A Reanalysis of "The Town with No Poverty: The Health Effects of a Canadian Guaranteed Annual Income Field Experiment"

David A. Green

Canadian Public Policy, 2022, vol. 48, issue 4, 539-548

Abstract: In "The Town with No Poverty: The Health Effects of a Canadian Guaranteed Annual Income Field Experiment" (published in Canadian Public Policy in 2011), Professor Evelyn Forget examines community-level health and education impacts of the 1970s Manitoba Guaranteed Annual Income experiment (MINCOME). I reassess the hospital use data from Forget (2011), arguing that it contains statistically significant negative pre-trends in the relative hospital usage in the treated community of Dauphin compared to comparison communities. The pre-trend combined with short prior and treatment periods raises serious issues about the usefulness of the data, which, if anything shows positive effects of MINCOME on hospital usage in standard specifications. I conclude that MINCOME data do not support claims that a guaranteed annual income reduces healthcare costs.

Keywords: guaranteed annual income; health; healthcare costs; basic income; difference-in-difference estimator (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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