DECOMPOSING SOCIAL-INDICATORS USING DISTRIBUTIONAL DATA

Are the poor less healthy? Does public health spending matter more to them? We decompose aggregate health indicators using a random coeffici ents model in which the aggregates are regressed on the population dis tribution by subgroups, taking account of the statistical properties o f the error term. This also allows us to test possible determinants of the variation in the underlying subgroup indicators. The approach is implemented with data on health outcomes and poverty measures for 35 d eveloping countries. We find that poor people have appreciably worse h ealth status on average than others, and that differences in public he alth spending tend to matter more to the poor.