Health insurance and the supply of entrepreneurs: new evidence from the affordable care act

James Bailey

Small Business Economics, 2017, vol. 49, issue 3, No 7, 627-646

Abstract: Abstract Is the difficulty of purchasing health insurance as an individual or small business a major barrier to entrepreneurship in the USA? I answer this question by taking advantage of the natural experiment provided by the Affordable Care Act’s dependent coverage mandate, which allowed many 19–25 year olds to acquire health insurance independently of their employment. Using a difference-in-difference strategy, I find that the dependent coverage mandate did not increase self-employment among young adults overall, but increased self-employment among disabled young adults by 19–23%.

Keywords: Health insurance; Self-employment; Entrepreneurship lock; Affordable Care Act; Dependent coverage mandate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I13 I18 J20 L26 M13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11187-017-9856-8

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