The Effect of Prescription Drug Coverage on Mortality: Evidence from Medicaid Implementation
Publication date: Available online 26 October 2018Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Denise Hammock ClaytonAbstractThis paper estimates the effect of Medicaid prescription drug spending on mortality. I use the group- and state-specific roll out of Medicaid drug coverage to isolate plausibly exogenous variation in drug expenditures. I find that a $1 increase in Medicaid drug expenditures per resident reduces mortality from internal causes by 2.0 deaths per hundred thousand, a decline of 0.23%. I find relatively large effects for: (1) medically-treated diseases which pose an immediate risk of death, (2) impoverish...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - October 27, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Uncertainty about the effort–performance relationship in threshold-based payment schemes
Publication date: November 2018Source: Journal of Health Economics, Volume 62Author(s): Anne Sophie Oxholm, Søren Rud Kristensen, Matt SuttonAbstractIncentive schemes often feature a threshold beyond which providers receive no additional payment for performance. We investigate whether providers’ uncertainty about the relationship between effort and measured performance leads to financially unrewarded performance in such schemes. Using data from the British Quality and Outcomes Framework, we proxy general practitioners’ uncertainty about the effort–performance relationship by their experience with the scheme and thei...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - October 18, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Mental health and the response to financial incentives: Evidence from a survey incentives experiment
Publication date: November 2018Source: Journal of Health Economics, Volume 62Author(s): Claryn S.J. Kung, David W. Johnston, Michael A. ShieldsAbstractAlthough mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression are common, there is little research on whether individuals in poor mental health react differently from others to financial incentives. This paper exploits an experiment from the UK Understanding Society Innovation Panel to assess how the participation response to randomly-assigned financial incentives differs by mental health status. We find that individuals in good mental health are more likely to respond whe...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - October 14, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Household Demand Persistence for Child Micronutrient Supplementation
Publication date: Available online 11 October 2018Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Travis J. Lybbert, Stephen A. Vosti, Katherine P. Adams, Rosemonde GuissouAbstractAddressing early-life micronutrient deficiencies can improve short- and long-term outcomes. In most contexts, private supply chains will be key to effective and efficient preventative supplementation. With established vendors, we conducted a 60-week market trial for a food-based micronutrient supplement in rural Burkina Faso with randomized price and non-price treatments. Repeat purchases – critical for effective supplementation – are extremely...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - October 12, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Better together: Coexistence of for-profit and nonprofit firms with an application to the U.S. Hospice Industry
Publication date: Available online 11 October 2018Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Christina Marsh Dalton, W. David BradfordAbstractMany markets maintain a nontrivial mix of both nonprofit and for-profit firms, particularly in health care industries such as hospice, nursing homes, and home health. What are the effects of coexistence versus dominance of one ownership type? We show how the presence of both ownership types can lead to greater diversity in consumer types served, even if both firms merely profit-maximize. This is the case where firms serve consumers for multiple consumption durations, but where don...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - October 12, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Impact and spill-over effects of an asset transfer program on child undernutrition: Evidence from a randomized control trial in Bangladesh
Publication date: Available online 10 October 2018Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Wameq A Raza, Ellen Van de Poel, Tom Van OurtiAbstractTargeting the Ultra-poor (TUP) is an integrated programme that combines the transfer of income-generating assets and multifaceted training on entrepreneurship, health-nutrition, and social awareness over a two-year period to graduate ultra-poor with mainstream poverty. While positive socioeconomic effects and spill-over effects are well-documented, this is the first paper to evaluate the effects of the programme on nutritional outcomes of under-5 children using data from a ra...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - October 11, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
The Effect of Retirement on Healthcare Utilization: Evidence from China
Publication date: Available online 9 October 2018Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Yi Zhang, Martin Salm, Arthur van SoestAbstractWe examine the effect of retirement on healthcare utilization in China using longitudinal data. We use a nonparametric fuzzy regression discontinuity design, exploiting the statutory retirement age in urban China as a source of exogenous variation in retirement. In contrast to previous results for developed countries, we find that in China retirement increases healthcare utilization. This increase can be attributed to deteriorating health and in particular to the reduced opportunity ...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - October 9, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Activation against absenteeism – Evidence from a sickness insurance reform in Norway
