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on Health Economics |
| By: | Rita Dias Pereira; Pietro Biroli; Titus Galama; Stephanie von Hinke; Hans van Kippersluis; Cornelius A. Rietveld; Kevin Thom |
| Abstract: | Nature (one's genes) and nurture (one's environment) jointly contribute to the formation and evolution of health and human capital over the life cycle. This complex interplay between genes and environment can be estimated and quantified using genetic information readily available in a growing number of social science data sets. To help the novice reader interested in understanding individual decision making, public policy, and inequality using genetic data, we introduce essential genetic terminology, review the literature in economics and social-science genetics -- with a focus on the interplay between genes and environment -- and discuss policy implications and future prospects of the use of genetic data in the social sciences and economics. |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2203.02198&r= |
| By: | Bronsoler, Ari; Doyle, Joseph; Van Reenen, John |
| Abstract: | Adoption of health information and communication technologies ('HICT') has surged over the past two decades. We survey the medical and economic literature on HICT adoption and its impact on clinical outcomes, productivity and labor. We find that HICT improves clinical outcomes and lowers healthcare costs, but (i) the effects are modest so far, (ii) it takes time for these effects to materialize, and (iii) there is much variation in the impact. More evidence on the causal effects of HICT on productivity is needed to guide further adoption. There is little econometric work directly investigating the impact of HICT on labor, but what there is suggests no substantial negative effects on employment and earnings. Overall, while healthcare is 'exceptional' in many ways, we are struck by the similarities to the wider findings on ICT and productivity stressing the importance of complementary factors (e.g. management and skills) in determining HICT impacts. |
| Keywords: | healthcare; technology; productivity; jobs; Programme On Innovation and Diffusion (POID) |
| JEL: | R14 J01 J1 |
| Date: | 2021–09–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113859&r= |
| By: | Janssen, Aljoscha (Singapore Management University); Granlund, David (Umea University) |
| Abstract: | We analyze changes in the willingness to substitute from prescribed pharmaceuticals to more affordable generic equivalents in response to the first experience with a substitution. Using Swedish individual-level data of prescribed and dispensed pharmaceuticals, we employ a dynamic event study and an instrumental variable approach to show that an initial substitution reduces the probability of opposing subsequent substitutions by 39 percentage points. The impact of a first substitution is especially large among elderly patients. We recommend that policy-makers target patients with a history of opposed substitution and offer additional discounts to promote substitution as long-term savings outweigh one-time costs. |
| Keywords: | Generic Substitution; Pharmaceuticals; Health Care Costs |
| JEL: | D12 I11 I12 |
| Date: | 2022–04–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1428&r= |
| By: | Cellini, Stefano (University of Surrey); Menezes, Livia (University of Birmingham); Koppensteiner, Martin Foureaux (University of Surrey) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we estimate the effect of maternal displacements during pregnancy on birth outcomes by leveraging population-level administrative data from Brazil on formal employment linked to birth records. We find that involuntary job separation of pregnant single mothers leads to a decrease in birth weight (BW) by around 28 grams (-1% ca.) and an increase in the incidence of low BW by 10.5%. In contrast, we find a significant positive effect on the mean BW and a decrease in the incidence of low BW for mothers in a marriage or stable union. We document more pronounced negative effects for single mothers with lower earnings and no effect for mothers in the highest income quartile, suggesting a mitigating role of self-insurance from savings. Exploiting variation from unemployment benefits eligibility, we also provide evidence on the mitigating role of formal unemployment insurance using a Regression Discontinuity design exploiting the cutoff from the unemployment insurance eligibility rule. |
| Keywords: | dismissals, birth outcomes, informal insurance, unemployment insurance |
| JEL: | D14 I10 J65 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15155&r= |
| By: | Koning, Pierre (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Muller, Paul (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Prudon, Roger (Free University Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | Workers with fixed-term contracts typically have worse health than workers with permanent contracts. We show that these differences in health translate into a substantially higher (30%) risk of applying for disability insurance (DI) in the Netherlands. Using unique administrative data on health and labor market outcomes of all employees in the Netherlands, we decompose this differential into: (i) selection of workers types into fixed-term contracts; (ii) the causal impact of temporary work conditions on worker health; (iii) the impact of differential employer incentives to reintegrate ill workers; and (iv) the differential impact of labor market prospects on the decision to apply for DI benefits. We find that selection actually masks part of the DI risk premium, whereas the causal impact of temporary work conditions on worker health is limited. At the same time, the differences in employer commitment during illness and differences in labor market prospects between fixed-term and permanent workers jointly explain more than 80% of the higher DI risk. |
