IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bcl/bclwop/bclwp139.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Health subsidies, prevention and welfare

Author

Listed:
  • Luca Marchiori
  • Olivier Pierrard

Abstract

Health subsidies involve public budgetary costs. However, they generate a positive externality by encouraging participation in health-improving initiatives, which help reduce future health care costs. We build an overlapping generations model with a government subsidizing investment in health by the young generation and paying the health care costs of the old generation. We find that the welfare-maximizing subsidy rate depends positively on health externality and the size of health care costs, and negatively on the discount factor. The subsidy rate should therefore be high when prevention more effective at cost saving and when the population is myopic about the future. Moreover, the welfare-maximizing subsidy rate is lower than the health-maximizing rate but higher than the capital-maximizing rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Luca Marchiori & Olivier Pierrard, 2020. "Health subsidies, prevention and welfare," BCL working papers 139, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:bcl:bclwop:bclwp139
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bcl.lu/en/publications/Working-papers/139/BCLWP139.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chiara Canta & Pierre Pestieau & Emmanuel Thibault, 2016. "Long-term care and capital accumulation: the impact of the State, the market and the family," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(4), pages 755-785, April.
    2. Matteo Cervellati & Uwe Sunde, 2011. "Life expectancy and economic growth: the role of the demographic transition," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 99-133, June.
    3. Kuhn, Michael & Prettner, Klaus, 2016. "Growth and welfare effects of health care in knowledge-based economies," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 100-119.
    4. Jack, William & Sheiner, Louise, 1997. "Welfare-Improving Health Expenditure Subsidies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 206-221, March.
    5. Fanti, Luciano & Gori, Luca, 2011. "Public health spending, old-age productivity and economic growth: Chaotic cycles under perfect foresight," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 137-151.
    6. Bloom, David E. & Kuhn, Michael & Prettner, Klaus, 2018. "Health and Economic Growth," IZA Discussion Papers 11939, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Boucekkine, Raouf & de la Croix, David & Licandro, Omar, 2002. "Vintage Human Capital, Demographic Trends, and Endogenous Growth," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 340-375, June.
    8. Paolo Melindi-Ghidi & Willem Sas, 2015. "Invest as You Go: How Public Health Investment Keeps Pension Systems Healthy," AMSE Working Papers 1525, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    9. Inge Grootjans-van Kampen & Peter M Engelfriet & Pieter H M van Baal, 2014. "Disease Prevention: Saving Lives or Reducing Health Care Costs?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(8), pages 1-5, August.
    10. Rosa Aisa & Fernando Pueyo, 2013. "Population aging, health care, and growth: a comment on the effects of capital accumulation," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1285-1301, October.
    11. Bhattacharjee, Ayona & Shin, Jong Kook & Subramanian, Chetan & Swaminathan, Shailender, 2017. "Healthcare investment and income inequality," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 163-177.
    12. Chakraborty, Shankha, 2004. "Endogenous lifetime and economic growth," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 119-137, May.
    13. Jaspersen, Johannes G. & Richter, Andreas, 2015. "The wealth effects of premium subsidies on moral hazard in insurance markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 139-153.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chang, Tsung-Sheng, 2021. "Social distancing in retail: Influence of perceived retail crowding and self-efficacy on employees’ perceived risks," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thibault, Emmanuel & Ponthieres, Grégory, 2023. "Life Expectancy, Income and Long-Term Care: The Preston Curve Reexamined," TSE Working Papers 23-1474, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    2. Tscheuschner, Paul, 2021. "Endogenous life expectancy and R&D-based economic growth," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 01-2021, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    3. Baldanzi, Annarita & Bucci, Alberto & Prettner, Klaus, 2021. "Children’S Health, Human Capital Accumulation, And R&D-Based Economic Growth," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(3), pages 651-668, April.
    4. David E. Bloom & Michael Kuhn & Klaus Prettner, 2022. "Modern Infectious Diseases: Macroeconomic Impacts and Policy Responses," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 85-131, March.
    5. Kuhn, Michael & Prettner, Klaus, 2016. "Growth and welfare effects of health care in knowledge-based economies," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 100-119.
    6. Bloom, David E. & Kuhn, Michael & Prettner, Klaus, 2018. "Health and Economic Growth," IZA Discussion Papers 11939, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Annarita BALDANZI & Alberto BUCCI & Klaus PRETTNER, 2016. "The Effects of Health Investments on Human Capital and R&D-Driven Economic Growth," Departmental Working Papers 2016-17, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    8. Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2012. "The Public Economics of Increasing Longevity," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 200(1), pages 41-74, March.
    9. Maik T. Schneider & Ralph Winkler, 2021. "Growth and Welfare under Endogenous Lifetimes," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(4), pages 1339-1384, October.
    10. Giorgio Fabbri & Marie-Louise Leroux & Paolo Melindi-Ghidi & Willem Sas, 2022. "Conditioning public pensions on health: effects on capital accumulation and welfare," Working Papers 2022-05, Grenoble Applied Economics Laboratory (GAEL).
    11. Gehringer, Agnieszka & Prettner, Klaus, 2019. "Longevity And Technological Change," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(4), pages 1471-1503, June.
    12. Laura Leker & Gregory Ponthiere, 2015. "Education, life expectancy and family bargaining: the Ben-Porath effect revisited," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 481-513, August.
    13. Cohen, Daniel & Leker, Laura, 2014. "Health and Education: Another Look with the Proper Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 9940, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. repec:got:cegedp:141 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. David E. Bloom & Alex Khoury & Vadim Kufenko & Klaus Prettner, 2021. "Spurring Economic Growth through Human Development: Research Results and Guidance for Policymakers," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 47(2), pages 377-409, June.
    16. Annarita Baldanzi & Klaus Prettner & Paul Tscheuschner, 2019. "Longevity-induced vertical innovation and the tradeoff between life and growth," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(4), pages 1293-1313, October.
    17. Nishimura, Yukihiro & Pestieau, Pierre & Ponthiere, Gregory, 2018. "Education choices, longevity and optimal policy in a Ben-Porath economy," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 65-81.
    18. Olufunmilayo Olayemi Jemiluyi & Ifeoluwa Alao-Owunna, 2020. "A Reconsideration of the Health Status – Economic Growth Nexus: Evaluation of the Gender Differential Effect in Nigeria," Eurasian Journal of Economics and Finance, Eurasian Publications, vol. 8(4), pages 217-230.
    19. Pierre-Richard Agénor, 2015. "Public capital, health persistence and poverty traps," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 115(2), pages 103-131, June.
    20. Strulik, Holger & Werner, Katharina, 2012. "Life Expectancy, Labor Supply, and Long-Run Growth: Reconciling Theory and Evidence," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-497, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    21. Giorgio Fabbri & Marie-Louise Leroux & Paolo Melindi-Ghidi & Willem Sas, 2022. "Conditioning public pensions on health: effects on capital accumulation and welfare," Working Papers 2022-05, Grenoble Applied Economics Laboratory (GAEL).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Overlapping generations model; health subsidy; welfare;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bcl:bclwop:bclwp139. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bclgvlu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.