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on Insurance Economics |
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Issue of 2019‒08‒19
29 papers chosen by Soumitra K. Mallick Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management |
| By: | Maclean, J. Catherine (Temple University); Tello-Trillo, Sebastian (University of Virginia); Webber, Douglas A. (Temple University) |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of losing insurance on behavioral health – mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) – community hospitalizations. We leverage variation in public insurance eligibility offered by a large-scale Medicaid disenrollment. Losing insurance decreased SUD-related hospitalizations but mental illness hospitalizations were unchanged. Use of Medicaid to pay for behavioral health hospitalizations declined post-disenrollment. Mental illness hospitalization financing shifted to private insurance, Medicare, and patients, while SUD treatment financing shifted entirely to patients. We investigate implications of reliance on data that is not representative at the level of the treatment variable and propose a possible solution. |
| Keywords: | healthcare, community hospitalizations, insurance, mental illness, substance use disorders, data quality |
| JEL: | I1 I11 I18 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12463&r=all |
| By: | Korfhage, T.; |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I estimate a dynamic structural model of labor supply, retirement, and informal care supply, incorporating labor market frictions and the German tax and benefit system. I find that informal elderly care has adverse and persistent effects on labor market outcomes and therefore negatively affects lifetime earnings, future pension benefits, and individuals'well-being. These consequences of caregiving are heterogeneous and depend on age, previous earnings, and institutional regulations. Policy simulations suggest that, even though fiscally costly, public long-term care insurance can offset the personal costs of caregiving to a large extent - in particular for low-income individuals. |
| Keywords: | long-term care; informal care; long-term care insurance; labor supply; retirement; pension benefits; structural model; |
| JEL: | I18 I38 J14 J22 J26 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:hectdg:19/17&r=all |
| By: | Jang, Youngsoo |
| Abstract: | How do defaults and bankruptcies affect optimal health insurance policy? I answer this question using a life-cycle model of health investment with the option to default on emergency room (ER) bills and financial debts. I calibrate the model for the U.S. economy and compare the optimal health insurance in the baseline economy with that in an economy with no option to default. With no option to default, the optimal health insurance is similar to the health insurance system in the baseline economy. In contrast, with the option to default, the optimal health insurance system (i) expands the eligibility of Medicaid to 22 percent of the working-age population, (ii) replaces 72 percent of employer-based health insurance with a private individual health insurance plus a progressive subsidy, and (iii) reforms the private individual health insurance market by improving coverage rates and preventing price discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions. This result implies that with the option to default, households rely on bankruptcies and defaults on ER bills as implicit health insurance. More redistributive healthcare reforms can improve welfare by reducing the dependence on this implicit health insurance and changing households’ medical spending behavior to be more preventative. |
| Keywords: | Credit, Default, Bankruptcy, Optimal Health Insurance |
| JEL: | E21 H51 I13 K35 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:95397&r=all |
| By: | Marie-Louise Leroux; Pierre Pestieau; Gregory Ponthiere |
| Abstract: | The study of optimal long-term care (LTC) social insurance is generally carried out under the utilitarian social criterion, which penalizes individuals who have a lower capacity to convert resources into well-being, such as dependent elderly individuals or prematurely dead individuals. This paper revisits the design of optimal LTC insurance while adopting the ex post egalitarian social criterion, which gives priority to the worst-off in realized terms (i.e. once the state of nature has been revealed). Using a lifecycle model with risk about the duration of life and risk about old-age dependence, it is shown that the optimal LTC social insurance is quite sensitive to the postulated social criterion. The optimal second-best social insurance under the ex post egalitarian criterion involves, in comparison to utilitarianism, higher LTC benefits, lower pension benefits, a higher tax rate on savings, as well as a lower tax rate on labor earnings. |
| Keywords: | long-term care, social insurance, fairness, mortality, compensation, egalitarianism. |
| JEL: | J14 I31 H55 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:criacr:1903&r=all |
