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Heterogeneity of the effects of health insurance on household savings: Evidence from rural China

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  • Diana Cheung

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Ysaline Padieu

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

This paper estimates the impact of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) on household saving across income quartiles in rural China. We use data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey for the 2006 wave and we run an ordinary least squares regression. We control for the endogeneity of NCMS participation by using an instrumental variable strategy. We find evidence that NCMS has a negative impact on savings of lower-middle-income participants, while it does not affect the poorest households. The negative effect of NCMS on savings of middle-income participants holds when we use propensity score matching estimations as a robustness check.

Suggested Citation

  • Diana Cheung & Ysaline Padieu, 2013. "Heterogeneity of the effects of health insurance on household savings: Evidence from rural China," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00848061, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00848061
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00848061
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Zhang, Xiaobo & Kanbur, Ravi, 2005. "Spatial inequality in education and health care in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 189-204.
    2. Jonathan Gruber & Aaron Yelowitz, 1999. "Public Health Insurance and Private Savings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(6), pages 1249-1274, December.
    3. Marcos D. Chamon & Eswar S. Prasad, 2010. "Why Are Saving Rates of Urban Households in China Rising?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 93-130, January.
    4. Edwin Leuven & Barbara Sianesi, 2003. "PSMATCH2: Stata module to perform full Mahalanobis and propensity score matching, common support graphing, and covariate imbalance testing," Statistical Software Components S432001, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 01 Feb 2018.
    5. Aart Kraay, 2000. "Household Saving in China," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 14(3), pages 545-570, September.
    6. Dong, Keyong, 2009. "Medical insurance system evolution in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 591-597, December.
    7. Alex Maynard & Jiaping Qiu, 2009. "Public insurance and private savings: who is affected and by how much?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 282-308, March.
    8. Huber, Martin & Lechner, Michael & Wunsch, Conny, 2013. "The performance of estimators based on the propensity score," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 175(1), pages 1-21.
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    Cited by:

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    3. Joan Costa‐Font & Edward C. Norton & Luigi Siciliani & Joan Costa‐Font & Cristina Vilaplana‐Prieto, 2017. "Does the Expansion of Public Long‐Term Care Funding Affect Saving Behaviour?," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 38, pages 417-443, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Rural China; New Cooperative Medical Scheme; health insurance; Chinese savings and consumption; propensity score matching; Chine rurale; épargne; méthode d'appariement par score de propension; assurance santé;
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