Re: Income Inequality and Health

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Brown, Martin - ARP (NCI) wrote:

> I'll try to respond to this when I have more time to do it right.  But there
> is something else I wanted to bring up from the International Health
> Economics Association meeting.
>
> There were several plenary and regular sessions focusing on the "Wilkinson
> Hypothesis".

For what it's worth, Christopher Jencks, whom I've gotten to know
because of personal connections, has been doing work on this.
Jencks's politics aren't my cup of tea, but he's rigorous with his
data, and unlike many researchers, rarely sets out to prove something
he already believes; he lets the numbers talk to him. In this case,
he says the Wilkinson hypothesis is essentially bunk; you can make
the data say anything you want to, simply by adding a variable or
tweaking your specifications.

And I wanted to believe it.

Doug