Absenteeism, Health Insurance, and Business Cycles

Morten Nordberg and Snorre Kverndokk ()
Additional contact information
Morten Nordberg: The Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic, Postal: Norway
Snorre Kverndokk: The Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic, Postal: Gaustadalléen 21, N-0349 Oslo, Norway
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Knut Røed ()

No 2003:17, HERO Online Working Paper Series from University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme

Abstract: We use a dependent competing risks hazard rate model to investigate individual sickness absence behaviour in Norway, on the basis of register data covering more than 2 million absence spells. Our findings are: i) that business cycle improvements yield lower work-resumption rates for persons who are absent, and higher relapse rates for persons who have already resumed work; ii) that absence sometimes represents a health investment, in the sense that longer absence ‘now’ reduces the subsequent relapse propensity; and iii) that the work-resumption rate increases when sickness benefits are exhausted, but that work-resumptions at this point tend to be short-lived.

Keywords: Absenteeism; Dependent risks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C41 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2009-06-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-hea, nep-ias and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.hero.uio.no/publicat/2003/HERO2003_17.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:oslohe:2003_017

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in HERO Online Working Paper Series from University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme HERO / Department of Health Management and Health Economics P.O. Box 1089 Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, Norway. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kristi Brinkmann Lenander ().