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Paper: Early Childhood Exposure to Health Insurance Generates Long-Term Benefits

Sep 13-2022   



A paper by Huang Wei, NSD Associate Professor, and Liu Hong, Professor of Renmin University’s School of Labor and Human Resources, has been published by Journal of Development Economics.

 

Early Childhood Exposure to Health Insurance and Adolescent Outcomes: Evidence from Rural China examines the impact of exposure to public health insurance in early life on outcomes in adolescence in rural China. Exploiting the variation in the county-by-county rollout of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) between 2003 and 2008, the authors find that exposure to the NCMS during ages 0–5 significantly improves health, cognitive, and educational outcomes during adolescence. In contrast, exposure after age five has no significant effects. Their further investigation provides evidence for several underlying mechanisms, such as improved prenatal care and birth outcomes, better preventive medical protection against childhood diseases, and lower risk in medical expenditure.

 

Huang Wei graduated from Harvard University with a Ph.D. in economics in 2016 and is currently Associate Professor of the NSD. He focuses on public economics, labor economics and health economics, with research results published in Review of Economic and Statistics, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Journal of Labor Economic and other leading domestic and international journals.

 

Prof. Liu Hong graduated from The State University of New York at Stony Brook with a Ph.D. in economics in 2007. She mainly researches into health security, pension security, health economics and labor economics and has had papers published in Journal of Comparative Economics, Journal of Development Economics, Economic Research Journal, and other leading domestic and international journals.

Paper: Early Childhood Exposure to Health Insurance Generates Long-Term Benefits

Sep 13-2022   



A paper by Huang Wei, NSD Associate Professor, and Liu Hong, Professor of Renmin University’s School of Labor and Human Resources, has been published by Journal of Development Economics.

 

Early Childhood Exposure to Health Insurance and Adolescent Outcomes: Evidence from Rural China examines the impact of exposure to public health insurance in early life on outcomes in adolescence in rural China. Exploiting the variation in the county-by-county rollout of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) between 2003 and 2008, the authors find that exposure to the NCMS during ages 0–5 significantly improves health, cognitive, and educational outcomes during adolescence. In contrast, exposure after age five has no significant effects. Their further investigation provides evidence for several underlying mechanisms, such as improved prenatal care and birth outcomes, better preventive medical protection against childhood diseases, and lower risk in medical expenditure.

 

Huang Wei graduated from Harvard University with a Ph.D. in economics in 2016 and is currently Associate Professor of the NSD. He focuses on public economics, labor economics and health economics, with research results published in Review of Economic and Statistics, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Journal of Labor Economic and other leading domestic and international journals.

 

Prof. Liu Hong graduated from The State University of New York at Stony Brook with a Ph.D. in economics in 2007. She mainly researches into health security, pension security, health economics and labor economics and has had papers published in Journal of Comparative Economics, Journal of Development Economics, Economic Research Journal, and other leading domestic and international journals.