Accounting for the dead in the longitudinal analysis of income-related health inequalities

This paper develops an accounting framework to consider the effect of deaths on the longitudinal analysis of income-related health inequalities. Ignoring deaths or using inverse probability weights (IPWs) to re-weight the sample for mortality-related attrition can produce misleading results, since to do so would be to disregard the most extreme of all health outcomes. Incorporating deaths into the longitudinal analysis of income-related health inequalities provides a more complete picture in terms of the evaluation of health changes in respect to socioeconomic status. We illustrate our work by investigating health mobility in Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) as measured by the SF6D from 1999 till 2004 using the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). We show that for Scottish males explicitly accounting for the dead, rather than using IPWs to account for mortality-related attrition, changes the direction of the relationship between relative health changes and initial income position, while for other population groups it increases the strength of this relationship by up to 14 times. When deaths are explicitly incorporated into the analysis it is found that over this five year period for both Scotland and England & Wales the relative health changes were significantly regressive such that the poor experienced a larger share of the health losses relative to their initial share of health and a large amount of this was related to mortality.

Mafia in the ballot box

We study the impact of organized crime on electoral competition. Assuming that the mafia is able to bring votes to the supported party in exchange of money, we show that (i) the strongest party is willing to pay the highest price to secure mafia services; (ii) the volume of electoral trade with the mafia increases with political competition and with the efficiency of the mafia. Studying in detail parliamentary elections in Sicily for the period 1946- 1992, we document the significant support given by the Sicilian Mafia to the Christian Democratic party, starting at least from the 1970s. This is consistent with our theoretical predictions, as political competition became much tighter during the 1970s and the Sicilian mafia experienced an extensive centralization process towards the end of the 1960s, which increased substantially its control of the territory. We also provide evidence that in exchange for its electoral support the mafia got economic advantages for its activities in the construction industry.