| Keywords: | disability insurance, temporary work, employer incentives, worker health |
| JEL: | J08 I1 J22 H53 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15173&r= |
| By: | Reona Hagiwara (Economist, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan (E-mail: reona.hagiwara@boj.or.jp)) |
| Abstract: | Some medical demand is inelastic to price changes, but not all. In assessing the effects of public health insurance reform on welfare, I examine the role of medical demand elasticity by developing a computational general equilibrium life-cycle model of the Japanese economy. The model features individual heterogeneity in health, income, and wealth. If all medical demand is inelastic, reforming public health insurance by increasing copayments reduces welfare for all current generations. However, if some medical demand is elastic, as is empirically observed, such a reform would improve welfare for current young generations, including those with poor health and low income. Furthermore, future generations benefit from the reform and their welfare increases significantly. |
| Keywords: | Copayment Increase, Price Elasticity of Medical Demand, Welfare Effects, Overlapping Generations |
| JEL: | E21 H51 I13 I31 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ime:imedps:22-e-05&r= |
| By: | Melissa Newham; Marica Valente |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the impact of gifts - monetary or in-kind payments - from pharmaceutical firms on physicians' prescription decisions and drug costs in the US. Using exhaustive micro data on prescriptions for anti-diabetic drugs from Medicare Part D, we find that payments cause physicians to prescribe more brand drugs. On average, for every dollar spent, payments generate a $6 increase in drug costs. We then estimate heterogeneous causal effects via machine-learning methods. We find large heterogeneity in responses to payments across physicians. Differences are predominantly explained by the insurance coverage of patients: physicians prescribe more brand drugs in response to payments when patients benefit from subsidies that reduce out-of-pocket drug costs. Finally, we estimate that a gift ban would reduce drug costs to treat diabetes by 3%. |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2203.01778&r= |
| By: | Gruber, Jonathan (MIT); Lordan, Grace (London School of Economics); Pilling, Stephen (University College London); Propper, Carol (Imperial College London); Saunders, Rob (University College London) |
| Abstract: | Individuals with common mental disorders (CMDs) such as depression and anxiety frequently have co-occurring long-term physical health conditions (LTCs) and this co-occurrence is associated with higher hospital utilisation. Psychological treatment for CMDs may reduce healthcare utilisation through better management of the LTC, but there is little previous research. We examined the impact of psychological treatment delivered under the nationwide Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme in England on hospital utilisation 12-months after the end of IAPT treatment. We examined three types of hospital utilisation: Inpatient treatment, Outpatient treatment and Emergency room attendance. We examined individuals with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) (n=816), Diabetes (n=2813) or Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) (n=4115) who received psychological treatment between April 2014 and March 2016. IAPT episode data was linked to hospital utilisation data which went up March 2017. Changes in the probability of hospital utilisation were compared to a matched control sample for each LTC. Individuals in the control sample received IAPT treatment between April 2017 and March 2018. Compared to the control sample, the treated sample had significant reductions in the probability of all three types of hospital utilisation, for all three LTCs 12-months after the end of IAPT treatment. Reductions in utilisation of Emergency Room, Outpatient and non-elective Inpatient treatment were also observed immediately following the end of psychological treatment, and 6-months after, for individuals with diabetes and CVD, compared to the matched sample. These findings suggest that psychological interventions for CMDs delivered to individuals with co-occurring long-term chronic conditions may reduce the probability of utilisation of hospital services. Our results support the roll-out of psychological treatment aimed at individuals who have co-occurring common mental disorders and long-term chronic conditions. |
| Keywords: | depression, anxiety, hospital utilisation, psychological interventions, chronic conditions |
| JEL: | I10 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15181&r= |
| By: | Konstantin Kunze (Department of Economics, University of California Davis) |
| Abstract: | This paper exploits variation resulting from a series of federal and state Medicaid expansions between 1979 and 2014 to estimate the effects of child’s access to public health insurance on labor market outcomes of parents. The results imply that extended Medicaid eligibility of children leads to positive contemporaneous labor supply responses of both parents. The estimated effects are concentrated among mothers with non-white children and fathers with white children. |
| Keywords: | Labor Supply, Medicaid, Simulated Eligibility, Spillover Effects |
| JEL: | I13 I18 I38 J18 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2022–04–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cda:wpaper:349&r= |
| By: | Anthony Bald; Joseph J. Doyle Jr.; Max Gross; Brian Jacob |
