IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eti/dpaper/18037.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effect of Transportation Benefits on Health and Consumption among the Elderly: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Urban China

Author

Listed:
  • YIN Ting
  • YIN Zhigang
  • ZHANG Junchao

Abstract

This study estimates the causal effect of transportation subsidies or similar benefits on the health of elderly people. We exploit a discontinuity in the probability of receiving transportation benefits induced by an age-based policy to take into account the endogeneity of treatment status. Our baseline IV results indicate that receiving public transportation benefits significantly improves elderly people's health condition by approximately 10 percentage points. The results are robust under different specifications and placebo tests. Further tests on possible channels show that the health effect is driven by increasing food consumption and health care utilization, but not by the amount of exercise done.

Suggested Citation

  • YIN Ting & YIN Zhigang & ZHANG Junchao, 2018. "The Effect of Transportation Benefits on Health and Consumption among the Elderly: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Urban China," Discussion papers 18037, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    • Handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:18037
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/18e037.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ian W. H. Parry & Kenneth A. Small, 2009. "Should Urban Transit Subsidies Be Reduced?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 700-724, June.
    2. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    3. Philip Oreopoulos, 2006. "Estimating Average and Local Average Treatment Effects of Education when Compulsory Schooling Laws Really Matter," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 152-175, March.
    4. Avraham Ebenstein, 2009. "When is the Local Average Treatment Close to the Average?: Evidence from Fertility and Labor Supply," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(4).
    5. Michael L. Anderson, 2014. "Subways, Strikes, and Slowdowns: The Impacts of Public Transit on Traffic Congestion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2763-2796, September.
    6. Coronini-Cronberg, S. & Millett, C. & Laverty, A.A. & Webb, E., 2012. "The impact of a free older persons' bus pass on active travel and regular walking in England," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 102(11), pages 2141-2148.
    7. Judith Green & Alasdair Jones & Helen Roberts, 2014. "More than A to B: the role of free bus travel for the mobility and wellbeing of older citizens in London," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 64155, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    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. Shin, Eun Jin, 2021. "Exploring the causal impact of transit fare exemptions on older adults’ travel behavior: Evidence from the Seoul metropolitan area," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 319-338.

    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. Marcotte, Dave E., 2013. "High school dropout and teen childbearing," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 258-268.
    2. Shin, Eun Jin, 2021. "Exploring the causal impact of transit fare exemptions on older adults’ travel behavior: Evidence from the Seoul metropolitan area," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 319-338.
    3. Joshua Angrist & Ivan Fernandez-Val, 2010. "ExtrapoLATE-ing: External Validity and Overidentification in the LATE Framework," NBER Working Papers 16566, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Russo, Antonio & Adler, Martin W. & Liberini, Federica & van Ommeren, Jos N., 2021. "Welfare losses of road congestion: Evidence from Rome," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    5. Shoya Ishimaru, 2024. "Empirical Decomposition of the IV-OLS Gap with Heterogeneous and Nonlinear Effects," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(2), pages 505-520, March.
    6. Scott Carrell & Bruce Sacerdote, 2017. "Why Do College-Going Interventions Work?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 124-151, July.
    7. van Elk, Roel & van der Steeg, Marc & Webbink, Dinand, 2011. "Does the timing of tracking affect higher education completion?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1009-1021, October.
    8. Liwiński, Jacek, 2018. "The Impact of Compulsory Schooling on Earnings. Evidence from the 1999 Education Reform in Poland," GLO Discussion Paper Series 253, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    9. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2009. "Regression Discontinuity Designs In Economics," Working Papers 1118, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    10. Davis, Lucas W., 2021. "Estimating the price elasticity of demand for subways: Evidence from Mexico," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    11. Henderson, Daniel J. & Polachek, Solomon W. & Wang, Le, 2011. "Heterogeneity in schooling rates of return," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1202-1214.
    12. Daniel A. Kamhöfer & Hendrik Schmitz, 2013. "Analyzing Zero Returns to Education in Germany – Heterogeneous Eff ects and Skill Formation," Ruhr Economic Papers 0446, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    13. Markus Frölich & Martin Huber, 2017. "Direct and indirect treatment effects–causal chains and mediation analysis with instrumental variables," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1645-1666, November.
    14. Shenglong Liu & Yuanyuan Wan & Xiaoming Zhang, 2024. "Retirement Spillover Effects on Spousal Health in Urban China," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 756-783, September.
    15. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    16. Daniel A. Kamhöfer & Hendrik Schmitz, 2013. "Analyzing Zero Returns to Education in Germany: Heterogeneous Effects and Skill Formation," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 598, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    17. John DiNardo & David S. Lee, 2010. "Program Evaluation and Research Designs," Working Papers 1228, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    18. Ogundari, Kolawole, 2021. "A systematic review of statistical methods for estimating an education production function," MPRA Paper 105283, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Liwiński, Jacek, 2018. "The Impact of Compulsory Education on Employment and Earnings in a Transition Economy," GLO Discussion Paper Series 193, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    20. Giorgio d’Agostino & John Paul Dunne & Luca Pieroni, 2019. "Military Expenditure, Endogeneity and Economic Growth," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(5), pages 509-524, July.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:eti:dpaper:18037. 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: TANIMOTO, Toko (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rietijp.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.