University of Gothenburg
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  4. Gustav Kjellsson

Gustav Kjellsson

SENIOR LECTURER

Department of
Economics
Telephone
+46 31-786 26 03
Mail
gustav.kjellsson@economics.gu.se
Visiting address
Vasagatan 1
41124 Göteborg
Room number
D-601D
Postal address
Box 640
40530 Göteborg

About Gustav Kjellsson

The general theme of my research is socioeconomic differences in health and health behavior. I approach this theme from both a methodological and an empirical perspective in three broad research strands. 

The first strand of my current research has a methodological focus, studying questions on how to measure, understand, and explain health inequality. To compare the level of inequality between populations or to monitor the development over time, it is in many situations desirable to be able to summarize inequalities into one single measure. Health economists generally use versions of the concentration index. My research focus on the implicit value judgments these measures contain, and how the choice of measure may affect comparisons between populations over time or space. My interest also extends to explaining and understanding inequality. Therefore, my research also focus on methods to decompose health inequality measures into the covariates that cause the variation in health along the socioeconomic gradient.

The second strand of my current research has an empirical focus, looking at how educational institutions affect socioeconomic (health) inequality. Specifically, I use reforms in the school system as natural experiments to study the causal relationship between education at different stages in life and (health) inequality. 

The third strand of my current research focus on the nexus of information, choice and competition within primary care. Using variation from natural experiments and field experiments, I investigate questions such as how competition affect health care quality and how reducing costs of retrieving information affects patients’ choice of primary care provider. As an overarching theme, I am also interested in how these features may reduce or increase socioeconomic differences in access to health care (and health outcomes). 

On other web sites

Research areas

  • Health Economics
  • Health Inequality Measurement
  • Applied Micoreconometrics

Teaching areas

  • Health Economics
  • Microeconomics
  • Public Economics

Selected publications

Patient choice, entry, and the quality of primary care: Evidence from Swedish reforms
Dietrichson, J., Ellegard, L. M., Kjellsson, Gustav
Health Economics, 29:6, s. 716-730, 2020

A general method for decomposing the causes of socioeconomic inequality in health
Heckley, Gawain, Gerdtham, Ulf G., Kjellsson, Gustav
Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, 48, s. 89-106, 2016

Lies, Damned Lies, and Health Inequality Measurements
Kjellsson, Gustav, Gerdtham, Ulf, Petrie, Dennis
Epidemiology, Wolters Kluwer Health/LWW, 26:5, s. 673-680, 2015

Forgetting to remember or remembering to forget: A study of the recall period length in health care survey questions
Kjellsson, Gustav, Clarke, Philip, Gerdtham, Ulf
Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, 35:Feb 7, s. 34-46, 2014

On correcting the concentration index for binary variables
Kjellsson, Gustav, Gerdtham, Ulf
Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, 32:3, s. 659-670, 2013