| Abstract: | Foster care provides substitute living arrangements to protect maltreated children. The practice is remarkably common: it is estimated that 5 percent of children in the United States are placed in foster care at some point during childhood. These children exhibit poor outcomes as children and adults, and economists have begun to estimate the causal relationship between foster care and life outcomes. This paper describes tradeoffs in child welfare policy and provides background on the latest trends in foster care practice to highlight areas most in need of rigorous evidence. These trends include efforts to prevent foster care on the demand side and to improve foster home recruitment on the supply side. With increasing data availability and a growing interest in evidence-based practices, there are opportunities for economic research to inform policies that protect vulnerable children. |
| JEL: | H75 I28 J12 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29906&r= |
| By: | De Nardi, Mariacristina; Pashchenko, Svetlana; Porapakkarm, Ponpoje |
| Abstract: | What generates the observed differences in economic outcomes by health? How costly it is to be unhealthy? We show that health dynamics are largely driven by ex-ante fixed heterogeneity, or health types, even when controlling for one’s past health history. In fact, health types are the key driver of long spells of bad health. We incorporate these rich health dynamics in an estimated structural model and show that health types and their correlation with other fixed characteristics are important to account for the observed gap in economic outcomes by health. Monetary and welfare losses due to bad health over the life cycle are large, concentrated, and to a large extent due to factors pre-determined earlier in life. A large portion of the related monetary costs is due to income losses, especially for people of working age, while a substantial portion of the welfare losses arises because health affects life expectancy. |
| Keywords: | health, health insurance, medical spending, wealth-health gradient, life-cycle models |
| JEL: | E21 I14 |
| Date: | 2022–03–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:112492&r= |
| By: | Liu, Yinan; Zai, Xianhua |
| Abstract: | The Medicaid Home and Community- Based Services (HCBS) program in the United States subsidizes the long-term care provided at home or in community-based settings for older adults. Little is known about how HCBS affects the well-being of the aging population. Using detailed information about health from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) linked with state-level HCBS policy expenditures, we show that HCBS is beneficial to improve general health outcomes of older individuals. Our results find that HCBS generosity is positively associated with the probability of older individuals self-reporting better health status, mitigating functional mobility limitations, showing better emotional feelings, and increasing cognitive skills. In addition, these health benefits of HCBS differ across groups by resources and demographic characteristics. |
| Keywords: | Medicaid HCBS,Long-Term Care,Health |
| JEL: | I12 I18 I30 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1079&r= |
| By: | Ivandic, Ria; Kirchmaier, Thomas; Torres I Blas, Neus |
| Abstract: | We study the role of alcohol and emotions in explaining the dynamics in domestic abuse following major football games. We match confidential and uniquely detailed individual call data from Greater Manchester with the timing of football matches over a period of eight years to estimate the effect on domestic abuse. We first observe a 5% decrease in incidents during the 2-hour duration of the game suggesting a substitution effect of football and domestic abuse. However, following the initial decrease, after the game, domestic abuse starts increasing and peaks about ten hours after the game, leading to a positive cumulative effect. We find that all increases are driven by perpetrators that had consumed alcohol, and when games were played before 7pm. Unexpected game results are not found to have a significant effect. |
| Keywords: | domestic abuse; crime; football; alcohol |
| JEL: | J12 I12 |
| Date: | 2021–07–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113923&r= |
| By: | Cevat Giray Aksoy; Christopher S. Carpenter; Ralph de Haas; Mathias Dolls; Lisa Windsteiger |
| Abstract: | We study basic information treatments regarding sexual orientation using randomized experiments in three countries with strong and widespread anti-gay attitudes: Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine. Participants who received information about the economic costs to society of sexual-orientation discrimination were significantly more likely than those in a control group to support equal employment opportunities based on sexual orientation. Information that the World Health Organization (WHO) does not regard homosexuality as a mental illness increased social acceptance of sexual minorities, but only for those who reported trust in the WHO. Our results have important implications for policy makers aiming to expand the rights of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people worldwide. |
| Keywords: | sexual minorities, information treatments, discrimination, attitudes |
| JEL: | D91 J16 J71 O15 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9506&r= |
| By: | Joan Costa-i-Font; Luca Salmasi; Sarah Zaccagni |
| Abstract: | Are workplace smoking bans (WSBs) more than a ban on smoking? We study whether WSBs influence smoking cessation and exert behavioural spillover effects on (i) a set of health behaviours, and (ii) on individuals not directly affected by the bans. Drawing upon quasi-experimental evidence from Russia, which introduced a WSB (in addition to a ban on smoking in public places), and adopting a difference-in-differences (DiD) strategy, which compares employed individuals (exposed to the work and public place ban) to unemployed individuals (exposed only to the ban in public places), we document three sets of findings. First, unlike previous studies that focus on smoking bans in public places, we find robust evidence that WSBs increase smoking cessation by 2.9 percentage points (pp) among men. Second, we find that quitters are less likely to use alcohol (6.7 pp reduction among men and 3.5 pp among women), and they reduce their alcohol consumption (10 percent among men). WSBs are found to influence the health behaviour of those not directly affected by the reform, such as never smokers. Our findings are consistent with a model of joint formation of health behaviours, and suggest the need to account for a wider set of spillover effects when estimating the welfare effect of WSBs. |
