IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fer/wpaper/182.html

Unemployment Insurance Generosity and Healthcare Use: Evidence from Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Päällysaho, Miika

Abstract

Unemployment can worsen health and increase healthcare use, creating fiscal externalities in publicly financed systems. Using Swedish register data on inpatient and outpatient care visits and drug purchases, measured as total costs rather than out-of-pocket payments, this paper estimates the effect of unemployment insurance (UI) generosity on healthcare use. Exploiting benefit caps in a regression kink design, I find no evidence that more generous UI affects healthcare use. Estimates rule out cost effects greater than 0.08 SEK per 1 SEK increase in benefits during the first 40 weeks after spell start. In Sweden’s generous welfare state, modest benefit increases do not to meaningfully alter the public healthcare costs of unemployment.

Suggested Citation

  • Päällysaho, Miika, 2026. "Unemployment Insurance Generosity and Healthcare Use: Evidence from Sweden," Working Papers 182, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:fer:wpaper:182
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/194100
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marco Caliendo & Robert Mahlstedt & Gerard J. van den Berg & Johan Vikström, 2023. "Side effects of labor market policies," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(2), pages 339-375, 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. Bastiaans, Mareen & Dur, Robert & Gielen, Anne C., 2024. "Activating the long-term inactive: Labor market and mental health effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    2. Hämäläinen, Kari & Simanainen, Miska & Verho, Jouko, 2025. "Health effects of cash transfers: Evidence from the Finnish basic income experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 250(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings

    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:fer:wpaper:182. 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: Anita Niskanen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vatttfi.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.