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Racial Disparities In Life Insurance Coverage, Timothy F. Harris, Aaron Yelowitz Apr 2015

Racial Disparities In Life Insurance Coverage, Timothy F. Harris, Aaron Yelowitz

Aaron Yelowitz

We evaluate the extent to which there are racial disparities in life insurance coverage using multiple years of the Survey of Income and Program Participation between 2001 and 2010. We find that African-Americans hold significantly more life insurance after controlling for other factors, especially employer-sponsored and whole life insurance. We demonstrate that our findings diverge from prior work because we examine all households instead of focusing exclusively on married and cohabitating households. The findings on life insurance coverage and composition imply that earnings shocks due to mortality are not a contributing factor to racial disparities in wealth.


Health Insurance, Fertility, And The Wantedness Of Pregnancies: Evidence From Massachusetts, Maria Apostolova-Mihaylova, Aaron Yelowitz Jan 2015

Health Insurance, Fertility, And The Wantedness Of Pregnancies: Evidence From Massachusetts, Maria Apostolova-Mihaylova, Aaron Yelowitz

Aaron Yelowitz

Health insurance reform in Massachusetts lowered the financial cost of both pregnancy (by increased coverage of pregnancy-related medical events) and pregnancy prevention (by increasing access to reliable contraception and family planning). We examine fertility responses for women of childbearing age in Massachusetts and, on net, find no effect from increasing health insurance coverage. This finding, however, masks substantial heterogeneity. For married women aged 20 to 34 – who have high latent fertility and for whom pregnancies are typically wanted – fertility increased by approximately 1 percent. For unmarried women in the same age range – for whom pregnancies are typically …


The Short-Run Impacts Of Connecticut’S Paid Sick Leave Legislation, Thomas Ahn, Aaron Yelowitz Jan 2015

The Short-Run Impacts Of Connecticut’S Paid Sick Leave Legislation, Thomas Ahn, Aaron Yelowitz

Aaron Yelowitz

In 2012, Connecticut became the first state to enact paid sick leave legislation. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we find the law had modest but negative effects on the labor market, particularly on the likelihood of working in the past week.


Health Insurance Generosity And Conditional Coverage: Evidence From Medicaid Managed Care In Kentucky, James Marton, Aaron Yelowitz Jan 2015

Health Insurance Generosity And Conditional Coverage: Evidence From Medicaid Managed Care In Kentucky, James Marton, Aaron Yelowitz

Aaron Yelowitz

This paper estimates the impact of the introduction of Medicaid managed care (MMC) on the formal Medicaid participation of children. We employ a quasi-experimental approach exploiting the location-specific timing of MMC implementation in Kentucky. Using data from the March Current Population Survey from 1995-2003, our findings suggest that the introduction of MMC increases the likelihood of being uninsured and decreases formal Medicaid participation. This finding is consistent with an increase in “conditional coverage” – waiting until medical care is needed to sign up or re-enroll in Medicaid. These effects are concentrated among low-income children and absent for high-income children. We …