| Keywords: | joint formation of behaviours, workplace smoking bans, behavioural spillovers, smoking, drinking, physical activity, healthy identity, Russia |
| JEL: | I18 H75 L51 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9587&r= |
| By: | Hung-Hao Chang; Chad Meyerhoefer |
| Abstract: | Farmers have higher rates of disability and illness than the general population and more volatile incomes due to frequent crop and livestock losses from extreme weather events. This raises concerns that sudden, weather-related drops in farm income could reduce access to health care for an already vulnerable population. We estimate the sensitivity of health care use to the loss in farm income brought about by natural disasters in Taiwan. To account for endogenous exposure to disaster risks, we estimate an instrumental variables model and find that farm income elasticities of demand for outpatient care and prescriptions range from 0.11 to 0.32. Reductions in health care use may be due, in part, to changes in time allocations within farm households. |
| JEL: | I1 Q12 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29898&r= |
| By: | Jin, Liyin; Li, Lingfang (Ivy); Zhou, Yi; Zhou, Yifang |
| Abstract: | Physical activity is a very important aspect of individuals’ quality of life. Health and behavioral studies have long sought to induce people to work out and form a habit to exercise. In this study, we design and conduct an 8-week longitudinal field experiment on an ex post feedback mechanism to motivate people to exercise. We designed feedback messages in two dimensions. One dimension varied the feedback messages according to whether they attributed the performance to participants’ own efforts (i.e., effort attribution treatment), and the other dimension adopted different personal pronoun (either the first-person pronoun, i.e.， “I message” or the second-person pronoun, i.e.，“You message”) to examine whether the deictic relational framing of the feedback matters (i.e., deictic relational framing treatment). The experiment used an exercising recording applet embedded in WeChat. We find that for the immediate effect, the “You message + effort emphasized” message performed the best. As for the overall effect when feedback is provided, participants in the “I message” and “You message + effort emphasized” treatment groups achieved their weekly exercise goals in about one more week than participants in the control group. But when feedback is no longer provided, the influence of both treatment groups failed to endure; the influence of the “You message + effort emphasized” treatment even reversed. We also find that the effect of feedback is stronger among participants whose subjective ability of self-control and intrinsic motivation to work out are low. |
| Keywords: | work out, feedback, deictic relational framing, attribution theory，field experiment |
| JEL: | D03 I12 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:112418&r= |
| By: | Andrea Berlanda; Matteo Cervellati; Elena Esposito; Dominic Rohner; Uwe Sunde |
| Abstract: | The consequences of successful public health interventions for social violence and conflict are largely unknown. This paper closes this gap by evaluating the effect of a major health intervention – the successful expansion of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic – in Africa. To identify the effect, we combine exogenous variation in the scope for treatment and global variation in drug prices. We find that the ART expansion significantly reduced the number of violent events in African countries and sub-national regions. The effect pertains to social violence and unrest, not civil war. The evidence also shows that the effect is not explained by general improvements in economic prosperity, but related to health improvements, greater approval of government policy, and increased trust in political institutions. Results of a counterfactual simulation reveal the largest potential gains in countries with intermediate HIV prevalence where disease control has been given relatively low priority. |
| Keywords: | HIV, conflict, social violence, ART expansion, trust, Africa, health intervention, domestic violence |
| JEL: | C36 D47 I15 O10 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9650&r= |
| By: | Luciana Cantera (Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República); Daniel Miles; Maximo Rossi |
| Abstract: | In this paper we discuss the association between body dissatisfaction, measured as the difference between actual and ideal body image, and anxiety, a mental health condition that affects an individual’s quality of life. We focus on two issues. First, whether there are gender asymmetries in this association. Our results suggest that women’s anxiety events are significantly more correlated with body dissatisfaction than for men. Second, we analyze two measures of anxiety: a subjective perceived episode of anxiety and a diagnosis of anxiety by a physician. Our findings suggest that the subjective measure overestimates the association between body dissatisfaction and anxiety. |
| Keywords: | body image; dissatisfaction; gender; anxiety; Uruguay |
| JEL: | I10 I12 D91 I30 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ude:wpaper:0520&r= |
| By: | van Ham, Maarten (Delft University of Technology); Manley, David (University of Bristol); Tammaru, Tiit (University of Tartu) |
