Income and the Use of Prescription Drugs by the Elderly
利用社会保障福利缺口带来的外生收入变化，估计老年人处方药使用对收入的弹性，发现弹性大于1，模拟显示削减福利会显著减少用药。
Abstract We use exogenous variation in Social Security payments created by the Social Security benefits notch to estimate how retirees’ use of prescription medications responds to changes in their incomes. Using data from the 1993 Wave of the AHEAD, we obtain instrumental variables estimates of the income elasticity of prescription drug use that are uniformly above one, with a middle estimate of 1.32. Simulations based on our estimates suggest that reductions in Social Security benefits similar to those incorporated in recent reform proposals would significantly reduce prescription drug use among the elderly.