Einav, Liran and Amy Finkelstein. We’ve Got You Covered: Rebooting American Health Care

By Amitabh Chandra

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2023

2023 in Research Highlights

[Research Highlight]

December 07, 2023

Economists addressed issues related to graduate student mental health, teacher diversity, the origin of government, and more.

The Impact of Youth Medicaid Eligibility on Adult Incarceration

By Samuel Arenberg, Seth Neller, and Sam Stripling

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2024

This paper identifies an important spillover associated with public health insurance: reduced incarceration. In 1990, Congress passed legislation that increased Medicaid eligibility for individuals born after September 30, 1983. We show that Black childre...

New Perspectives on the Economics of Mental Health

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New Perspectives on the Economics of Mental Health Grand Hyatt, Texas Ballroom Salon E Chair: Janet Currie (Princeton University) Authors: Maya Rossin-Slater (Stanford University), Molly Kathleen Schnell (Northwestern University) (presenting), Hannes Schwandt (Northwestern University), Janet Currie (Princeton University) (presenting), W. Bentley MacLeod (Princeton University and NBER), Linda Ouyang (Princeton University), Gabriella Conti (University College London) (presenting), Sören Kliem (Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony), Malte Sandner (Institute for Employment Research) Discussants: Prashant Bhardawaj (University of California-San Diego), Amitabh Chandra (Harvard University), Janet Currie (Princeton University)

Counselors matter

[Research Highlight]

January 11, 2024

Christine Mulhern discusses the impact of high school counselors on students’ academic success.

Gender Differences in Medical Evaluations: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Doctors

By Marika Cabral and Marcus Dillender

American Economic Review, February 2024

Little is known about what drives gender disparities in health care and related social insurance benefits. Using data and variation from the Texas workers' compensation program, we study the impact of gender match between doctors and patients on medical e...

Old Age Risks, Consumption, and Insurance

By Richard Blundell, Margherita Borella, Jeanne Commault, and Mariacristina De Nardi

American Economic Review, February 2024

In the United States, after age 65, households face income and health risks, and a large fraction of these risks are transitory. While consumption significantly responds to transitory income shocks, out-of-pocket medical expenses do not. In contrast, both...

Does Health Care Consolidation Harm Patients? Evidence from Maternity Ward Closures

By Daniel Avdic, Petter Lundborg, and Johan Vikström

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, February 2024

We study how closures of maternity wards affect maternal and neonatal health. Using data on all hospital births in Sweden between 1990 and 2004, we compare changes in birth-related outcomes across hospital catchment areas that were differently exposed to ...

Rainer Kotschy on population aging and economic growth

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Will smaller working-age populations slow economic growth?

Rebitzer, James B. and Robert S. Rebitzer. Why Not Better and Cheaper? Healthcare and Innovation

By Jonathan Skinner

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2024

Expanding public options

[Research Highlight]

March 25, 2024

When should state-owned companies compete with the private sector?

What's behind Her Smile? Health, Looks, and Self-Esteem

By Francisco A. Gallego, Cristian Larroulet Philippi, and Andrea Repetto

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2024

This paper examines how improving dental health affects economic, social, and psychological outcomes. In a randomized experiment, we provide a low-income group free dental care, including prostheses, and find significant and persistent impacts on men's an...

SeaTE: Subjective Ex Ante Treatment Effect of Health on Retirement

By Pamela Giustinelli and Matthew D. Shapiro

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2024

The paper studies the effect of health on work among older workers by eliciting two- and four-year-ahead subjective probabilities of working under alternative health states. These measures predict work outcomes. Person-specific differences in working prob...

Maternal Dengue and Health Outcomes of Children

By Martin Foureaux Koppensteiner and Lívia Menezes

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2024

We study the effect of maternal dengue infections on birth outcomes using linked administrative records from Brazil estimating maternal fixed-effect specifications. In contrast to previous studies, we find robust evidence for the negative effect of dengue...

Does Promoting One Healthy Behavior Detract from Others? Evidence from a Field Experiment

By Hannah Trachtman

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2024

Impact evaluations of behavioral interventions typically focus on target outcomes. Might interventions induce negative spillovers on other behaviors? I run a large field experiment in which individuals receive combinations of messages and incentives promo...

Housing the Homeless: The Effect of Placing Single Adults Experiencing Homelessness in Housing Programs on Future Homelessness and Socioeconomic Outcomes

By Elior Cohen

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2024

This study measures the impact of rapidly placing single adults experiencing homelessness in housing programs on future homelessness, crime, and health. Using a caseworker placement tendencies design and a novel dataset constructed by linking administrati...

Improving vaccine messaging

[Research Highlight]

April 08, 2024

Sarah Eichmeyer discusses ways to increase vaccine take-up rates.

From Fog to Smog: The Value of Pollution Information

By Panle Jia Barwick, Shanjun Li, Liguo Lin, and Eric Yongchen Zou

American Economic Review, May 2024

In 2013, China launched a landmark program to monitor air quality and disclose real-time data, significantly increasing the public's access to and awareness of pollution information. The program triggered cascading behavioral changes such as stronger avoi...

Hospital Queues, Patient Health, and Labor Supply

By Anna Godøy, Venke F. Haaland, Ingrid Huitfeldt, and Mark Votruba

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, May 2024

Long waits for health care raise concerns about the consequences of delayed treatment. We use variation in queue congestion to estimate effects of wait time for orthopedic surgery. We do not find that longer wait times lead to increased health care utiliz...

Killing Prescriptions Softly: Low Emission Zones and Child Health from Birth to School

By Hannah Klauber, Felix Holub, Nicolas Koch, Nico Pestel, Nolan Ritter, and Alexander Rohlf

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, May 2024

We examine the persistence of the impact of early-life exposure to air pollution on children's health from birth to school enrollment using administrative public health insurance records covering one-third of all children in Germany. For identification, w...