| By: | Akaichi, Faical (SRUC Edinburgh); Costa-Font, Joan (London School of Economics); Frank, Richard (Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | We examine evidence from two unique discrete choice experiments (DCE) on long term care insurance and several of its relevant attributes, and more specifically, choices made by 15,298 individuals in the United States with and without insurance. We study the valuation of the following insurance attributes, namely daily insurance benefit, insurance coverage, the compulsory and voluntary nature of the insurance policy design, alongside the costs (insurance premium) and health requirements This paper investigates respondents' preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for these care insurance's attributes using a random parameter logit model, and assess the heterogeneity of choice responses using demographic, socioeconomic and attitudinal motivations to segment response to insurance choices. We find that an increase in the insurance premium by an additional 100US$ would reduce insurance uptake by 1pp. Insurance policy uptake is higher when it provides benefits for the lifetime (the monthly marginal WTP being $178.64), and voluntary (the monthly marginal WTP increases by an extra $74.71) as opposed to universal, and when it forgoes health checks (the monthly marginal WTP increases by an extra 28US$). |
| Keywords: | long term care insurance, constrained choices, self-insurance, behavioural constraints, insurance design |
| JEL: | I18 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12501&r=all |
| By: | McFadden, Jonathan R.; Hoppe, Robert A. |
| Abstract: | Agricultural policies—through Federal commodity, conservation, and crop insurance programs—aim to mitigate the financial risks faced by farmers and the environmental risks posed by agricultural production. The programs also provide support to farmers through direct financial assistance, in the case of commodity and conservation programs, and through premium subsidies in the case of crop insurance. Changes in the structure of agriculture have changed the distribution of income support over time. Specifically, commodity program payments, some conservation program payments, and Federal crop insurance indemnities have shifted to larger farms as U.S. agricultural production continues to consolidate. Since the operators of larger farms have higher household incomes than those of smaller farms, commodity program payments and support through Federal crop insurance have also shifted to higher income households. This study details the extent of that shift over 25 years from 1991 through 2015. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Environmental Economics and Policy, Industrial Organization, Risk and Uncertainty |
| Date: | 2017–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:uersib:291932&r=all |
| By: | Maclean, J. Catherine (Temple University); Webber, Douglas A. (Temple University) |
| Abstract: | We examine the lifecycle wage effects of health insurance market regulation that compels private insurers to offer continuing coverage to beneficiaries. Using a panel of male workers drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we model wages across the lifecycle as a function of the mandated number of months of continuing coverage at labor market entrance. Access to continuing coverage is plausibly valuable to young workers as this benefit facilities job mobility, which is important for early career wage growth and lifecycle wages, but is costly to firms. We show that more generous mandated continuing coverage at labor market entrance causes an initial wage decline of roughly 1% that reverses after five years in the labor market leading to higher wages later in the career. Wage increases are observable up to 30 years after labor market entrance. We provide suggestive evidence that increased job mobility early in the career is a mechanism for the observed wage effects. |
| Keywords: | regulation, job lock, continuing coverage, wage determination, persistence |
| JEL: | J3 H2 I13 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12464&r=all |
| By: | Marcus Dillender; Andrew I. Friedson; Cong T. Gian; Kosali I. Simon |
| Abstract: | The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) increased demand for healthcare across the U.S., but it is unclear if or how the supply side has responded to meet this demand. In this paper, we take advantage of plausibly exogenous geographical heterogeneity in the ACA to examine the healthcare education sector’s response to increased demand for healthcare services. We look across educational fields, types of degrees, and types of institutions, paying particular attention to settings where our conceptual model predicts heightened responses. We find no statistically significant evidence of increases in graduates and can rule out fairly modest effects. This implies that healthcare production may have adjusted to increased demand from insurance expansion in other ways rather than primarily through new graduates of local healthcare educational markets. |
| JEL: | I11 I23 I25 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26088&r=all |
| By: | Ghosh, Prasenjit N.; Miao, Ruiqing; Malikov, Emir |
| Keywords: | Resource /Energy Economics and Policy |
| Date: | 2019–06–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea19:291096&r=all |
| By: | Liu, Yong; Ker, Alan P. |
