Assessing household health expenditure with Box-Cox censoring models.
In order to assess the combined presence of zero expenditures and a heavily skewed distribution of positive expenditures, the Box-Cox transformation with location parameter is used to define a set of models generalising the standard Tobit, Heckman selection and double-hurdle models. Extended flexibility with respect to previous specifications is introduced, notably regarding negative transformation parameters, which may prove necessary for medical expenditures, and corner-solution outcomes. An illustration is provided by the analysis of household health expenditure in Switzerland.
Chaze
Jean-Paul
JP
Department of Econometrics & Laboratory of Applied Economics, University of Geneva, Switzerland. jean-paul.chaze@metri.unige.ch
D005191:Family Characteristics; D005102:Health Expenditures / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D017059:Models, Econometric; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013557:Switzerland