What drives the regional disparities in municipal national health insurance premiums?

Ruka Kurono

Japan and the World Economy, 2022, vol. 61, issue C

Abstract: There are large disparities in premium level among the Municipal National Health Insurance (NHI) programs in Japan. As municipalities have discretion when setting the NHI premiums, they may determine their premiums observing how large or small the premiums of their neighbors are. This study examined how such reference behavior affects the NHI premium level and to what extent it explains the premium disparities. The results revealed that there was positive reference behavior among neighboring insurers which explains 7.2% of the NHI premium disparity.

Keywords: Municipal national health insurance; Spatial autocorrelation; Panel data; Maximum Likelihood method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 H24 H71 I13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:japwor:v:61:y:2022:i:c:s0922142522000032

DOI: 10.1016/j.japwor.2022.101117

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