Re-examining The Time-varying Relationship Between Health and Income Distributions

Abstract

In this paper, we address the issue of the time-varying relationship between health and long-term income and show that income profile over time is more important than the permanent income of a specific period in explaining general health condition. A functional probit regression model is introduced to investigate how the income profiles of middle-aged people can affect the health condition of the last period of the given period using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data. We also perform the probit estimation to check the robustness of the functional regression results. The empirical results of our paper clearly indicate a time-varying relationship between the entire distribution of income and health status at one point in time, which cannot be accurately explained by the current income or permanent income of the given period.