IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/poleco/v85y2024ics0176268024000995.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Self-benefits, fiscal risk, and political support for the public healthcare system

Author

Listed:
  • Kishishita, Daiki
  • Matsumoto, Tomoko

Abstract

The rapid aging of the population has become increasingly challenging for public healthcare systems. To ensure sustainability, governments must persuade their citizens to accept a larger burden, which is a difficult task. This study explored whether informing individuals of self-benefits from the healthcare system could be a solution. We first constructed a two-period overlapping generations model and hypothesized that doing so could facilitate political support for larger healthcare insurance contributions; however, this effect is reduced when people are concerned about fiscal sustainability due to a declining fertility rate. To test these hypotheses, we conducted an online survey experiment in Japan, in which the treatment group was informed of the benefits from the public healthcare system. We found that the treatment had no effect on average but augmented support for a larger burden among respondents who were unaware of fiscal unsustainability. Furthermore, this positive effect on optimistic respondents reduced once they were informed of the fiscal risks. Moreover, we analyzed the heterogeneity of the treatment effects depending on time and risk preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Kishishita, Daiki & Matsumoto, Tomoko, 2024. "Self-benefits, fiscal risk, and political support for the public healthcare system," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:85:y:2024:i:c:s0176268024000995
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102597
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268024000995
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102597?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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Healthcare system; Policy preference; Benefit; Fiscal unsustainability; Survey experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

    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:eee:poleco:v:85:y:2024:i:c:s0176268024000995. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505544 .

    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.