Health Insurance and Height Inequality: Evidence from European Health Insurance Expansions

Baten, Jörg, Alberto Batinti, Joan Costa-i-Font and Laura Radatz
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Joan Costa-i-Font

No 18680, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Health insurance expansions can improve health outcomes through greater access to healthcare. This is truer among the poorer segments of the population, which otherwise could not afford healthcare costs, or might lack the information about where to seek proper health cures and interventions. In this paper we examine whether expanded access to health insurance historically reduced height inequality by promoting body growth, especially across the poorer individuals, and so improved their height, a widely used and well-established anthropometric measure of health and well-being. We draw our evidence using a panel of countries for which we could measure height inequality; our evidence suggests that indeed within-country height inequality declined after insurance expansions towards near-universal coverage.

JEL-codes: I13 J15 N34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-12
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Journal Article: Health insurance and height inequality: Evidence from European health insurance expansions (2024)
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