Publication date: November 2018Source: Journal of Health Economics, Volume 62Author(s): Øystein HernæsAbstractI evaluate a program aimed at strictly enforcing a requirement that people on long-term sick leave be partly back at work unless explicitly defined as an exception. Employing the synthetic control method, I find that the reform reduced work-hours lost due to sickness absenteeism by 12% in the reform region compared to a comparison unit created by a weighted average of similar regions. The effect is driven by both increased part-time presence of temporary disabled workers and accelerated recovery. Musculoskeletal ...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - October 9, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
How disability insurance reforms change the consequences of health shocks on income and employment
Publication date: Available online 26 September 2018Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Patrick Hullegie, Pierre KoningAbstractThis paper examines whether Dutch disability insurance reforms have helped or hindered employment opportunities of workers that are facing unanticipated shocks to their health. An important component of the reforms was to make employers responsible for paying sickness benefits and to strengthen their sickness monitoring obligations. This may stimulate preventive and reintegration activities by firms. Using administrative data on hospitalizations, we conclude that both financial incentives...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - October 5, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Activation against absenteeism –Evidence from a sickness insurance reform in Norway
Publication date: Available online 27 September 2018Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Hernæs ØysteinAbstractI evaluate a program aimed at strictly enforcing a requirement that people on long-term sick leave be partly back at work unless explicitly defined as an exception. Employing the synthetic control method, I find that the reform reduced work-hours lost due to sickness absenteeism by 12 % in the reform region compared to a comparison unit created by a weighted average of similar regions. The effect is driven by both increased part-time presence of temporary disabled workers and accelerated recovery. Muscu...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - October 5, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Mental Health and the Response to Financial Incentives:Evidence from a Survey Incentives Experiment
Publication date: Available online 29 September 2018Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Claryn S.J. Kung, David W. Johnston, Michael A. ShieldsAbstractAlthough mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression are common, there is little research on whether individuals in poor mental health react differently from others to financial incentives. This paper exploits an experiment from the UK Understanding Society Innovation Panel to assess how the participation response to randomly-assigned financial incentives differs by mental health status. We find that individuals in good mental health are more likely to r...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - October 5, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Plastic surgery or primary care? Altruistic preferences and expected specialty choice of U.S. medical students
This study examines experimentally measured altruistic preferences of medical students from schools around the U.S., and whether these preferences predict those students’ expected medical specialty choice. The experimental design consists of a set of computer-based revealed preference decision problems, which ask the experimental subjects to allocate real money between themselves and an anonymous person. These data are used to derive an innovative measure of altruism for each participant. I then examine the association between altruism and expected specialty choice, after controlling for an extensive set of covariates co...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - October 5, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
The Limits of Simple Implementation Intentions: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Making Plans to Exercise
Publication date: Available online 20 September 2018Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Mariana Carrera, Heather Royer, Mark Stehr, Justin Sydnor, Dmitry TaubinskyAbstractRecent large-scale randomized experiments find that helping people form implementation intentions by asking when and where they plan to act increases one-time actions, such as vaccinations, preventative screenings and voting. We investigate the effect of a simple scalable planning intervention on a repeated behavior using a randomized design involving 877 subjects at a private gym. Subjects were randomized into i) a treatment group who selected ...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - September 22, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Editorial Board
Publication date: September 2018Source: Journal of Health Economics, Volume 61Author(s): (Source: Journal of Health Economics)
Source: Journal of Health Economics - September 18, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Smoking kills: An economic theory of addiction, health deficit accumulation, and longevity
Publication date: Available online 15 September 2018Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Holger StrulikAbstractIn this paper I unify the economic theories of addiction and health deficit accumulation and develop a life cycle theory in which individuals take into account the fact that the consumption of addictive goods reduces their health and longevity. I distinguish two types of addiction: sophisticated and naive. Individuals with sophisticated addiction perfectly control their addiction. Individuals with naive addiction, though otherwise rational and forward looking, fail to fully understand how their addiction ...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - September 15, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
