HEALTH, HEALTH INSURANCE, AND INEQUALITY

Chaoran Chen, Zhigang Feng and Jiaying Gu

International Economic Review, 2025, vol. 66, issue 1, 107-141

Abstract: This article identifies a “health premium” of insurance coverage: insured individuals are more likely to maintain good health or recover from poor health. We introduce this feature into a prototypical macrohealth model and estimate the baseline economy by matching the observed joint distribution of health insurance, health, and income over the life cycle. Quantitative analysis reveals that an individual's insurance status has a substantial and persistent impact on health. Providing universal health coverage would narrow health and life expectancy gaps, with a mixed effect on the income distribution in the absence of any additional redistribution of income or wealth.

Date: 2025
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/iere.12722

Related works:
Working Paper: Health, Health Insurance, and Inequality (2024)
Working Paper: Health, Health Insurance, and Inequality (2022)
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:wly:iecrev:v:66:y:2025:i:1:p:107-141

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0020-6598

Access Statistics for this article

International Economic Review is currently edited by Michael O'Riordan and Dirk Krueger

More articles in International Economic Review from Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association 160 McNeil Building, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6297. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().