Income Effects on Health: Evidence from Union Army Pensions
利用美国联邦军队养老金这一首个大规模福利项目，研究收入增加对成年死亡率下降的影响，发现养老金对心血管、消化和呼吸系统疾病有显著改善作用。
To what extent do rising income levels explain the decline in adult mortality rates experienced in the United States a century ago? I explore this question by investigating the income effect of the country's first wide-scale entitlement program: the Union Army pensions. Documenting that Republican Congressional candidates boosted pensions to secure votes, I exploit exogenous increases in income stemming from patronage politics to estimate the semi-elasticity of disease onset with respect to pensions. Income effects are large for cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and respiratory illnesses.