Publications [#384332] of V. Joseph Hotz

Journal Articles

1. Ziff, AL; Wiemers, E; Hotz, VJ, The Association between the Volatility of Income and Life Expectancy in the United States., Journal of labor economics, vol. 43 no. Suppl 1 (April, 2025), pp. S153-S178 [doi]
   (last updated on 2026/01/20)

   Abstract:
   We examine the relationship between income volatility and life expectancy in mid-sized U.S. commuting zones between 2006 and 2014. We use a commercial dataset, InfoUSA, to measure income volatility which we link to estimates of life expectancy by gender, county, race, and income. We find that higher income volatility in a county is associated with lower life expectancy, but only at the bottom of the income distribution and primarily for non-Hispanic Whites. Though we cannot extrapolate our findings to individual-level relationships, we do link them to existing literatures on place-based differences in mortality and the relationship between volatility and health.