Aggregation and insurance-mortality estimation

Año de publicación

2003

UUID

6f4e0a57-5151-4ee0-bf26-ca364cc73155

Resumen

One goal of government health insurance programs is to improve health, yet little is known empirically about how important such government interventions can be in explaining health transitions. We analyze the child mortality effects of a major health insurance expansion in Costa Rica. In contrast to previous work in this area that has used aggregated ecological designs, we exploit census data to estimate individual-level models. Theoretical and empirical econometric results indicate that aggregation can introduce substantial upward biases in the insurance effects. Overall we find a statistically significant but quite small effect of health insurance on child mortality in Costa Rica.

Publicador

National Bureau of Economic Research

Enlace del origen de la publicación

Documentación restringida

Sí

Tipo de publicación

Working Paper

Descriptores

• SEGURIDAD SOCIAL
• SALUD
• MORTALIDAD INFANTIL