IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejeap/v11y2011i1n69.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Medicaid and Wealth: A Re-Examination

Author

Listed:
  • Gittleman Maury

    (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Abstract

Do public insurance programs crowd out private savings? I examine the relationship between Medicaid and wealth and make a contribution to the literature on this issue in two primary ways. First, I apply the instrumental-variables approach developed by Gruber and Yelowitz (1999) to a different dataset, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 (NLSY79), while at the same time examining an alternative instrument. The results turn out to differ depending on the instrument and, for one of the instruments, to be sensitive to assumptions needed to identify Medicaid’s effects. Second, I make use of the SIPP data employed by Gruber and Yelowitz themselves, and examine the sensitivity of their conclusions to omitted factors that may be related to both Medicaid eligibility and to wealth accumulation. While more robust than the results using the NLSY79, the SIPP estimates are found to depend both on the sample used and on certain specification restrictions. Taken together, the results suggest caution in making inferences about the impact of Medicaid on wealth.

Suggested Citation

  • Gittleman Maury, 2011. "Medicaid and Wealth: A Re-Examination," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-25, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:11:y:2011:i:1:n:69
    DOI: 10.2202/1935-1682.3029
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1935-1682.3029
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1935-1682.3029?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shore-Sheppard Lara D., 2008. "Stemming the Tide? The Effect of Expanding Medicaid Eligibility On Health Insurance Coverage," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 1-35, July.
    2. Aigner, Dennis J., 1973. "Regression with a binary independent variable subject to errors of observation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 49-59, March.
    3. Erik Hurst & James P. Ziliak, 2006. "Do Welfare Asset Limits Affect Household Saving?: Evidence from Welfare Reform," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(1).
    4. Maury Gittleman, 2011. "Medicaid and Wealth: An Examination Using the NLSY79," Working Papers 448, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    5. Rendon, Silvio, 2007. "Does Wealth Explain BlackWhite Differences in Early Employment Careers?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 25, pages 484-500, October.
    6. repec:fth:prinin:419 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Janet Currie & Jonathan Gruber, 1996. "Health Insurance Eligibility, Utilization of Medical Care, and Child Health," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 431-466.
    8. James P. Ziliak, 2003. "Income Transfers and Assets of the Poor," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(1), pages 63-76, February.
    9. 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.
    10. Thomas J. Kane & Cecilia E. Rouse & Douglas Staiger, 1999. "Estimating Returns to Schooling When Schooling is Misreported," Working Papers 798, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    11. David Card & Lara D. Shore-Sheppard, 2004. "Using Discontinuous Eligibility Rules to Identify the Effects of the Federal Medicaid Expansions on Low-Income Children," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(3), pages 752-766, August.
    12. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1993. "Estimation and Inference in Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195060119.
    13. 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.
    14. AIGNER, Dennis J., 1973. "Regression with a binary independent variable subject to errors of observation," LIDAM Reprints CORE 130, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    15. Gruber, Jonathan & Simon, Kosali, 2008. "Crowd-out 10 years later: Have recent public insurance expansions crowded out private health insurance?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 201-217, March.
    16. Elizabeth M. Caucutt & Nezih Guner & John Knowles, 2001. "The Timing of Births: A Marriage Market Analysis," Penn CARESS Working Papers 49355d43c11f2314075e8b54e, Penn Economics Department.
    17. Thomas J. Kane & Cecilia Rouse & Douglas Staiger, 1999. "Estimating Returns to Schooling When Schooling is Misreported," Working Papers 798, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    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. repec:mrr:papers:wp341 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Gallagher, Emily A. & Gopalan, Radhakrishnan & Grinstein-Weiss, Michal & Sabat, Jorge, 2020. "Medicaid and household savings behavior: New evidence from tax refunds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 523-546.
    3. Marianne P. Bitler & Madeline Zavodny, 2014. "Medicaid: A Review of the Literature," NBER Working Papers 20169, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Sang-Wook (Stanley) Cho & Renuka Sane, 2014. "Means-tested Age-Pension and Saving," Discussion Papers 2014-03, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.

    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. Maury Gittleman, 2011. "Medicaid and Wealth: An Examination Using the NLSY79," Working Papers 448, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    2. Steven J. Haider & Melvin Stephens Jr., 2020. "Correcting for Misclassified Binary Regressors Using Instrumental Variables," NBER Working Papers 27797, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Anne Kathrin Funk & Daniel Kaufmann, 2022. "Do Sticky Wages Matter? New Evidence from Matched Firm Survey and Register Data," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(355), pages 689-712, July.
    4. Nguimkeu, Pierre & Denteh, Augustine & Tchernis, Rusty, 2019. "On the estimation of treatment effects with endogenous misreporting," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 208(2), pages 487-506.
    5. Adele Bergin, 2015. "Employer Changes and Wage Changes: Estimation with Measurement Error in a Binary Variable," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 29(2), pages 194-223, June.
    6. Christian vom Lehn & Cache Ellsworth & Zachary Kroff, 2022. "Reconciling Occupational Mobility in the Current Population Survey," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(4), pages 1005-1051.
    7. Wagner, Kathryn L., 2015. "Medicaid expansions for the working age disabled: Revisiting the crowd-out of private health insurance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 69-82.
    8. Marianne P. Bitler & Madeline Zavodny, 2014. "Medicaid: A Review of the Literature," NBER Working Papers 20169, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Daniel Kaufmann, 2020. "Is deflation costly after all? The perils of erroneous historical classifications," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(5), pages 614-628, August.
    10. Battistin, Erich & De Nadai, Michele & Vuri, Daniela, 2017. "Counting rotten apples: Student achievement and score manipulation in Italian elementary Schools," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 200(2), pages 344-362.
    11. DiTraglia, Francis J. & García-Jimeno, Camilo, 2019. "Identifying the effect of a mis-classified, binary, endogenous regressor," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 209(2), pages 376-390.
    12. Kyung Min Kang & Robert A. Moffitt, 2019. "The Effect of SNAP and School Food Programs on Food Security, Diet Quality, and Food Spending: Sensitivity to Program Reporting Error," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(1), pages 156-201, July.
    13. Abdurrahman Aydemir & George J. Borjas, 2011. "Attenuation Bias in Measuring the Wage Impact of Immigration," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 69-113, January.
    14. Dinand Webbink & Pierre Koning & Sunčica Vujić & Nicholas G. Martin, 2013. "Why Are Criminals Less Educated than Non-Criminals? Evidence from a Cohort of Young Australian Twins," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 115-144, February.
    15. Guilhem Bascle, 2008. "Controlling for endogeneity with instrumental variables in strategic management research," Post-Print hal-00576795, HAL.
    16. Takahide Yanagi, 2019. "Inference on local average treatment effects for misclassified treatment," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(8), pages 938-960, September.
    17. Aprajit Mahajan, 2006. "Identification and Estimation of Regression Models with Misclassification," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(3), pages 631-665, May.
    18. Thomas Buchmueller & John C. Ham & Lara D. Shore-Sheppard, 2015. "The Medicaid Program," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 1, pages 21-136, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Zhang, Han, 2021. "How Using Machine Learning Classification as a Variable in Regression Leads to Attenuation Bias and What to Do About It," SocArXiv 453jk, Center for Open Science.
    20. Battistin, Erich & De Nadai, Michele & Sianesi, Barbara, 2014. "Misreported schooling, multiple measures and returns to educational qualifications," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 181(2), pages 136-150.

    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:bpj:bejeap:v:11:y:2011:i:1:n:69. 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: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    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.