Self Reported Disability and Reference Groups / Arthur van Soest, Tatiana Andreyeva, Arie Kapteyn, James P. Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

van Soest, Arthur.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Andreyeva, Tatiana.

Kapteyn, Arie.

Smith, James P.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w17153.

NBER working paper series no. w17153

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2011.

Summary:

Social networks and social interactions affect individual and social norms. We develop a direct test of this using Dutch survey data on how respondents evaluate work disability of hypothetical people with some work related health problem (vignettes). We analyze how the thresholds respondents use to decide what constitutes a (mild or more serious) work disability depend on the number of people receiving disability insurance benefits (DI) in their reference group. We find that reference group effects are significant and contribute substantially to an explanation of why self-reported work disability in the Netherlands is much higher than in, for example, the US.

Notes:

Print version record

June 2011.