We use a calibrated stochastic life-cycle model of endogenous health spending, asset accumulation and retirement to investigate the causes behind the increase in health spending and life expectancy over the period 1965-2005. We estimate that technological change along with the increase in the...

This paper investigates the factors that determine differences across OECD countries in health outcomes, using data on life expectancy at age 65, over the period 1960 to 2007. We estimate a production function where life expectancy depends on health and social spending, lifestyle variables, and...

This paper investigates the link between health care expenditures and GDP for a sample of 21 OECD countries using recent developed panel cointegration techniques. In contrast to previous studies, the analysis accounts for the fact that health care expenditures are not only determined by income....

We use a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) to evaluate the impact of cost-sharing on the use of health services. In the Italian health system, individuals reaching age 65 and earning low incomes are given total exemption from cost-sharing for health services consumption. Since the...

In the absence of third party and prepayment systems such as health insurance and tax-based healthcare financing, households in many low-income countries are exposed to the financial risks of paying large medical bills from out-of-pocket. In recent years, community based health insurance schemes...

Unavailable or expensive health insurance may hinder the transition of individuals from paid employment to entrepreneurship. The literature argues that the guaranteed availability of health insurance introduced by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 could reduce this barrier to...

We estimate the health costs of supply-side barriers to accessing medical care. The setting is Colombia, where citizens have a constitutional right to health care, but insurance companies that manage delivery impose restrictions on access. We use administrative data on judicial claims for health...

We report on a large randomized controlled trial of hospital insurance for above-poverty-line Indian households. Households were assigned to free insurance, sale of insurance, sale plus cash transfer, or control. To estimate spillovers, the fraction of households offered insurance varied across...

In the first two quarters of 2013 the Georgian government introduced and fully implemented a universal health care (UHC) plan covering all those not-yet publicly or privately insured. We estimate the effect of the introduction of the universal healthcare plan on the level of out-of-pocket (OOP)...

Social insurance programs typically comprise sick leave insurance. An important policy parameter is how the cost of sick leave are shared between workers, firms, and the social security system. We show that this sharing rule affects not only absence behavior, but also workers' subsequent health....