Measuring pure health inequality and mobility during a health insurance expansion: Evidence from Mexico.

The association of insurance expansions and the distribution of health status is still a matter we know little about. This paper draws upon new measures of pure (univariate) inequality and mobility which accommodate categorical data to understand how an expansion of public insurance may be related to both health inequality and mobility. These measures require a definition of individual's status that is either "downward looking" or "upward looking". Using data from the Mexican Family Life Survey, a nationally representative longitudinal survey, we find that the distribution of health has worsened in Mexico between 2002 and 2009, although the change is only consistent for an upward looking definition status. Together with the lack of mobility in self-reported health, we can thus conclude that Mexico has become more rigid over time despite the rapid public health expansion that took place over the 2000s decade. While further research on the potential drivers of health inequalities is needed, our findings suggest that insurance coverage alone may be not enough to reduce health disparities and promote health mobility. Indeed, health inequality and mobility likely depend on a myriad of factors beyond health care.

Piketty in the long run.

I examine the idea of 'the long run' in Piketty (2014) and related works. In contrast to simplistic interpretations of long-run models of income- and wealth-distribution Piketty (2014) draws on a rich economic analysis that models the intra- and inter-generational processes that underly the development of the wealth distribution. These processes inevitably involve both market and non-market mechanisms. To understand this approach, and to isolate the impact of different social and economic factors on inequality in the long run, we use the concept of an equilibrium distribution. However the long-run analysis of policy should not presume that there is an inherent tendency for the wealth distribution to approach equilibrium.