| Abstract: | Over many decades, academics, policymakers and governments have been concerned with both the presence of inequalities and the impacts these can have on people when concentrated spatially in urban areas. This concern is especially related to the influence of spatial inequalities on individual outcomes in terms of health, education, work and income, and general well-being amongst other outcomes. In this commentary, we provide an overview of the literature on spatial inequalities and on contextual and neighbourhood effects. We address some of the main challenges in modelling contextual effects and provide evidence that no single study can definitively provide the answer to the question whether – and how much – spatial context effects are relevant for understanding individual outcomes. It is only when taken together that the rich body of research on spatial context effects shows convincingly that spatial context effects are relevant. The commentary ends with the presentation of the vicious circle of the segregation model and suggest some ways in which this vicious circle of spatial inequality and segregation can be broken. |
| Keywords: | spatial inequality, segregation, neighbourhood effects, spatial context effects |
| JEL: | I30 J60 P46 R23 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15153&r= |
| By: | Adler, Matthew; Dolan, Paul; Henwood, Amanda; Kavetsos, Georgios |
| Abstract: | Most people want to be both happy and healthy. But which matters most when there is a trade-off between them? This paper addresses this question by asking 4,000 members of the public in the UK and the US to make various trade-offs between being happy or being physically healthy. The results suggest that these trade-offs are determined in substantial part by the respondent's own levels of happiness and health, with happier people more likely to choose happy lives and healthier people more likely to choose healthy ones: "better the devil you know, than the devil you don't". Age also plays an important role, with older people much more likely to choose being healthy over being happy. We also test for the effect of information when a randomly chosen half of the sample are reminded that it is possible to be happy without being healthy. Information matters, but much less so than who we are. These results serve to further our understanding of the aetiology of people's preferences and have important implications for policymakers who are concerned with satisfying those preferences. |
| Keywords: | health; subjective well-being; happiness; preferences |
| JEL: | D72 I30 I31 I38 |
| Date: | 2021–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113837&r= |
| By: | Morel Berendson, Ricardo (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University); Girón, Liz (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | Policy decisions are sensitive to the conceptualization of poverty and, in line with the growing demand for multidimensional poverty measurement, we conducted an impact evaluation of Peru's largest social protection intervention - the conditional cash transfer program 'Juntos' - to further understand its effects on multidimensional poverty. We combine a propensity score matching with a difference-in-difference approach to estimate and compare two multidimensional indices created using the Alkire-Foster method. The first replicates the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) while the other is a Juntos-tailored MPI. We do not find robust and statistically significant effects of the program in either index. Despite finding steeper reductions among Juntos beneficiaries, particularly in education and health indicators, these changes cannot be statistically attributed to the program. We further conclude that using a multidimensional poverty index can be a highly useful evaluation tool when thoroughly adapted to the theory of change of the intervention under assessment. |
| Keywords: | conditional cash transfers, multidimensional poverty, Juntos, Peru |
| JEL: | I32 I38 |
| Date: | 2022–04–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2022012&r= |
| By: | Eiji Yamamura; Youki Kosaka; Yoshiro Tsutsui; Fumio Ohtake |
| Abstract: | Vaccination has been promoted to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Vaccination is expected to reduce the probability of and alleviate the seriousness of COVID-19 infection. Accordingly, this might significantly change an individuals subjective well-being and mental health. However, it is unknown how vaccinated people perceive the effectiveness of COVID-19 and how their subjective well-being and mental health change after vaccination. We thus observed the same individuals on a monthly basis from March 2020 to September 2021 in all parts of Japan. Then, large sample panel data (N=54,007) were independently constructed. Using the data, we compared the individuals perceptions of COVID-19, subjective well-being, and mental health before and after vaccination. Furthermore, we compared the effect of vaccination on the perceptions of COVID-19 and mental health for females and males. We used the fixed-effects model to control for individual time-invariant characteristics. The major findings were as follows: First, the vaccinated people perceived the probability of getting infected and the seriousness of COVID-19 to be lower than before vaccination. This was observed not only when we used the whole sample, but also when we used sub-samples. Second, using the whole sample, subjective well-being and mental health improved. The same results were also observed using the sub-sample of females, whereas the improvements were not observed using a sub-sample of males. |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2203.07663&r= |
| By: | Xavier Flawinne; Mathieu Lefebvre; Sergio Perelman; Pierre Pestieau; Jerome Schoenmaeckers |