| Abstract: | There has been a recent surge in the literature outlining methodologies that make use of spatially extraneous yield data in estimating crop insurance premium rates. The idea of borrowing information across space to better estimate tail probabilities is appealing. Along a different vein, recent research has questioned the validity of using whatever limited historical yield data exists given the number of technological changes in seed and farm management technologies as well as climate change. This literature has suggested historical yield data be trimmed to the most recent 25-30 years, thereby making the historically discarded yield data temporally extraneous. In this manuscript, we present three successively flexible data-driven methodologies to nonparametrically smooth across both space and time simultaneously. We apply these methodologies in estimating U.S. corn and soybean county-level crop insurance premium rates. Wefind significant borrowing of information across both time and space. We also find all three methodologies improve both the stability and accuracy of crop insurance premium rates. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2019–08–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:uguiwp:292222&r=all |
| By: | Mavroutsikos, Charalampos; Walters, Cory G.; Giannakas, Konstantinos |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2019–06–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea19:290910&r=all |
| By: | Cole, Avery W.; Chen, Xuan; Alvarez, Nicholas |
| Keywords: | Risk and Uncertainty |
| Date: | 2019–06–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea19:291267&r=all |
| By: | Lee, Hyunok; Sumner, Daniel A.; Yu, Jisang |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2019–06–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea19:290909&r=all |
| By: | H. Evren Damar; Reint Gropp; Adi Mordel |
| Abstract: | Deposit insurance protects depositors from failing banks, thus making insured deposits risk-free. When a deposit insurance limit is increased, some deposits that previously were uninsured become insured, thereby increasing the share of risk-free assets in households’ portfolios. This increase cannot simply be undone by households, because to invest in uninsured deposits, a household must first invest in insured deposits up to the limit. This basic insight is the starting point of the analysis in this paper. We show that in a standard portfolio allocation model, faced with a deposit insurance limit increase, households move some of their assets out of deposits into risky alternatives, such as mutual funds. Our empirical analysis, taking advantage of a deposit insurance increase in Canada in 2005 and detailed household portfolio data, confirms the insights from the model and stands up to multiple alternative explanations. Hence, we show that an increase in the deposit insurance limit results in a sizable deposit outflow. Our work has important policy lessons. First, although there is considerable evidence on the financial stability consequences of deposit insurance (as it reduces the impact of runs in a crisis), we document a novel implication where enhanced protection may also trigger deposit outflows during non-crisis times. Second, the paper highlights the link between deposit insurance and the composition of household portfolios. It emphasizes the role that uninsured deposits play in the household investment decision and the importance of studying them separately from insured deposits when analyzing portfolio allocation choice. |
| Keywords: | Financial Institutions; Financial system regulation and policies |
| JEL: | D14 G21 G28 L51 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:19-29&r=all |
| By: | Olga Scrivner; Thuy Nguyen; Kosali Simon; Esm\'e Middaugh; Bledi Taska; Katy B\"orner |
| Abstract: | Effective treatment strategies exist for substance use disorder (SUD), however severe hurdles remain in ensuring adequacy of the SUD treatment (SUDT) workforce as well as improving SUDT affordability, access and stigma. Although evidence shows recent increases in SUD medication access from expanding Medicaid availability under the Affordable Care Act, it is yet unknown whether these policies also led to a growth in the changes in the nature of hiring in SUDT related workforce, partly due to poor data availability. Our study uses novel data to shed light on recent trends in a fast-evolving and policy-relevant labor market, and contributes to understanding the current SUDT related workforce and the effect of Medicaid expansion on hiring attempts in this sector. We examine attempts over 2010-2018 at hiring in the SUDT and related behavioral health sector as background for estimating the causal effect of the 2014-and-beyond state Medicaid expansion on these outcomes through "difference-in-difference" econometric models. We use Burning Glass Technologies (BGT) data covering virtually all U.S. job postings by employers. Nationally, we find little growth in the sector's hiring attempts in 2010-2018 relative to the rest of the economy or to health care as a whole. However, this masks diverging trends in subsectors, which saw reduction in hospital based hiring attempts, increases towards outpatient facilities, and changes in occupational hiring demand shifting from medical personnel towards counselors and social workers. Although Medicaid expansion did not lead to any statistically significant or meaningful change in overall hiring attempts, there was a shift in the hiring landscape. |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1908.00216&r=all |
