CCHE

CCHE Seminar: Mayvis Rebeira, University of Toronto

The Effect of Income Inequality on Mortality in Advanced Economies

How does rising income inequality over the past six decades affect adult mortality in advanced economies? Using the latest available data on the inverted Pareto-Lorenz coefficient as a measure of income inequality, the causal impact of income inequality on population mortality rates was estimated for OECD countries between 1950 to 2008. To prevent spurious correlation and other econometric challenges, panel cointegration was utilized to determine the impact of rising income inequality on male and female mortality rates separately.

Mayvis Rebeira obtained her Ph.D. in Health Economics at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and a Master’s Degree in Economics, both at the University of Toronto. Her current research is focused on the effect of income, income inequality and educational attainment on mortality. She has published in the field of health technology assessment, economic evaluations, and health outcomes research. Her research interests include developing methodologies for economic evaluation of health technologies and the economics of aging and longevity using econometrics.