The Impact of the Macroeconomy on Health Insurance Coverage: Evidence from the Great Recession

John Cawley, Asako S. Moriya and Kosali I. Simon

No 17600, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of the macroeconomy on the health insurance coverage of Americans using panel data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) for 2004-2010, a period that includes the Great Recession of 2007-09. We find that a one percentage point increase in the state unemployment rate is associated with a 1.67 percentage point (2.12%) reduction in the probability that men have health insurance; this effect is strongest among college-educated, white, and older (50-64 year old) men. For women and children, health insurance coverage is not significantly correlated with the unemployment rate, which may be the result of public health insurance acting as a social safety net. Compared to the previous recession, the health insurance coverage of men is more sensitive to the unemployment rate, which may be due to the nature of the Great Recession.

JEL-codes: E32 I13 J32 J6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-ias, nep-lab and nep-mac
Note: CH EFG EH LS PE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Published as Cawley, John, Asako S. Moriya, and Kosali Simon. 2015. "The Impact of the Macroeconomy on Health Insurance Coverage: Evidence from the Great Recession." Health Economics, 24(2): 206-223.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w17600.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Impact of the Macroeconomy on Health Insurance Coverage: Evidence from the Great Recession (2015)
Working Paper: The Impact of the Macroeconomy on Health Insurance Coverage: Evidence from the Great Recession (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17600

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w17600

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().