No abstract

For empirical analysis and policy-oriented recommendation, the precise measurement of individual health or well-being is essential. The problem with variables based on questionnaires such as selfassessed health is that the answer may depend on individual reporting behaviour. Moreover, if individual"s health perception varies with certain attitudes of the respondent reporting heterogeneity may lead to index or cut-point shifts of the health distribution, causing estimation problems. We analyse the reporting behaviour of individuals on their self-assessed health status, a five-point categorical variable. We explore observed heterogeneity in categorical variables and include unobserved individual heterogeneity using German panel data. Estimation results show different impacts of socioeconomic and health related variables on the five subscales of self-assessed health.Moreover, the answering behaviour varies between female and male respondents, pointing to gender specific perception and assessment of diseases. Reporting behaviour on self-assessed health questions in surveys is problematic due to a possible heterogeneity. Hence, in case of reporting heterogeneity, using self-assessed measures in empirical studies may be misleading or at least ambiguous. JEL-Classification: I12, C21

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract: Terms of use: Documents inThe paper develops and applies a Grossman-style health production model set up in discrete time to explain the impact of environmental pollution on the demand for both health and health care. In order to introduce the environment, our analysis takes changes in environmental conditions to influence the rate at which an individual's stock of health depreciates. While the theoretical part of our paper also contains a discussion of the full model, we restrict our analysis to a submodel which is known as the pure investment model. lbis is because the other submodel, the pure consumption model, implies a rather implausible case of satiation with respect to the individual's preferences.Our empirical findings' are based on data taken from the German Socio-economic Panel (SOEP). The stock of health capital and environmental pollution are treated as latent variables and estimated using a LINeS model. The quality of the environment turns out to be an important determinant of health capital. From the point of view of health economics, improvements in environmental conditions can be interpreted as preventive measures. In terms of prevention, public policies designed to protect the environment also yield significant health effects. As regards health care demand the influence is not dearcut, Le. one cannot necessarily expect a reduction in resource use.

No abstract

The importance of the physician-patient relationship for the health care market is beyond controversy. Recent work emphasizes a two-sided asymmetric information relationship between physician and patient. In contrast to most work looking only at the physician's perspective, our paper concentrates on the patient's view. Estimation results support the hypotheses that physician consultation and health relevant behavior are not stochastically independent. In the recursive bivariate probit model, patient's health relevant behavior has a significant influence on the probability of a physician visit. This means that health care demand and not only the contact decision is determined by both, patient and physician.