IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/qjfxxx/v04y2014i02ns2010139214500074.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Welfare Implications of Health Capital Investment

Author

Listed:
  • Sara B. Holland

    (Department of Finance, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, 439 Brooks Hall, Athens, GA 30602, USA)

Abstract

I present a model of the health capital investment decision of a firm using a moral hazard framework. Health capital investment increases the probability that a worker is present and productive. The firm cannot verify a worker's health capital investment decision. When a firm invests in health capital, the investment is verifiable because the firm contracts with the insurer. I derive the optimal contract for when the worker and for when the firm invests in health capital. When the firm invests in health capital, the level of investment is higher and wages are less volatile. In my model, firms invest more than workers because of a production externality and because it is less costly to invest in health capital than to compensate the worker for bearing the risk of an uncertain labor realization. This result improves welfare, contrary to the benchmark that workers consume more health care than is efficient ex post when firms provide health insurance. Unlike the benchmark model of a worker and insurer, my model includes a profit maximizing firm, includes an endogenous probability of getting sick, and allows the insurer to set premiums by anticipating the health care investment level of the insured.

Suggested Citation

  • Sara B. Holland, 2014. "The Welfare Implications of Health Capital Investment," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(02), pages 1-27.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:qjfxxx:v:04:y:2014:i:02:n:s2010139214500074
    DOI: 10.1142/S2010139214500074
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S2010139214500074
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S2010139214500074?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan Gruber & Brigitte C. Madrian, 2002. "Health Insurance, Labor Supply, and Job Mobility: A Critical Review of the Literature," JCPR Working Papers 255, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    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. Annie Tubadji & Vassilis Angelis & Peter Nijkamp, 2016. "Endogenous intangible resources and their place in the institutional hierarchy," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 36(1), pages 1-28, February.

    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. Angrisani, Marco & Atella, Vincenzo & Brunetti, Marianna, 2018. "Public health insurance and household portfolio Choices: Unravelling financial “Side Effects” of Medicare," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 198-212.
    2. Richard Duhautois & Fabrice Gilles & Héloïse Petit, 2009. "Worker flows, job flows and establishment wage differentials: Analysing the case of France," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00646440, HAL.
    3. Velamuri, Malathi, 2009. "Taxes, Health Insurance and Women’s Self-Employment," MPRA Paper 15731, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Natt Hongdilokkul, 2017. "Welfare Analysis of the Universal Health Care Program in Thailand," PIER Discussion Papers 58, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    5. R. Vincent Pohl, 2018. "Medicaid And The Labor Supply Of Single Mothers: Implications For Health Care Reform," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(3), pages 1283-1313, August.
    6. Kanika Kapur & Jeannette Rogowski, 2006. "Love or Money? Health Insurance and Retirement Among Married Couples," NBER Working Papers 12273, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Daniel G. Sullivan & Till von Wachter, 2006. "Mortality, mass-layoffs, and career outcomes: an analysis using administrative data," Working Paper Series WP-06-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    8. Shin-Yi Chou & Jin-Tan Liu & James Hammitt, 2006. "Households’ precautionary behaviors—the effects of the introduction of National Health Insurance in Taiwan," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 395-421, December.
    9. Chatterji, Pinka & Brandon, Peter & Markowitz, Sara, 2016. "Job mobility among parents of children with chronic health conditions: Early effects of the 2010 Affordable Care Act," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 26-43.
    10. Le, Nga T.Q. & Groot, Wim & Tomini, Sonila & Tomini, Florian, 2017. "Effects of health insurance on labour supply: Evidence from the health care fund for the poor in Viet Nam," MERIT Working Papers 2017-050, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    11. Mark Duggan & Gopi Shah Goda & Emilie Jackson, 2019. "The Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Health Insurance Coverage and Labor Market Outcomes," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 72(2), pages 261-322, June.
    12. Emily Y. Lin, 2005. "Health Insurance Coverage And Reemployment Outcomes Among Older Displaced Workers," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 23(4), pages 529-544, October.
    13. Barış K. Yörük & Linna Xu, 2019. "Impact of the ACA’s Dependent Coverage Mandate on Health Insurance and Labor Market Outcomes Among Young Adults: Evidence from Regression Discontinuity Design," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 45(1), pages 58-86, January.
    14. Mark Duggan & Gopi Shah Goda & Gina Li, 2021. "The Effects of the Affordable Care Act on the Near Elderly: Evidence for Health Insurance Coverage and Labor Market Outcomes," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 179-223.
    15. Kuo-Liang Chang & George Langelett & Andrew Waugh, 2011. "Health, Health Insurance, and Decision to Exit from Farming," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 356-372, June.
    16. Anna Sanz-De-Galdeano, 2006. "Job-Lock and Public Policy: Clinton's Second Mandate," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 59(3), pages 430-437, April.
    17. Darkwah, Frank, 2022. "Does free health insurance improve health care use and labour market outcomes of the elderly in Ghana?," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).
    18. Hamersma, Sarah & Kim, Matthew, 2009. "The effect of parental Medicaid expansions on job mobility," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 761-770, July.
    19. Pinka Chatterji & Xiangshi Liu & Barış K. Yörük, 2019. "The effects of the 2010 Affordable Care Act dependent care provision on family structure and public program participation among young adults," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 1133-1161, December.
    20. Kevin X. D. Huang & Gregory W. Huffman, 2010. "A Defense of the Current US Tax Treatment of Employer-Provided Medical Insurance," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 1001, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.

    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:wsi:qjfxxx:v:04:y:2014:i:02:n:s2010139214500074. 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: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscinet.com/qjf/qjf.shtml .

    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.