| Abstract: | The current health crisis has particularly affected the elderly population. Nursing homes have unfortunately experienced a relatively large number of deaths. On the basis of this observation and working with European data (from SHARE), we want to check whether nursing homes were lending themselves to excess mortality even before the pandemic. Controlling for a number of important characteristics of the elderly population in and outside nursing homes, we conjecture that the difference in mortality between those two samples is to be attributed to the way nursing homes are designed and organised. Using matching methods, we observe excess mortality in Belgium, France, Germany Luxembourg, Switzerland, Estonia and Czech Republic but no statistically significant excess mortality in Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Italy or Spain. This raises the question of the organisation and management of these nursing homes, but also of their design and financing. |
| Keywords: | nursing homes, mortality, propensity score matching, SHARE |
| JEL: | C21 I10 J14 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9572&r= |
| By: | Santanu Pramanik (National Council of Applied Economic Research); Neerad Deshmukh (National Council of Applied Economic Research); Sonalde Desai (National Council of Applied Economic Research); Bijay Chouhan (National Council of Applied Economic Research); Manjistha Banerji (National Council of Applied Economic Research); Reem Ashraf (National Council of Applied Economic Research); Dinesh Tiwari (National Council of Applied Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, telephone surveys have been used extensively for carrying out studies on health knowledge, morbidity, and mortality surveillance. In order to understand the extent of different sources of non-observation errors in telephone surveys, we compare the distributions of units covered in the sampling frame and survey respondents with those who were excluded from the sampling frame and survey nonrespondents, respectively. The distributions are compared with respect to key socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, which are often associated with most health outcomes for two different study designs, viz., panel surveys and repeated cross-sectional surveys. |
| Keywords: | Delhi NCR Coronavirus Telephone Survey, Nonobservation Error, Panel Survey, Remote Mode of Data Collection, Repeated Cross-sectional Survey, Representativeness of Surveys |
| JEL: | C83 |
| Date: | 2022–03–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nca:ncaerw:136&r= |
| By: | Céline Azémar; Rodolphe Desbordes; Paolo Melindi-Ghidi; Jean-Philippe Nicolaï |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study the gains and losses incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. We distinguish between the effects of the pandemic and those of the health measures implemented to reduce the death toll, notably ‘the lockdown’. Our theoretical model is focused on within-sector firm heterogeneity and involves imperfect competition in a partial equilibrium setting. A comparison between the gains and losses triggered by both the pandemic and the lockdown indicates that an excess profits tax imposed on the ‘winners’ could partly compensate the ‘losers’ of the same sector. |
| Keywords: | Excess profits, COVID-19, Lockdown, Imperfect competition, Transfers. |
| JEL: | L13 H12 H25 H81 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2022-8&r= |
| By: | Maja Adena; Julian Harke |
| Abstract: | Has the COVID-19 pandemic affected pro-sociality among individuals? After the onset of the pandemic, many charitable appeals were updated to include a reference to COVID-19. Did donors increase their giving in response to such changes? In order to answer these questions, we conducted a real-donation online experiment with more than 4,200 participants from 149 local areas in England and over 21 weeks. First, we varied the fundraising appeal to either include or exclude a reference to COVID-19. We found that including the reference to COVID-19 in the appeal increased donations. Second, in a natural experiment-like approach, we studied how the relative local severity of the pandemic and media coverage about local COVID-19 severity affected giving in our experiment. We found that both higher local severity and more related articles increased giving of participants in the respective areas. This holds for different specifications, including specifications with location fixed effects, time fixed effects, a broad set of individual characteristics to account for a potentially changing composition of the sample over time and to account for health- and work-related experiences with and expectations regarding the pandemic. While negative experiences with COVID-19 correlate negatively with giving, both approaches led us to conclude that the pure effect of increased salience of the pandemic on pro-sociality is positive. Despite the shift in public attention toward the domestic fight against the pandemic and away from developing countries’ challenges, we found that preferences did not shift toward giving more to a national project and less to developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Covid-19, charitable giving, online experiments, natural experiments |
| JEL: | C93 D64 D12 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9588&r= |
| By: | Eiji Yamamura; Youki Koska; Yoshiro Tsutsui; Fumio Ohtake |
