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Putting the cart before the horse. A comment on Wagstaff on inequality measurement in the presence of binary variables
Author(s) -
Erreygers Guido,
Van Ourti Tom
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.1754
Subject(s) - erasmus+ , schools of economic thought , library science , health economics , economics education , sociology , economics , political science , history , law , computer science , art history , health care , higher education , the renaissance , neoclassical economics
Adam Wagstaff's (2011) recent paper sends a strong reminder that binary variables occur frequently in health inequality studies and that it is important to examine whether the standard measurement tools can be applied without any modification when the health variable happens to be binary. In his note, he reconsiders what he wrote previously on the subject (Wagstaff, 2005), in the light of recent work on bounded variables (Clarke et al., 2002; Erreygers, 2009a, 2009b; Wagstaff, 2009; Erreygers and Van Ourti, 2011). Although Wagstaff's contribution undoubtedly enriches a much-needed debate, crucial aspects of his paper seriously misrepresent the positions and views set forth in Erreygers and Van Ourti (2011). In this note, we would like to put the record straight, focusing on five specific points