Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we observe that the incidence of recoveries from mobility limitations is very high between the first and second time that individuals are interviewed, and declines sharply to a stable level in subsequent waves. Based on this observation, we question the initial accuracy of measures of mobility limitations, which could be later ameliorated through individuals’ ability to learn about their health capacities over time. We provide empirical evidence to show that this unusually high incidence of recovery from mobility limitations could be in part the result of respondents’ improvement on health knowledge of questions on mobility limitations or improved experience with the activities instead of caused by real health improvement. Our results are not only relevant to any empirical researchers using mobility limitation indicators in a panel data setting, but also to researchers analyzing the effectiveness of policy interventions on health outcomes using self-reported health measures, since the effects of these policies are likely to be confounded with improvements in health knowledge, and the results be biased to- wards surprisingly large short-run effects and much smaller medium and long-run effects. [Click here for more]
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