Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP18680
Authors: Jörg Baten; Alberto Batinti; Joan Costa-i-Font; Laura Radatz
Abstract: Health insurance expansions can improve health outcomes through greater access to healthcare. This is truer among the poorer segments of the population, which otherwise could not afford healthcare costs, or might lack the information about where to seek proper health cures and interventions. In this paper we examine whether expanded access to health insurance historically reduced height inequality by promoting body growth, especially across the poorer individuals, and so improved their height, a widely used and well-established anthropometric measure of health and well-being. We draw our evidence using a panel of countries for which we could measure height inequality; our evidence suggests that indeed within-country height inequality declined after insurance expansions towards near-universal coverage.
Keywords: health insurance expansions; heights; health inequality; economic development
JEL Codes: I13; J15; N34
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Universal Health Coverage (UHC) (I13) | Height Inequality (I14) |
| Health Insurance Expansion (I13) | Height Inequality (I14) |
| Health Insurance Expansion (I13) | Improved Health Outcomes (I14) |
| Improved Health Outcomes (I14) | Height Inequality (I14) |
| Distance of Capital from Geographical Center of Russia (R53) | Universal Health Coverage (UHC) (I13) |