Limited Insurance Portability and Job Mobility: The Effects of Public Policy on Job-Lock

Jonathan Gruber and Brigitte Madrian

No 4479, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The link between health insurance and the workplace in the U.S. has led to concern over the possibility of insurance-induced reductions in job mobility or 'job-lock". Designing health insurance reforms which retain employer-based insurance coverage but mitigate the extent of job-lock requires an understanding of the policy dimensions to which job-lock is most receptive. We study a policy of limited insurance portability which has been adopted by a number of states and the federal government over the last 20 years. These "continuation of coverage' mandates grant individuals the right to continue purchasing health insurance through their former employers for some period of time after leaving their jobs. We find that the passage of these mandates caused a significant increase in the job mobility of prime age male workers. This suggests that a sizeable share of job-lock arises from short run concerns over portability rather than from long run problems.

JEL-codes: H51 I10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1993-09
Note: PE LS EH
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Published as Industrial and Labor Relations Review, (October 1994), 48: p. 86-102new title: "Health Insurance and Job Mobility: The Effects of Public Policy on Job-Lock"

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w4479.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Limited Insurance Portability and Job Mobility: The Effects of Public Policy on Job-Lock (1994)
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:4479

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w4479

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 ().