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  4. August 2021
  5. Place-Based Drivers of Mortality: Evidence from Migration

American Economic Review

ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)

Place-Based Drivers of Mortality: Evidence from Migration

  • Amy Finkelstein
  • Matthew Gentzkow
  • Heidi Williams
American Economic Review
vol. 111, no. 8, August 2021
(pp. 2697–2735)
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Abstract

We estimate the effect of current location on elderly mortality by analyzing outcomes of movers in the Medicare population. We control for movers' origin locations as well as a rich vector of pre-move health measures. We also develop a novel strategy to adjust for remaining unobservables, using the correlation of residual mortality with movers' origins to gauge the importance of omitted variables. We estimate substantial effects of current location. Moving from a tenth to a ninetieth percentile location would increase life expectancy at age 65 by 1.1 years, and equalizing location effects would reduce cross-sectional variation in life expectancy by 15 percent. Places with favorable life expectancy effects tend to have higher quality and quantity of health care, less extreme climates, lower crime rates, and higher socioeconomic status.

Citation

Finkelstein, Amy, Matthew Gentzkow, and Heidi Williams. 2021. "Place-Based Drivers of Mortality: Evidence from Migration." American Economic Review, 111 (8): 2697–2735. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20190825

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • H51 National Government Expenditures and Health
  • I10 Health: General
  • I11 Analysis of Health Care Markets