Angus Deaton

We examine mortality differences between Americans adults with and without a four-year college degree over the period 1992 to 2021. Mortality patterns, in aggregate and across groups, can provide evidence on how well society is functioning, information that goes beyond aggregate measures of material wellbeing. From 1992 to 2010, both educational groups saw falling mortality, but with greater improvements for the more educated; from 2010 to 2019, mortality continued to fall for those with a BA while rising for those without; during the COVID pandemic, mortality rose for both groups, but markedly more rapidly for the less educated. In consequence, the mortality gap between the two groups expanded in all three periods, leading to an 8.5-year difference in adult life expectancy by the end of 2021. There have been dramatic changes in patterns of mortality since 1992, but gaps rose consistently in each of thirteen broad classifications of cause of death. We document rising gaps in other wellbeing-relevant measures, background factors to the rising gap in mortality, including morbidity, social isolation, marriage, family income, and wealth.

Names: Deaton, Angus, author. Title: Economics in America: an immigrant economist explores the land of inequality/Angus Deaton. Description: Princeton: Princeton University Press,[2023]| Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023011502 (print)| LCCN 2023011503 (ebook)| ISBN 9780691247625 (hardback)| ISBN 9780691247854 (ebook)

In March 2020, the International Comparison Project published its latest results, for the calendar year 2017. This round presents common‐unit or purchasing‐power‐parity data for 176 countries on Gross Domestic Product and its components. We review a number of important issues, what is new, what is not new, and what the new data can and cannot do. Of great importance is the lack of news, that the results are broadly in line with earlier results from 2011. We consider the relationship between national accounts measures and health, particularly in light of the COVID‐19 epidemic which may reduce global inequality, even as it increases inequality within countries. We emphasize things that GDP cannot do, some familiar—like its silence on distribution—and some less familiar—including its increasing detachment from national material well‐being in a globalized world where international transfers of capital and …

To ensure the accuracy of self-reported data, it is important to reduce potential sources of bias such as the unwanted influence of prior questions on subsequent questions, the so-called item context effect. This article attempts to replicate the finding that evaluative subjective well-being was affected by a preceding item, a question about the political atmosphere in the country; it also examines manipulations that could mitigate the impact of the context-inducing item on well-being. Study 1 used a sample of 4,500 participants recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk; it examined the effect of three manipulations based on adding buffer questions or adding text to reorient participants’ attention. A context effect was found, and one manipulation mitigated the context effect. Study 2 used a nationally representative sample (n = 906); it only replicated the context effect. These results reaffirm the importance of carefully …

Time-use data show that females spend much more time on unpaid household duties compared to men. The situation worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic due to higher job loss among women and more time spent with children due to school closures. This gender injustice has devastating health consequences for women, and, somewhat surprisingly, to future generations of Ukrainians of both genders. Ukraine should start regularly collecting time-use data right after the victory to guide social policies if we are serious about achieving gender and health equity in the European family of free and prosperous nations.

On May 13, 2021, CCG hosted a dialogue between Huiyao Wang, CCG President; David Blair, CCG Vice President and Senior Economist; Anne Case, Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Emeritus at Princeton University; and Angus Deaton, Senior Scholar, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

Deaths of despair, morbidity, and emotional distress continue to rise in the United States, largely borne by those without a college degree—the majority of American adults—for many of whom the economy and society are no longer delivering. Concurrently, all-cause mortality in the United States is diverging by education in a way not seen in other rich countries. We review the rising prevalence of pain, despair, and suicide among those without a bachelor's degree. Pain and despair created a baseline demand for opioids, but the escalation of addiction came from pharma and its political enablers. We examine the politics of despair, or how less-educated people have abandoned and been abandoned by the Democratic Party. Whereas healthier states once voted Republican in presidential elections, now the less-healthy states do. We review deaths during COVID-19, finding that mortality in 2020 maintained or …

A 4-y college degree is increasingly the key to good jobs and, ultimately, to good lives in an ever-more meritocratic and unequal society. The bachelor’s degree (BA) is increasingly dividing Americans; the one-third with a BA or more live longer and more prosperous lives, while the two-thirds without face rising mortality and declining prospects. We construct a time series, from 1990 to 2018, of a summary of each year’s mortality rates and expected years lived from 25 to 75 at the fixed mortality rates of that year. Our measure excludes those over 75 who have done relatively well over the last three decades and focuses on the years when deaths rose rapidly through drug overdoses, suicides, and alcoholic liver disease and when the decline in mortality from cardiovascular disease slowed and reversed. The BA/no-BA gap in our measure widened steadily from 1990 to 2018. Beyond 2010, as those with a BA continued …