IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/harjfk/rwp19-022.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Health Care Spending Projections and Policy Changes: Recognizing the Limits of Existing Forecasts

Author

Listed:
  • Shoag, Daniel

    (Harvard Kennedy School)

Abstract

Many projections for health care spending growth do not incorporate the impact of changing labor market regulations. In this paper, I show that changing one such regulation--raising the federal minimum wage--would significantly increase the cost of several important types of care. I do this using data on the cost of long-term care from thousands of providers from 2012-2018. Using these data, I show that costs, which include home health aides and nursing home care, are highly correlated with changes in state level minimum wages. This relationship is statistically robust. Forecasts that ignore the risk of a federal minimum wage increase will understate this element of expected medical spending growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Shoag, Daniel, 2019. "Health Care Spending Projections and Policy Changes: Recognizing the Limits of Existing Forecasts," Working Paper Series rwp19-022, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp19-022
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?Id=2809
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carol Propper & John Van Reenen, 2010. "Can Pay Regulation Kill? Panel Data Evidence on the Effect of Labor Markets on Hospital Performance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(2), pages 222-273, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Nicola Lacetera & Mario Macis & Robert Slonim, 2011. "Rewarding Altruism? A Natural Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 17636, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Falch, Torberg & Johansen, Kåre & Strøm, Bjarne, 2009. "Teacher shortages and the business cycle," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 648-658, December.
    3. Cook, Andrew & Gaynor, Martin & Stephens Jr, Melvin & Taylor, Lowell, 2012. "The effect of a hospital nurse staffing mandate on patient health outcomes: Evidence from California's minimum staffing regulation," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 340-348.
    4. Simon Burgess & Carol Propper & Marisa Ratto & Emma Tominey, 2017. "Incentives in the Public Sector: Evidence from a Government Agency," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(605), pages 117-141, October.
    5. Juliana Bernhofer & Alessandro Fedele & Mirco Tonin, 2022. "Wage Expectations and Access to Healthcare Occupations: Evidence from an Information Experiment," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS95, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.
    6. Peter McHenry & Jennifer Mellor, 2018. "Medicare hospital payment adjustments and nursing wages," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 169-196, June.
    7. Burgess, Simon & Greaves, Ellen & Murphy, Richard, 2022. "Deregulating Teacher Labor Markets," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    8. Martin Gaynor & Rodrigo Moreno-Serra & Carol Propper, 2013. "Death by Market Power: Reform, Competition, and Patient Outcomes in the National Health Service," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 134-166, November.
    9. Avdic, Daniel & Lundborg, Petter & Vikström, Johan, 2014. "Learning-by-Doing in a Highly Skilled Profession when Stakes are High: Evidence from Advanced Cancer Surgery," Working Paper Series, Center for Labor Studies 2014:9, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    10. Moscelli, G.; & Sayli, M.; & Blanden, J.; & Mello, M.; & Castro-Pires, H.; & Bojke, C.;, 2023. "Non-monetary interventions, workforce retention and hospital quality: evidence from the English NHS," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 23/13, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    11. Lisi, Domenico & Moscone, Francesco & Tosetti, Elisa & Vinciotti, Veronica, 2021. "Hospital quality interdependence in a competitive institutional environment: Evidence from Italy," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    12. Nicholas Bloom & Carol Propper & Stephan Seiler & John Van Reenen, 2015. "The Impact of Competition on Management Quality: Evidence from Public Hospitals," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(2), pages 457-489.
    13. Zack Cooper & Stephen Gibbons & Simon Jones & Alistair McGuire, 2011. "Does Hospital Competition Save Lives? Evidence From The English NHS Patient Choice Reforms," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(554), pages 228-260, August.
    14. Zhan, Crystal, 2020. "Wage Distributions in Origin Societies and Occupational Choices of Immigrant Generations in the US," GLO Discussion Paper Series 685, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    15. Daniele Nosenzo, 2013. "Pay Secrecy And Effort Provision," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(3), pages 1779-1794, July.
    16. Benjamin U. Friedrich & Martin B. Hackmann, 2017. "The Returns to Nursing: Evidence from a Parental Leave Program," NBER Working Papers 23174, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Jean-Baptiste Combes & Eric Delattre & Bob Elliott & Diane Skåtun, 2015. "Hospital staffing and local pay: an investigation into the impact of local variations in the competitiveness of nurses’ pay on the staffing of hospitals in France," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 16(7), pages 763-780, September.
    18. Arthur Guillouzouic & Emeric Henry & Joan Monras, 2021. "Local Public Goods and the Spatial Distribution of Economic Activity," SciencePo Working papers hal-03389155, HAL.
    19. Bhalotra, Sonia R. & Clarke, Damian & Gomes, Joseph & Venkataramani, Atheendar, 2018. "Maternal Mortality and Women's Political Participation," IZA Discussion Papers 11590, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Britton, Jack & Propper, Carol, 2016. "Teacher pay and school productivity: Exploiting wage regulation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 75-89.

    More about this item

    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:ecl:harjfk:rwp19-022. 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/ksharus.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.