Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Series: Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers Creation-Date: 2010-12-06 Number: 10-122/3 Author-Name: Teresa Bago d'Uva Author-Workplace-Name: Erasmus University Rotterdam Author-Name: Maarten Lindeboom Author-Workplace-Name: VU University Amsterdam Author-Name: Owen O'Donnell Author-Workplace-Name: Erasmus University Rotterdam, and University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece Author-Name: Eddy van Doorslaer Author-Workplace-Name: Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands Title: Education-related Inequity in Health Care with Heterogeneous Reporting of Health Abstract: This discussion paper resulted in a publication in the 'Journal of the Royal Statistical Society', Series A, 2011, 2011, 174, 639–664.

Reliance on self-rated health to proxy medical need can bias estimation of education-related inequity in health care utilisation. We correct this bias both by instrumenting self-rated health with objective health indicators and by purging self-rated health of reporting heterogeneity identified from health vignettes. Using data on elderly Europeans, we find that instrumenting self-rated health shifts the distribution of doctor visits in the direction of inequality favouring the better educated. There is a further, and typically larger, shift the same direction when correction is made for the tendency of the better educated to rate their health more negatively. Classification-JEL: C35, C42, I12 Keywords: health care, health, equity, reporting heterogeneity, vignettes File-Url: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/10122.pdf File-Format: application/pdf File-Size: 920915 bytes Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20100122