| By: | Coletta, Attilio; Giampietri, Elisa; Santeramo, Fabio Gaetano; Severini, Simone; Trestini, Samuele |
| Abstract: | The exposure of farmers to different (and increasing) risks has been recognized by the EU policy, which supports several risk management tools through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Despite the vulnerability of the agricultural sector, and the attention paid at the EU level, the uptake of such tools is generally low across EU countries. The Italian case is emblematic: the uptake of subsidized crop insurance contracts is low, limited to few products, and concentrated in few areas. Coherently, the interest of policy makers toward explaining these characteristics and in gaining insights on the interventions that may help promoting participation is intense. This contribution investigates behavioral aspects linked to choices under risk and ambiguity, and account for time preferences in order to mimic the scenario faced by the potential adopters of the subsidized crop insurance contracts in Italy. Data are collected through questionnaires submitted to students from agricultural colleges in three administrative regions located in northern, central and southern Italy. Results show that attitude toward risk, ambiguity, and impatience are correlated with the intrinsic characteristics of respondents. In addition, some of those attitudes may help explaining decisions under uncertainty. Despite the empirical analysis is preliminary and focused on students, it allowed to validate a promising methodological approach capable of explaining farmer’s willingness to adopt (or renew) insurance contracts. By accounting for (currently under-investigated) behavioral aspects, it is likely to prove useful to re-design or implementing, more effectively, the current policies. |
| Keywords: | Insurance; subjective probabilities; risk preferences; choice experiment |
| JEL: | D81 D83 Q12 Q18 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:95347&r=all |
| By: | Joseph S. Zickafoose; Amanda Lechner; Thomas Williams |
| Abstract: | This study in a special issue of Health Affairs finds TRICARE in the middle of a spectrum of coverage and cost sharing for children. |
| Keywords: | TRICARE, health care benefits, children |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:2bf312bf5936406581aaec5c16818df9&r=all |
| By: | Paul Messino |
| Abstract: | This fact sheet describes Mathematica’s Medicaid value-based care service offering for states. |
| Keywords: | Enterprise risk management, program integrity, Medicaid |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:6a32b09704a74096ba90b4067bb1c70d&r=all |
| By: | Costa-Font, Joan; Jiménez-Martínez, Sergi; Vilaplana, Cristina |
| Abstract: | We use quasi-experimental evidence on the expansion of the public subsidization of long-term care to examine the causal effect of a change in caregiving affordability on the delivery of hospital care. More specifically, we examine a reform that both introduced a new caregiving allowance and expanded the availability of publicly funded home care services, on both hospital admissions (both on the internal and external margin) and length of stay. We find robust evidence of a reduction in both hospital admissions and utilization among both those receiving a caregiving allowance and, albeit less intensely, among beneficiaries of publicly funded home care, which amounts to 11% of total healthcare costs. These effects were stronger when regions had an operative regional health and social care coordination plan in place. Consistently, a subsequent reduction in the subsidy, five years after its implementation, is found to significantly attenuate such effects. We investigate a number of potential mechanisms, and show a number of falsification and robustness checks |
| Keywords: | Hospital admissions; Hospital utilization; Long-term care reform; Bed-blocking; Poisson hurdle model; Spain |
| JEL: | H53 I18 J14 |
| Date: | 2018–01–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:86651&r=all |
| By: | John Stern |
| Abstract: | This fact sheet describes Mathematica’s modular Medicaid Enterprise Systems service offering. |
| Keywords: | program integrity, Medicaid, modular Medicaid enterprise systems |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:14efe2bf74a84f9ab8628545c94f538f&r=all |
| By: | Nathaniel Hendren; Benjamin D. Sprung-Keyser |
