Working Paper: NBER ID: w9394
Authors: Shinyi Chou; Jintan Liu; James K. Hammitt
Abstract: By reducing risk of large out-of-pocket medical expenses, comprehensive social health insurance may reduce households' motivation to engage in precautionary behaviors such as saving, procurement of private insurance, and spousal labor-force participation. We use the natural experiment provided by the 1995 introduction of National Health Insurance in Taiwan to examine these effects, using pre-existing differences in access to health insurance (tied to the household head's and spouse's joint employment status) to identify the effects of increasing insurance coverage. We find that comprehensive health insurance has a statistically significant and large effect on household savings and purchase of private accident insurance, but no significant effect on spousal employment.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: D1; H4; I1
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| joint employment status of spouses (J12) | insurance benefits (J32) |
| National Health Insurance (NHI) (H51) | household savings (D14) |
| National Health Insurance (NHI) (H51) | purchase of private accident insurance (G52) |
| National Health Insurance (NHI) (H51) | spousal employment (J12) |