| Abstract: | Vaccination against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a key measure to reduce the probability of getting infected with the disease. Accordingly, this might significantly change an individuals perception and decision-making in daily life. For instance, it is predicted that with widespread vaccination, individuals will exhibit less rigid preventive behaviors, such as staying at home, frequently washing hands, and wearing a mask. We observed the same individuals on a monthly basis for 18 months, from March 2020 (the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic) to September 2021, in Japan to independently construct large sample panel data (N=54,007). Using the data, we compare the individuals preventive behaviors before and after they got vaccinated; additionally, we compare their behaviors with those individuals who did not get vaccinated. Furthermore, we compare the effect of vaccination on the individuals less than or equal to 40 years of age with those greater than 40 years old. The major findings determined after controlling for individual characteristics using the fixed effects model and various factors are as follows. First, as opposed to the prediction, based on the whole sample, the vaccinated people were observed to stay at home and did not change their habits of frequently washing hands and wearing a mask. Second, using the sub-sample of individuals aged equal to or below 40, we find that the vaccinated people are more likely to go out. Third, the results obtained using a sample comprising people aged over 40 are similar to those obtained using the whole sample. Preventive behaviors are affecting oneself and generating externalities on others during this pandemic. Informal social norms motivate people to increase or maintain preventive behaviors even after being vaccinated in societies where such behaviors are not enforced. |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2203.07660&r= |
| By: | Vojtech Bartos; Michal Bauer; Jana Cahliková; Julie Chytilová |
| Abstract: | Identifying sources of vaccine hesitancy is one of the central challenges in fighting the Covid- 19 pandemic. In this study, we focus on the role of public misperceptions of doctors’ views. Motivated by widespread concern that media reports create uncertainty in how people perceive expert opinions, even when broad consensus exists, we elicited trust in Covid-19 vaccines held by 9,650 doctors in the Czech Republic. We found evidence of a strong consensus: 90% of doctors trust the vaccines. Next, we conducted a nationally representative survey (N=2,101), and document systemic misperceptions of doctors’ views: more than 90% of respondents underestimate doctors’ trust; the most common belief is that only 50% of doctors trust the vaccines. Finally, we integrate randomized provision of information about the true views held by doctors into a longitudinal data collection, and regularly measure its impacts on vaccine take-up during a nine-month period when the vaccines were gradually rolled out. We find that the treatment recalibrates beliefs and leads to a lasting and stable increase in vaccine demand: individuals who receive the information are 4 percentage points more likely to be vaccinated nine months after the intervention. This paper illuminates how the engagement of professional medical associations, with their unparalleled capacity to elicit individual views of doctors on a large scale, can help to create a cheap, scalable intervention that corrects misperceptions and has lasting impacts on behavior. |
| Keywords: | Covid-19 vaccine, beliefs, misperceptions, expert consensus, information |
| JEL: | C93 D83 I12 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9617&r= |
| By: | Sarracino, Francesco (STATEC Research – National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies); Greyling, Talita (University of Johannesburg); O'Connor, Kelsey J. (STATEC Research – National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies); Peroni, Chiara (STATEC Research – National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies); Rossouw, Stephanié (Auckland University of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Previous evidence indicates trust is an important correlate of compliance with COVID-19 containment policies. However, this conclusion hinges on two crucial assumptions: first, that compliance does not change over time, and second, that mobility or self-reported measures are good proxies for compliance. This study is the first to use a time-varying measure of compliance to study the relationship between compliance and trust in others and institutions over the period from March 2020 to January 2021 in ten mostly European countries. We calculate a time-varying measure of compliance as the association between containment policies and people's mobility behavior using data from the Oxford Policy Tracker and Google. Additionally, we develop measures of trust in others and national institutions by applying emotion analysis to Twitter data. We test the predictive role of our trust measures using various panel estimation techniques. Our findings demonstrate that compliance does change over time and that increasing (decreasing) trust in others predicts increasing (decreasing) compliance. This evidence indicates compliance should not be taken for granted, and confirms the importance of cultivating trust in others. Nurturing trust in others, through ad-hoc policies such as community activity programs and urban design to facilitate social interactions, can foster compliance with public policies. |
| Keywords: | compliance, COVID-19, trust, big data, Twitter |
| JEL: | D91 I18 H12 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15171&r= |
| By: | Ahlheim, Michael; Kim, In Woo; Vuong, Duy Thanh |