| Abstract: | We conduct a comparative welfare analysis of 133 historical policy changes over the past half-century in the United States, focusing on policies in social insurance, education and job training, taxes and cash transfers, and in-kind transfers. For each policy, we use existing causal estimates to calculate both the benefit that each policy provides its recipients (measured as their willingness to pay) and the policy’s net cost, inclusive of long-term impacts on the government's budget. We divide the willingness to pay by the net cost to the government to form each policy’s Marginal Value of Public Funds, or its “MVPF”. Comparing MVPFs across policies provides a unified method of assessing their impact on social welfare. Our results suggest that direct investments in low-income children's health and education have historically had the highest MVPFs, on average exceeding 5. Many such policies have paid for themselves as governments recouped the cost of their initial expenditures through additional taxes collected and reduced transfers. We find large MVPFs for education and health policies amongst children of all ages, rather than observing diminishing marginal returns throughout childhood. We find smaller MVPFs for policies targeting adults, generally between 0.5 and 2. Expenditures on adults have exceeded this MVPF range in particular if they induced large spillovers on children. We relate our estimates to existing theories of optimal government policy and we discuss how the MVPF provides lessons for the design of future research. |
| JEL: | H0 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26144&r=all |
| By: | Clint Eisenhower |
| Abstract: | This fact sheet describes Mathematica’s Medicaid Enterprise Risk Management service offering for states. |
| Keywords: | Enterprise risk management, program integrity, Medicaid |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:47b635a1434945e8bdac58dd9e205a59&r=all |
| By: | Shee, Apurba; Turvey, Calum G.; Marr, Ana |
| Keywords: | International Development |
| Date: | 2019–06–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea19:291022&r=all |
| By: | Aur\'elien Alfonsi; Adel Cherchali; Jose Arturo Infante Acevedo |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to introduce a synthetic ALM model that catches the main specificity of life insurance contracts. First, it keeps track of both market and book values to apply the regulatory profit sharing rule. Second, it introduces a determination of the crediting rate to policyholders that is close to the practice and is a trade-off between the regulatory rate, a competitor rate and the available profits. Third, it considers an investment in bonds that enables to match a part of the cash outflow due to surrenders, while avoiding to store the trading history. We use this model to evaluate the Solvency Capital Requirement (SCR) with the standard formula, and show that the choice of the interest rate model is important to get a meaningful model after the regulatory shocks on the interest rate. We discuss the different values of the SCR modules first in a framework with moderate interest rates using the shocks of the present legislation, and then we consider a low interest framework with the latest recommandation of the EIOPA on the shocks. In both cases, we illustrate the importance of matching cash-flows and its impact on the SCR. |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1908.00811&r=all |
| By: | Kaelab K. Haile; Eleonora Nillesen; Nyasha Tirivayi |
| Abstract: | This study examines the effect of smallholder farmers’ access to a formal climate risk transfer mechanism on their risk preferences. Survey and experimental data were collected from smallholder farmers that have access to weather index-based crop insurance (WICI) in Ethiopia. We use an endogenous switching (ESP) model to address self-selection and simultaneity bias. Results from the ESP model show that farmers who purchased WICI are less likely to be risk-averse compared with non-purchaser farmers. Similarly, non-purchasers would have attained a significant reduction in their risk-aversion if they had taken up the insurance product. We also find that WICI has a positive and statistically significant effect on farmers’ real-life risk-taking behavior as exemplified by mineral fertilizer use. The implication of our findings is that formal climate risk transfer mechanisms can positively influence households’ economic decisions and outcomes, through reducing risk aversion. Therefore, they can possibly contribute to poverty alleviation and economic development within agrarian economies that are exposed to recurrent and severe climate shocks. |
| Keywords: | weather index-based crop insurance, endogenous preferences, experimental risk elicitation, endogenous switching probit, sub-Saharan, Ethiopia |
| JEL: | C91 D03 I38 N27 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7717&r=all |
| By: | Fos, Vyacheslav; Hamdi, Naser; Kalda, Ankit; Nickerson, Jordan |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that the introduction of the "gig-economy" changes the way employees respond to job loss. Using a comprehensive set of Uber product launch dates and employee-level data on job separations, we show that laid-off employees with access to Uber are less likely to apply for UI benefits, rely less on household debt, and experience fewer delinquencies. Our empirical strategy is based on a triple difference-in-difference empirical model, comparing the difference in outcome variables 1) pre- and post-layoff, 2) before and after Uber enters a market, and 3) between workers with and without the ability to participate on the ride-sharing platform (car-owners inferred from auto credit histories). In support of our identification strategy, we find no apparent pre-existing difference in outcomes in the months leading up to Uber's entry into a market. Moreover, the effects are severely attenuated for workers with an auto lease, for whom the viability of participating on the ride-sharing platform is significantly reduced. Overall, our findings show that the introduction Uber had a profound effect on labor markets. |
