Welcome to our "Featured Articles" series. We plan to feature several articles that illustrate innovative research one can produce with our data. Such research may use data from a single country or compare outcomes across countries. We will rotate the articles regularly.
If you have an article that you want us to feature, let us know.
We welcome suggestions.
Team CNEF.
Atal JP, Fang H, Karlsson M, Ziebarth NR. (2025). “German Long-Term Health Insurance: Theory Meets Evidence.” Journal of Political Economy. Vol. 133(6)
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/734781
Abstract: German long-term health insurance (GLTHI) represents the largest market for private long-term health insurance contracts in the world. We show that GLTHI’s contract design coincides with the optimal dynamic contract for individuals with constant lifetime income profiles. After estimating the key ingredients of a life-cycle model, we find that, under a variety of assumptions, GLTHI achieves welfare that is at most 4% lower than for the optimal contract. Relative to the gains of replacing short-term contracts with either of the two long-term contracts, this welfare gap is smallest when reclassification risk is high.
Brady D, Gao M, Guerra C, Kohler U, Link B. (2025). “The Mediating Role of Intergenerational Stratification in the Long Arm of Childhood Income.” Demography. Vol. 62(3): 923-945
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40401783/
Abstract: We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to investigate whether and how intergenerational income stratification mediates the long arm of childhood income for mature adult health. Using three different mediation techniques, we analyze prospective high-quality data on childhood income (ages 0–17) and six health outcomes (ages 40–67): self-rated health, psychological distress, heart attack, stroke, and life-threatening and non-life-threatening chronic conditions. We focus on the mediating role of adult income (ages 30–39). For comparison, we also analyze several alternative potential mediators, including education, health behaviors, and occupation. The results show that adult income is a critical mediator in the long arm of childhood income, mediating almost all the relationship for self-rated health and psychological distress, roughly one half of the relationship for heart attack and stroke, and roughly one third of the relationship for life-threatening chronic conditions. The models also confirm that childhood income has a significant mediated or indirect relationship with health outcomes. Further analyses provide evidence that adult income plays a greater mediating role than the alternative potential mediators. Altogether, the evidence supports intergenerational income stratification as a key mediating process within the long arm of childhood income.
Parolin Z, Pintro-Schmitt R, Esping-Andersen G, Fallesen, P. (2025). “Intergenerational persistence of poverty in five high-income countries.” Nature Human Behavior. Vol. 9: 254–267.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-02029-w
Abstract: Childhood poverty increases the likelihood of adult poverty. However, past research offers conflicting accounts of cross-national variation in the strength of—and mechanisms underpinning—the intergenerational persistence of poverty. Here the authors investigate differences in intergenerational poverty in the United States, Australia, Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom using administrative- and survey-based panel datasets. Intergenerational poverty is decomposed into family background effects, mediation effects, tax and transfer insurance effects and a residual poverty penalty. The intergenerational persistence of poverty is 0.43 in the United States (95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.40–0.46; P < 0.001), compared with 0.16 in the United Kingdom (95% CI = 0.07–0.25; P < 0.001) and 0.08 in Denmark (95% CI = 0.08–0.08; P < 0.001). The US disadvantage is not channelled through family background, mediators, neighbourhood effects or racial or ethnic discrimination. Instead, the United States has comparatively weak tax and transfer insurance effects and a more severe residual poverty penalty. If the United States were to adopt the tax and transfer insurance effects of its peer countries, its intergenerational poverty persistence could decrease by more than one-third.
Zhu X, Du Y, Wang M, Guo C. (2025). “Military experience and depression: a prospective multi-cohort analysis across nations.” Social Science & Medicine. Vol. 381. 118291
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40482472/
Abstract: Depression is a growing public concern, but whether it is associated with military experience still needs investigation. This study aimed to examine this association among male veterans. We employed data from the Chinese Family Panel Study 2010–2020 (China), the Socio-Economic Panel 2009–2021 (Germany) and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics 2009–2021 (USA) and included 27300 male adults aged above 18 years. The Cox proportional hazards model was applied to examine the association between military experience and depression with subgroup analyses. The restrictive cubic spline model was used to estimate the nonlinear relationship. The mediating effect of chronic diseases on this association was also explored. In the USA and the pooled sample of Germany and the USA, the depression risk for those with military experience was increased by 88 % (1.88, 1.67–2.12) and 49 % (1.49, 1.34–1.66), respectively. It was reduced by 42 % (0.58, 0.42–0.79) in German veterans but not significantly different in Chinese veterans. Some age heterogeneity existed. In the USA and the pooled sample, no increased risk of depression was observed among older veterans, while in China, they faced a decreased risk (0.74, 0.55–0.99). There was a U-shaped relationship between military time and depression in Germany, the USA and their pooled sample. Chronic disease partially mediated the association between military experience and depression in Germany, the USA and their pooled sample. This study advocates for cross-national policy interventions providing tailored mental health support and chronic disease management to mitigate depression risks among military personnel, particularly new recruits and long-serving veterans.