Simon Appleton, Jinying Huang, Xuyan Lou, Minghai Zhou
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Abstract
Using three waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this paper examines whether financial transfers from adult children to elderly parents affect the latter's mental health. Both OLS and instrumental variable (IV) estimates show that financial transfers significantly attenuate depressive symptoms of elderly individuals, with a much larger size of the IV estimates. We also examine the income and cultural channels through which intergenerational transfers work and further discuss the explanatory powers of these two channels through a decomposition analysis. The results suggest the cultural channel accounts for a larger proportion of the financial transfer effect. This means that the unique beneficial impact of intergenerational financial transfers on the mental health of older adults cannot be fully substituted in the foreseeable future.
本文利用中国健康与退休纵向研究（China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study）的三个波次，研究了成年子女对老年父母的经济转移是否会影响后者的心理健康。OLS 和工具变量（IV）估计值均显示，经济转移显著减轻了老年人的抑郁症状，IV 估计值的规模更大。我们还研究了代际转移所通过的收入和文化渠道，并通过分解分析进一步讨论了这两个渠道的解释力。结果表明，文化渠道在经济转移效应中所占的比例更大。这意味着在可预见的未来，代际资金转移对老年人心理健康的独特有益影响是无法完全替代的。
期刊介绍：
This Journal publishes articles on all aspects of health economics: theoretical contributions, empirical studies and analyses of health policy from the economic perspective. Its scope includes the determinants of health and its definition and valuation, as well as the demand for and supply of health care; planning and market mechanisms; micro-economic evaluation of individual procedures and treatments; and evaluation of the performance of health care systems.
Contributions should typically be original and innovative. As a rule, the Journal does not include routine applications of cost-effectiveness analysis, discrete choice experiments and costing analyses.
Editorials are regular features, these should be concise and topical. Occasionally commissioned reviews are published and special issues bring together contributions on a single topic. Health Economics Letters facilitate rapid exchange of views on topical issues. Contributions related to problems in both developed and developing countries are welcome.
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