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. Timothy Powell‐Jackson & Winnie Chi‐Man Yip & Wei Han, 2015. "Realigning Demand and Supply Side Incentives to Improve Primary Health Care Seeking in Rural China," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(6), pages 755-772, June.
    4. 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.
    5. Francesco Longo & Karl Claxton & Stephen Martin & James Lomas, 2023. "More long‐term care for better healthcare and vice versa: investigating the mortality effects of interactions between these public sectors," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(2), pages 189-216, June.
    6. 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.
    7. Jonas Hjort & Xuan Li & Heather Sarsons, 2020. "Across-Country Wage Compression in Multinationals," NBER Working Papers 26788, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Faggio, Giulia & Overman, Henry, 2014. "The effect of public sector employment on local labour markets," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 91-107.
    9. Claudio Detotto & Bryan C. McCannon, 2017. "Economic freedom and public, non-market institutions: evidence from criminal prosecution," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 107-128, May.
    10. Avdic, Daniel & Lundborg, Petter & Vikström, Johan, 2014. "Learning-by-Doing in a High-Skill Profession when Stakes are High: Evidence from Advanced Cancer Surgery," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100278, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    11. Dan Corry & Anna Valero & John Van Reenen, 2011. "UK Economic Performance Since 1997: Growth, Productivity and Jobs," CEP Reports 24, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    12. Gabriele Cardullo, 2017. "The Welfare and Employment Effects of Centralized Public Sector Wage Bargaining," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 19(2), pages 490-510, April.
    13. Willén, Alexander, 2021. "Decentralization of wage determination: Evidence from a national teacher reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    14. Giuseppe Moscelli & Melisa Sayli & Marco Mello & Alberto Vesperoni, 2025. "Staff engagement, co‐workers' complementarity and employee retention: evidence from English NHS hospitals," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 92(365), pages 42-83, January.
    15. Brown, Jessica H. & Herbst, Chris M., 2021. "Child Care over the Business Cycle," IZA Discussion Papers 14048, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Bernhofer, Juliana & Fedele, Alessandro & Tonin, Mirco, 2025. "Wage expectations and access to healthcare occupations: Evidence from an information experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    17. Ashraf, Nava & Bandiera, Oriana & Jack, B. Kelsey, 2014. "No margin, no mission? A field experiment on incentives for public service delivery," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-17.
    18. 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.
    19. 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.
    20. Nava Ashraf & Oriana Bandiera & Scott Lee, 2014. "Do-gooders and go-getters: career incentives, selection, and performance in public service delivery," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 54, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.

    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.