 Disasters and health insurance: Evidence from LouisianaStephen Barnes, Swarup Joshi and Dek Terrell Economic Modelling, 2023, vol. 128, issue C Abstract: Natural disasters can have important impacts on an individual’s decision to purchase insurance. The literature primarily focuses on the impact of natural disasters on the decision to buy flood or property insurance policies that would compensate the policyholder during a similar event. This paper explores the impact of a series of disasters (hurricanes and floods) striking the state of Louisiana in the decision to purchase health insurance. Using the staggered difference-in-differences method, we find that health insurance rates rise for those impacted by natural disasters. We also find a positive relationship between disaster aid (at the parish level) and health insurance take-up rates. The study confirms the economic theory of risk perception and insurance demand, while also highlighting the role of governance and institutions during crises (such as natural disasters) by providing evidence that fiscal policy disaster relief can have a second-order effect on health insurance take-up rates. Keywords: Health insurance; Crisis; Governance; Risk (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:128:y:2023:i:c:s0264999323003280 DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2023.106516 Access Statistics for this article Economic Modelling is currently edited by S. Hall and P. Pauly More articles in Economic Modelling from Elsevier |
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