The population of the United States, as with the rest of the world, is aging rapidly, with the most rapid growth occurring among the age 85 and older population, those who rely most on long-term care. In this chapter, we review the delivery and financing of long-term care in the U.S. We show...

The developed world is in the midst of an enormous demographic transition, with life expectancy increasing and fertility falling, leading to a rapid aging of the population. This trend has critical implications for long-term care around the world. This paper serves as the introduction to a...

We explore the causes of the dramatic rise in employee contributions to health insurance over the past two decades. In 1982, 44% of those who were covered by their employer-provided health insurance had their costs fully financed by their employer, but by 1998 this had fallen to 28%. We discuss...

The continued interest in public insurance expansions as a means of covering the uninsured highlights the importance of estimates of "crowd-out", or the extent to which such expansions reduce private insurance coverage. Ten years ago, Cutler and Gruber (1996) suggested that such crowd-out might...

One of the most sizable and least predictable shocks to economic opportunities in developing countries is major illness, both in terms of medical care expenditures and lost income from reduced labor supply and productivity. As a result, families may not be able to smooth their consumption over...

We estimate the impact of changes in abortion access in the early 1970s on the average living standards of cohorts born in those years. In particular, we address the selection inherent in the abortion decision: is the marginal child who is not born when abortion access increases more or less...

Social Security faces a major financing shortfall. One policy option for addressing this shortfall would be to raise the earliest age at which individuals can claim their retirement benefits. A welfare analysis of such a policy change depends critically on how it affects living standards. This...

The Thai 30 Baht program was one of the largest health system reforms ever undertaken by a low-middle income country. In addition to lowering the cost of care for the previously uninsured in public facilities, it also entailed a fourfold increase in funding provided to hospitals to care for the...