| Keywords: | credit delinquencies; gig-economy; Household Debt; labor markets; Unemployment insurance |
| JEL: | D10 E24 H53 J23 J65 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13885&r=all |
| By: | Kim, Inkyung |
| Abstract: | - This study analyzes the impact of work-family balance policies and men's contribution in the home to women's continued economic activities and the fertility rate, and explores policy measures that can lessen the burden incurred by women due to career breaks and having children. - Empirical analysis results show that the work-family balance policies and men's participation in the home are strongly correlated to women's continued career and plans for children. - In terms of the average marginal effect, the provision of maternity leave increases the probability of children by 3.0%p while that of parental leave increases the likelihood of women continuing to participate in the labor market by 4.0%p. - Compared to full-time workers, voluntary and non-voluntary part-time workers are 5.8%p and 4.9%p less likely to continue with their economic activities while only voluntary workers are 2.0%p more likely to have children. - A 50%p increase in the proportion of husband's housework hours in the couple's total raises the probability of women continuing their careers by 3.5%p. - To improve the accessibility of programs, the coverage rate of employment insurance must be expanded as well as 'smart labor inspections' and consultation services. - Currently, only insured workers are entitled to paid maternity/parental leave and reduced working hours for childcare. - The government should actively engage in promoting the available systems that can assist uninsured workers to obtain benefits. Also, more labor services should be provided that offer consultation services for possible problems and difficulties incurred during the use of the programs. - Smart labor inspections investigate workplaces suspected of failing to provide proper support to insured pregnant female employees and their families. - Employers should be provided with the knowhow on assigning specialized tasks to existing employees and finding replacements to handle the remaining duties. - In order to enhance men's participation in the home, bonuses for men taking parental leave and increasing the income replacement ratio for shorter leaves should be considered. - At present, men cannot receive their bonuses even if they are taking parental leave instead of their spouses because they are uninsured or refused by their employers. - Another measure that is worth consideration is increasing the income replacement ratio for men taking shorter parental leave based on the fact that men expect higher income security during leave and usually take shorter parental leave than women. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:kdifor:268&r=all |
| By: | BOUSSELIN Audrey |
| Abstract: | In most OECD countries, subsidised childcare is a key instrument to support maternal employment. Using a large reform implemented in Luxembourg in 2009, I study the effect of expanding access to subsidised childcare on childcare and employment decisions of women in a context where childcare is universal and heavily subsidised, but bound by capacity constraints. The identification relies on temporal variation across child age groups. The results show that, in response to the reform, the employment rate of mothers increased by 4-7 percentage points and their hours of work by around 3 hours per week. Studying heterogeneous effects reveals a differential impact of the reform for more vulnerable mothers. Parents whose youngest child is under the age of 3 are found to use more daycare services, for longer hours, while the use of informal care remains unchanged. These results suggest that there is no crowding out effect of the new policy. |
| Keywords: | Childcare; family policy; maternal employment |
| JEL: | J13 J18 J22 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:cepswp:2019-11&r=all |
| By: | Fetzer, Thiemo (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | Can public interventions persistently reduce conflict? Adverse weather shocks, through their impact on incomes, have been identified as robust drivers of conflict in many contexts. An effective social insurance system moderates the impact of adverse shocks on house hold incomes, and hence,could attenuate the link between these shocks and conflict. This paper shows that a public employment program in India, by providing an alternative source of income through a guarantee of 100 days of employment at minimum wages, effectively provides insurance. This has an indirect pacifying effect. By weakening the link between productivity shocks and incomes, the program uncouples productivity shocks from conflict, leading persistently lower conflict levels |
| Keywords: | social insurance ; civil conflict ; India ; NREGA ; insurgency |
| JEL: | D74 H56 J65 Q34 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1220&r=all |