| Abstract: | Many papers have been written about people's loss of life satisfaction during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but not much has been said about their resilience after the first shock had passed. Were people able to return, at least in part, to their original level of life satisfaction? This amounts to the question to which degree people had shown psychological resilience during the first wave of the COVID-19 crisis. In this context, it is also of interest which internal and external factors supported a person's tendency to prove resilient during the crisis. Based on an online survey conducted in August / September 2020 in Germany we try to answer these questions. We find that after a loss of average life satisfaction during the first three months after the outbreak of the pandemic in Germany many people's life satisfaction increased again. Roughly 60% of the respondents proved resilient in the sense that eight months after the outbreak of the pandemic they had regained the same or an even higher level of life satisfaction as compared to the situation before the COVID-19 crisis. Our results show that besides socioeconomic characteristics like age and income and certain character traits, people's personal experience during the crisis and their approval or disapproval of government policy during the crisis had an important influence on their chance to prove resilient. Therefore, a consistent and competent crisis communication building up trust in government's crisis management capacity is essential for people's resilience in a crisis. |
| Keywords: | Resilience,resistance,COVID-19,life satisfaction |
| JEL: | I10 I12 I18 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:hohdps:032022&r= |
| By: | Jagoda Kaszowska-Mojsa (Institute of Economics Polish Academy of Sciences); Przemyslaw Wlodarczyk (University of Lodz) |
| Abstract: | The ongoing epidemic of COVID-19 raises numerous questions concerning the shape and range of state interventions, that are aimed at reduction of the number of infections and deaths. The lockdowns, which became the most popular response worldwide, are assessed as being an outdated and economically inefficient way to fight the disease. However, in the absence of efficient cures and vaccines they lack viable alternatives. In this paper we assess the economic consequences of epidemic prevention and control schemes that were introduced in order to respond to the COVID-19 outburst. The analyses report the results of epidemic simulations obtained with the agent-based modeling methods under different response schemes and use them in order to provide conditional forecasts of standard economic variables. The forecasts are obtained from the DSGE model with labour market component. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, agent-based modelling, dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, scenario analyses |
| JEL: | C6 D5 |
| Date: | 2020–11–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ann:wpaper:3/2020&r= |
| By: | Bulman, George (University of California, Santa Cruz); Fairlie, Robert W. (University of California, Santa Cruz) |
| Abstract: | Although enrollment at California's four-year public universities mostly remained unchanged by the pandemic, the effects were substantial for students at California Community Colleges, the largest higher education system in the country. This paper provides a detailed analysis of how the pandemic impacted the enrollment patterns, fields of study, and academic outcomes of these students through the first four semesters after it started. Consistent with national trends, enrollment dropped precipitously during the pandemic – the total number of enrolled students fell by 11 percent from fall 2019 to fall 2020 and by another 7 percent from fall 2020 to fall 2021. The California Community College system lost nearly 300,000 students over this period. Our analysis reveals that enrollment reductions were largest among African- American and Latinx students, and were larger among continuing students than first-time students. We find no evidence that having a large online presence prior to the pandemic protected colleges from these negative effects. Enrollment changes were substantial across a wide range of fields and were large for both vocational courses and academic courses that can be transferred to four-year institutions. In terms of course performance, changes in completion rates, withdrawal rates, and grades primarily occurred in the spring of 2020. These findings of the effects of the pandemic at community colleges have implications for policy, impending budgetary pressures, and future research. |
| Keywords: | pandemic, COVID-19, coronavirus, community college, enrollment, grades, completion, students of color |
| JEL: | I23 I21 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15196&r= |
| By: | George Bulman; Robert W. Fairlie |
| Abstract: | Although enrollment at California’s four-year public universities mostly remained unchanged by the pandemic, the effects were substantial for students at California Community Colleges, the largest higher education system in the country. This paper provides a detailed analysis of how the pandemic impacted the enrollment patterns, fields of study, and academic outcomes of these students through the first four semesters after it started. Consistent with national trends, enrollment dropped precipitously during the pandemic – the total number of enrolled students fell by 11 percent from fall 2019 to fall 2020 and by another 7 percent from fall 2020 to fall 2021. The California Community College system lost nearly 300,000 students over this period. Our analysis reveals that enrollment reductions were largest among African-American and Latinx students, and were larger among continuing students than first-time students. We find no evidence that having a large online presence prior to the pandemic protected colleges from these negative effects. Enrollment changes were substantial across a wide range of fields and were large for both vocational courses and academic courses that can be transferred to four-year institutions. In terms of course performance, changes in completion rates, withdrawal rates, and grades primarily occurred in the spring of 2020. These findings of the effects of the pandemic at community colleges have implications for policy, impending budgetary pressures, and future research. |
| Keywords: | pandemic, Covid-19, coronavirus, community college, enrollment, grades, completion, students of color |
| JEL: | I23 I21 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9668&r= |