Palmer, EdwardAndrén, Daniela2006-12-072007-02-092007-02-0920011403-2465http://hdl.handle.net/2077/2898The question addressed in this paper is whether sickness history affects annual earnings and hourly wages in Sweden. If poor health makes people less productive, we expect to find a negative effect of previous health history on hourly wages. If, instead, poor health reduces people™s working capacity, but not their productivity, this implies only a decrease in hours worked. Using a longitudinal database for individual sickness, we estimate both (annual) earnings and (hourly) wage equations, and find that people who are healthy in the current year, but have long-term sickness in the previous five years have lower earnings than persons without long-term sickness.35 pages327320 bytesapplication/pdfenhuman capital model; age-earnings profiles; earnings; wage equationssickness spells; health variablesReportEconomics