DI Till I Die: Mortality Effects from Welfare Generosity
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Series
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Speaker(s)Mikkel Hasse Pedersen (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)
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FieldEmpirical Microeconomics
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LocationErasmus University Rotterdam, Mandeville Building, Room T3-2
Rotterdam -
Date and time
April 11, 2019
11:45 - 12:45
Abstract
This paper investigates the mortality effects of increased welfare generosity, for the case of disability insurance (DI) beneficiaries in Denmark. I exploit a policy that, by introducing a new supplementary payment, increased DI benefits by 10% for a specific subgroup of beneficiaries. Using a difference- in-difference estimation strategy I find that increased welfare generosity leads to a 2.52 percentage points higher probability of death six years after the reform. Further, I find that the effects on mortality are concentrated among male and single male recipients and that up to 75% of the excess mortality risk in these subgroups can be explained by an increase in the risk of dying from a disease related to abusive alcohol use and overdoses of narcotics and psychodysleptics.