Duisburg-Essen University, Health Economics, 45117 Essen, Germany.
J Health Econ. 2010 Mar;29(2):205-12. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2009.11.014. Epub 2009 Nov 26.
Studies on the effect of ageing on health care expenditure (HCE) have revealed the importance of controlling for time-to-death (TTD). These studies, however, are subject to possible endogeneity if HCE influences the remaining life expectancy. This paper introduces a 10-year observation period on monthly HCE, socioeconomic characteristics and survivor status to first predict TTD and then use the predicted values as an instrument in the regression for HCE. While exogeneity of TTD has to be rejected, core results concerning the role of TTD rather than age as a determinant of HCE (the 'red herring' hypothesis) are confirmed.
关于年龄对医疗保健支出（HCE）影响的研究表明，控制死亡时间（TTD）非常重要。然而，如果 HCE 影响剩余预期寿命，这些研究可能存在内生性。本文介绍了一项为期 10 年的月度 HCE、社会经济特征和生存状况观察期，首先预测 TTD，然后将预测值用作 HCE 回归的工具。虽然 TTD 的外生性被拒绝，但关于 TTD 而非年龄作为 HCE 决定因素的核心结果（“红鲱鱼”假说）得到了证实。
