In 1935, the United States introduced the old-age assistance (OAA) program, a means-tested program to help the elderly poor. The OAA improved retirement conditions and aimed to enable older persons to live independently. We use the transition from early elderly plans to OAA and the large differences in payments and eligibility across states to show that OAA reduced mortality by between 30 and 39 percent among those older than 65 years. This finding, based on an event study design, is robust to a range of specifications, a range of fixed effects, placebo tests, and a border-pair policy discontinuity design using county-level data. The largest mortality reductions came from drops in communicable and infectious diseases, such as influenza and nephritis, and mostly affected white citizens.

中文翻译：

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量化 1935 年老年援助对死亡率的影响

1935 年，美国推出了老年援助（OAA）计划，这是一项经过经济状况调查的计划，旨在帮助贫困的老年人。OAA 改善了退休条件，旨在使老年人能够独立生活。我们利用从早期老年人计划到 OAA 的过渡以及各州在支付和资格方面的巨大差异来表明，OAA 将 65 岁以上人群的死亡率降低了 30% 到 39%。这一发现基于事件研究设计，对一系列规范、一系列固定效应、安慰剂测试和使用县级数据的边界对政策不连续性设计是稳健的。最大的死亡率下降来自传染病和传染病的下降，例如流感和肾炎，并且主要影响白人公民。