IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/indrel/327.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Workers' Compensation Covering Uninsured Medical Costs? Evidence from the 'Monday Effect'

Author

Listed:
  • David Card

    (Princeton University)

  • Brian P. McCall

    (University of Minnesota)

Abstract

A growing fraction of U.S. workers face a dual system of medical insurance, with generous coverage through the Workers' Compensation system for work-related injuries, but limited or non-existent coverage for off-the-job illnesses or injuries. Uninsured and under- insured workers have an economic incentive to report off-the-job injuries as work accidents. Many analysts have interpreted the high rate of Monday injuries -- especially for hard-to-detect injuries like back sprains -- as evidence of this incentive. We combine administrative data on workplace injury claims with Current Population Survey data on medical insurance coverage to compute the fraction of Monday injury claims for workers who are more and less likely to have medical insurance. We find that workers with lower medical coverage rates are no more likely to report a Monday injury than other workers.

Suggested Citation

  • David Card & Brian P. McCall, 1994. "Is Workers' Compensation Covering Uninsured Medical Costs? Evidence from the 'Monday Effect'," Working Papers 706, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
  • Handle: RePEc:pri:indrel:327
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dataspace.princeton.edu/bitstream/88435/dsp01mk61rg93q/1/327.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barmby, T A & Orme, C D & Treble, John G, 1991. "Worker Absenteeism: An Analysis Using Microdata," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(405), pages 214-229, March.
    2. Krueger, Alan B., 1990. "Incentive effects of workers' compensation insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 73-99, February.
    3. James R. Chelius, 1982. "The Influence of Workers' Compensation on Safety Incentives," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 35(2), pages 235-242, January.
    4. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Krueger, 1990. "The Effect of Age at School Entry on Educational Attainment: An Application of Instrumental Variables with Moments from Two Samples," NBER Working Papers 3571, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Murphy, Kevin M & Topel, Robert H, 2002. "Estimation and Inference in Two-Step Econometric Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 88-97, January.
    6. David Card & Brian P. McCall, 1994. "Is Workers' Compensation Covering Uninsured Medical Costs? Evidence from the 'Monday Effect'," Working Papers 706, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    7. Parsons, Donald O, 1980. "The Decline in Male Labor Force Participation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(1), pages 117-134, February.
    8. Bound, John, 1989. "The Health and Earnings of Rejected Disability Insurance Applicants," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 482-503, June.
    9. Burgess, Paul L, 1992. "Compliance with Unemployment-Insurance Job-Search Regulations," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(2), pages 371-396, October.
    10. David Card & Brian P. McCall, 1994. "Is Workers' Compensation Covering Uninsured Medical Costs? Evidence from the 'Monday Effect'," Working Papers 706, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    11. Douglas Wolf & David Greenberg, 1986. "The Dynamics of Welfare Fraud: An Econometric Duration Model in Discrete Time," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 21(4), pages 437-455.
    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. David Card & Brian P. McCall, 1994. "Is Workers' Compensation Covering Uninsured Medical Costs? Evidence from the 'Monday Effect'," Working Papers 706, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    2. Lacroix, G & Brouard M-E, 2011. "Work Absenteeism Due to a Chronic Disease," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 11/15, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. Michele Campolieti, 2002. "Moral Hazard and Disability Insurance: On the Incidence of Hard-to-Diagnose Medical Conditions in the Canada/Quebec Pension Plan Disability Program," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 28(3), pages 419-441, September.
    4. Denis Bolduc & Bernard Fortin & France Labrecque & Paul Lanoie, 1997. "Incentive Effects of Public Insurance Programs on the Occurence and the Composition of Workplace Injuries," CIRANO Working Papers 97s-24, CIRANO.
    5. Andrea Ichino & Enrico Moretti, 2009. "Biological Gender Differences, Absenteeism, and the Earnings Gap," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 183-218, January.
    6. Shore-Sheppard, Lara & Buchmueller, Thomas C. & Jensen, Gail A., 2000. "Medicaid and crowding out of private insurance: a re-examination using firm level data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 61-91, January.

    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. Krueger, Alan B. & Meyer, Bruce D., 2002. "Labor supply effects of social insurance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 33, pages 2327-2392, Elsevier.
    2. Jonathan Gruber, 1994. "The Consumption Smoothing Benefits of Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 4750, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Gruber, Jonathan & Madrian, Brigitte C, 1995. "Health-Insurance Availability and the Retirement Decision," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 938-948, September.
    4. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1999. "The Art of Labormetrics," NBER Working Papers 6927, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. John Bound & Timothy Waidmann, 2000. "Accounting for Recent Declines in Employment Rates among the Working-Aged Disabled," NBER Working Papers 7975, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Cremer Helmuth & Lozachmeur Jean-Marie & Pestieau Pierre, 2007. "Disability Testing and Retirement," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-34, February.
    7. H. Hoynes & R. Moffitt, "undated". "The effectiveness of financial work incentives in DI and SSI: Lessons from other transfer programs," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1073-95, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    8. Slack, Sean & Ulph, David, 2014. "Optimal Universal and Categorical Benefits with Classification Errors and Imperfect Enforcement," SIRE Discussion Papers 2015-13, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    9. Bratberg, Espen & Nilsen, Øivind Anti & Vaage, Kjell, 2012. "Is Recipiency of Disability Pension Hereditary?," IZA Discussion Papers 6508, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Barbara Hanel, 2010. "Disability Pensions and Labor Supply," Working Papers 086, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    11. Michele Campolieti, 2004. "Disability Insurance Benefits and Labor Supply: Some Additional Evidence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(4), pages 863-890, October.
    12. Hamish Low & Luigi Pistaferri, 2010. "Disability risk, disability insurance and life cycle behavior," IFS Working Papers W10/11, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    13. Burkhauser, Richard V. & Butler, J. S. & Gumus, Gulcin, 2003. "Dynamic Modeling of the SSDI Application Timing Decision: The Importance of Policy Variables," IZA Discussion Papers 942, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Lex Borghans & Anne C. Gielen & Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2014. "Social Support Substitution and the Earnings Rebound: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity in Disability Insurance Reform," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 34-70, November.
    15. David H. Autor & Mark Duggan & Kyle Greenberg & David S. Lyle, 2016. "The Impact of Disability Benefits on Labor Supply: Evidence from the VA's Disability Compensation Program," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 31-68, July.
    16. Valletta, Robert G, 1999. "Declining Job Security," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(4), pages 170-197, October.
    17. Hamish Low & Luigi Pistaferri, 2020. "Disability Insurance: Theoretical Trade‐Offs and Empirical Evidence," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 129-164, March.
    18. Tobias Müller & Stefan Boes, 2020. "Disability insurance benefits and labor supply decisions: evidence from a discontinuity in benefit awards," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(5), pages 2513-2544, May.
    19. David Autor & Andreas Kostøl & Magne Mogstad & Bradley Setzler, 2019. "Disability Benefits, Consumption Insurance, and Household Labor Supply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(7), pages 2613-2654, July.
    20. Stern, Steven, 1996. "Semiparametric estimates of the supply and demand effects of disability on labor force participation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1-2), pages 49-70.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    workers compensation; health insurance; CPS; Current Population Survey;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models

    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:pri:indrel:327. 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: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/irprius.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.