title: A general method for decomposing the causes of socioeconomic inequality in health.
abstract: We introduce a general decomposition method applicable to all forms of bivariate rank dependent indices of socioeconomic inequality in health, including the concentration index. The technique is based on recentered influence function regression and requires only the application of OLS to a transformed variable with similar interpretation. Our method requires few identifying assumptions to yield valid estimates in most common empirical applications, unlike current methods favoured in the literature. Using the Swedish Twin Registry and a within twin pair fixed effects identification strategy, our new method finds no evidence of a causal effect of education on income-related health inequality.
authors.affiliation: Health Economics & Management, Institute of Economic Research, Lund University, Box 117, 22100, Sweden; Health Economics Unit, Department of Clinical Sciences, Medicon Village, Lund University, Lund, Sweden. Electronic address: Gawain.heckley@med.lu.se.
authors.forename: Gawain
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Heckley
authors.affiliation: Health Economics & Management, Institute of Economic Research, Lund University, Box 117, 22100, Sweden; Health Economics Unit, Department of Clinical Sciences, Medicon Village, Lund University, Lund, Sweden; Department of Economics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Ulf-G
authors.initials: UG
authors.lastname: Gerdtham
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; Centre of Health Economics at Gothenburg University (CHEGU), Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Gustav
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kjellsson
mesh_terms: D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D012042:Registries; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013548:Sweden
keywords: Concentration index; Decomposition methods; Inequality measurement; Recentered influence function