dissertation consists of four papers. Each paper makes an independent contribution to the literature by investigating the impact of one particular factor on health. The first paper shows that job loss increases body weight (slightly) and the risk of starting smoking (considerably). The related second paper reveals that unemployment decreases the mental health of spouses almost as much ...
Since 2003 German hospitals are reimbursed according to diagnosis related groups (DRGs). Patient classification in neonatology is based inter alia on birth weight, with substantial discontinuities in reimbursement at eight different thresholds. These discontinuities create strong incentives to upcode preterm infants into classes of lower birth weight. Using data from the German birth statistics 1996 ...
Die Zahl der Zugänge in die Erwerbsminderungsrente ist nach Angaben der Deutschen Rentenversicherung seit den 90er Jahren stark gesunken. In den Jahren 2005 bis 2010 erfolgte ein leichter Wiederanstieg. Seit 2001 haben sich auch die Zahlbeträge bei den Zugängen zur Erwerbsminderungsrente verringert. Damit ist die materielle Absicherung bei Erwerbsminderung wieder in den Blickpunkt der sozialpolitischen ...