Atrás CRES-Seminar: Malene Kallestrup-Lamb

CRES-Seminar: Malene Kallestrup-Lamb

"Lifetime Healthcare Expenditures Across Socioeconomic Groups" 

Date: 26th of May at 13h00

Room: Campus Ciutadella 23.103

04.04.2022

 

Malene Kallestrup-Lamb, is a Associate Professor and Research Fellow at CREATES. She is Honorary Visiting Fellow at Cass Business School, London. She received her PhD in Economics and Management from Aarhus University in January 2011 after spending part of the research period at London School of Economics.She is an active researcher in the fields of time series econometrics and microeconometrics, with particular emphasis on mortality, longevity, economics of ageing, and health economics.

Malene is coordinator of Finance and International Business in the cand.merc.-programme. She shares the task as course coordinator with Thomas Kokholm within finance for oecon/math-econ, where Malene's main focus is on oecon.

Abstract:

A socioeconomic gradient affects healthcare expenditures and longevity in opposite directions as less affluent individuals have higher current healthcare expenditures but simultaneously enjoy shorter lives. Meanwhile, the reverse is true for more affluent individuals. Yet, it is unclear whether this cross-sectional healthcare expenditure gradient persists in a lifetime perspective. This paper analyzes lifetime healthcare expenditures across socioeconomic groups using detailed healthcare expenditure data for all individuals in the entire Danish population. Contrary to existing literature, we find that all socioeconomic groups spend an almost equal amount on healthcare throughout a lifetime, once we account for mortality differences and all types of healthcare expenditures. Moreover, we derive the variance of lifetime healthcare expenditures and find that differences in total lifetime healthcare expenditures between any socioeconomic groups are insignificant using a Welch test. We do, however, confirm that the negative gradient persists within certain cost components, e.g., inpatient hospital care. Our results suggest that improving the health of a socioeconomic group has limited effects on lifetime healthcare expenditures

as current healthcare expenditure savings are counterbalanced by additional healthcare consumption throughout a longer life. Immediate healthcare expenditures savings will nevertheless lower current national healthcare expenditures as it shifts the financial burden into the future.

Keywords: Lifetime Healthcare Expenditures; Socioeconomic Groups; Inequality; Social Gradient; Mortality

JEL code: I14

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