Quality and Accountability in Health Care Delivery: Audit-Study Evidence from Primary Care in India

By Jishnu Das, Alaka Holla, Aakash Mohpal, and Karthik Muralidharan

American Economic Review, December 2016

We present unique audit-study evidence on health care quality in rural India, and find that most private providers lacked medical qualifications, but completed more checklist items than public providers and recommended correct treatments equally often. Am...

Health Capital and the Prenatal Environment: The Effect of Ramadan Observance during Pregnancy

By Douglas Almond and Bhashkar Mazumder

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2011

This paper uses the Islamic holy month of Ramadan as a natural experiment in diurnal fasting and fetal health. Among births to Arab parents in Michigan, we find prenatal exposure to Ramadan results in lower birth weight. Exposure in the first month of ges...

Paying on the Margin for Medical Care: Evidence from Breast Cancer Treatments

By Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, and Heidi Williams

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, February 2016

We present a simple graphical framework to illustrate the potential welfare gains from a "top-up" health insurance policy requiring patients to pay the incremental price for more expensive treatment options. We apply this framework to breast cancer treatm...

To Work or Not to Work? Child Development and Maternal Labor Supply

By Paul Frijters, David W. Johnston, Manisha Shah, and Michael A. Shields

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2009

We estimate the effect of early child development on maternal labor force participation. Mothers of poorly developing children may remain at home to care for their children. Alternatively, mothers may enter the labor force to pay for additional educati...

Achieving Escape Velocity: Neighborhood and School Interventions to Reduce Persistent Inequality

By Roland G. Fryer Jr. and Lawrence F. Katz

American Economic Review, May 2013

This paper reviews the evidence on the efficacy of neighborhood and school interventions in improving the long-run outcomes of children growing up in poor families. We focus on studies exploiting exogenous sources of variation in neighborhoods and schools...

Takeovers: Their Causes and Consequences

[Symposium: Takeovers]

By Michael C. Jensen

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1988

Economists have accumulated considerable evidence and knowledge on the effects of the takeover market. Here, I focus on current aspects of the controversy. My assessment is that the market for corporate control is creating large benefits for shareholders ...

Do Child Tax Benefits Affect the Well-Being of Children? Evidence from Canadian Child Benefit Expansions

By Kevin Milligan and Mark Stabile

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2011

We exploit changes in child benefits in Canada to study the impact of family income on child and family well-being. Using variation in child benefits across province, time, and family type, we study outcomes spanning test scores, mental health, physical h...

History Matters: The Long-Term Impact of Colonial Public Investments in French West Africa

By Elise Huillery

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2009

To what extent do colonial public investments continue to influence current regional inequalities in French-speaking West Africa? Using a new database and the spatial discontinuities of colonial investment policy, this paper gives evidence that early c...

Controlling Health Care Costs through Limited Network Insurance Plans: Evidence from Massachusetts State Employees

By Jonathan Gruber and Robin McKnight

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, May 2016

We investigate the impact of limited network insurance plans in the context of the Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission (GIC), the insurance plan for state employees. Our quasi-experimental analysis examines the introduction of a major financial in...

Policy Watch: Medicaid and Uninsured Women and Children

By Jonathan Gruber

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1997

This paper focuses on the role of Medicaid, the public health insurance program for low income populations, as a means of reducing uninsurance among uninsured women and children. The author discusses the structure of the Medicaid program and recent findin...

Is an Automaker's Road to Bankruptcy Paved with Customers' Beliefs?

By Ali Hortaçsu, Gregor Matvos, Chaehee Shin, Chad Syverson, and Sriram Venkataraman

American Economic Review, May 2011

We explore the role the feedback loop between firms' financial health and consumers' demand for their products plays in the auto market. We construct a simple model of an automaker making pricing and debt service (continuation) decisions while recognizing...

Should Cash Transfers Be Conditional? Conditionality, Preventive Care, and Health Outcomes

By Orazio P. Attanasio, Veruska Oppedisano, and Marcos Vera-Hernández

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2015

We study a Conditional Cash Transfer program in which the cash transfers to the mother only depend on the fulfillment of the national preventive visit schedule by her children born before she registered in the program. We estimate that preventive visits o...

Free to Choose? Reform, Choice, and Consideration Sets in the English National Health Service

By Martin Gaynor, Carol Propper, and Stephan Seiler

American Economic Review, November 2016

Choice in public services is controversial. We exploit a reform in the English National Health Service to assess the effect of removing constraints on patient choice. We estimate a demand model that explicitly captures the removal of the choice constraint...

Incremental Universalism for the United States: The States Move First?

[Symposium: Health Care]

By Jonathan Gruber

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2008

The latest wave of health care proposals and laws in the United Sates has been marked by what I call "incremental universalism" -- that is, getting to universal health insurance coverage by filling the gaps in the existing system, rather than ripping up t...

The Effects of Rate Regulation on Demand for Supplemental Health Insurance

By M. Kate Bundorf and Kosali I. Simon

American Economic Review, May 2006

Optimal Taxation and Social Insurance with Endogenous Private Insurance

By Raj Chetty and Emmanuel Saez

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, May 2010

We characterize welfare gains from government intervention when the private sector provides partial insurance. We analyze models in which adverse selection, pre-existing information, or imperfect optimization create a role for government intervention. We ...

The Effect of Patient Cost Sharing on Utilization, Health, and Risk Protection

By Hitoshi Shigeoka

American Economic Review, July 2014

This paper exploits a sharp reduction in patient cost sharing at age 70 in Japan, using a regression discontinuity design to examine its effect on utilization, health, and financial risk arising from out-of-pocket expenditures. Due to the national policy,...

The Changing Role of Government in Financing Health Care: An International Perspective

By Mark Stabile and Sarah Thomson

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2014

This paper explores the changing role of government involvement in health care financing policy outside the United States. It provides a review of the economics literature in this area to elucidate the implications of recent policy changes on efficiency, ...

Reviews of the 2006 Economic Report of the President

By Alan Auerbach, Rebecca Blank, Martin Feldstein, Michael Katz, and Kenneth Rogoff

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2006

The Journal of Economic Literature regularly reviews books of interest to the economics profession. The 2006 Economic Report of the President (ERP) falls under that purview. In the reviews that follow, Martin Feldstein reviews the overview c...

A Skeptic's View of Global Budget Caps

[Symposium: Health Care Reform]

By James M. Poterba

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 1994

This brief paper explores the likely effects of government-imposed global budget caps, such as those in the Clinton administration proposal, on health care spending. It argues that health reform proposals that guarantee universal access to a basic package...