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Browsing by Subject "Health economics"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
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    Essays in the Macroeconomics of Health Care
    (2019-06) Nygaard, Vegard Mokleiv
    This dissertation consists of three essays that study the macroeconomics of health care. The first essay studies how policies can be designed to reduce differences in life expectancy across income groups in the United States and examines what the consequences of these policies are for welfare and the macroeconomy. Using a calibrated structural life cycle model with incomplete markets, heterogeneous agents, and endogenous health, I find that a universal health insurance reform leads to higher life expectancy, lower life expectancy inequality, lower health care spending, higher GDP per capita, and higher welfare, even after controlling for the increased tax burden needed to finance the reform. The second essay develops a structural life cycle model with incomplete markets and heterogeneous agents to study how the ability to file for medical bankruptcy affects incentives to purchase health insurance. I find that the ability to file for medical bankruptcy crowds out private health insurance coverage. The majority of the population, however, is better off in the economy with medical bankruptcy because of the implicit insurance provided by this option. Finally, motivated by the considerable heterogeneity in GDP per capita across the states of the US, the third essay develops a model to quantify the welfare differences across the states as measured by the expected lifetime utility of being born in a particular state. Using a calibrated version of the model that allows for state-specific variation in mortality risk, consumption uncertainty, and educational attainment, I document large and persistent heterogeneity in welfare across the states of the US.
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    Impact of a grocer-led fruit and vegetable promoting intervention in a rural Minnesota ethnic community
    (2023-03) Khairunnisa, Nurfadila
    This thesis evaluates a four-part intervention program in four rural Minnesota ethnic grocery stores. Stearns County, Minnesota has hosted approximately 1,200 primary refugees from 2011 to 2020, with nearly 92% having sought refuge from Somalia. The project team worked with Somali grocery store owners in the city of St. Cloud located in Stearns County to better supply their stores with fresh fruit and vegetables (FV). The in-store intervention methods included (1) training produce handlers, (2) implementing in-store demonstrative and educational material for customer viewing, (3) providing funding for refrigerated cases, and (4) subsidizing fresh produce procurement. From a series of pre-intervention and post-intervention surveys, this analysis included a full sample of 173 responses and 42 unique households with paired baseline and endline survey observations. We analyze models using the full and paired samples, alongside models using subsamples of food insecure households and post-intervention responses. Across all empirical models, we find consistent results in the magnitude and probability increase of weekly fruit, greens, and other vegetable consumption in the post-intervention period or with increased Somali store patronage. With 73% of individuals in the post-intervention period reporting increased patronage at the Somali stores, indicating higher exposure to fresh produce, we assume shoppers experienced a greater incentive to frequent the grocery stores. Higher patronage in the post-intervention period is also associated with an increase in the probability of FV consumption through a 24-hour consumption recall, at a statistically significant level. However, the probability of FV consumption shares a negative relationship with unplanned FV purchases.