Health
HMSA gift of $1 million endows health economics professorship at UHERO
The Hawaiʻi Medical Service Association (HMSA) donated $1 million to establish the HMSA Distinguished Endowed Professorship in Health Economics at the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization (UHERO) in UH Mānoa’s College of Social Sciences. The endowment will support UHERO’s research in the area of health economics. UHERO Executive Director Carl Bonham has worked closely […]
Read MoreCompact for care: how the Affordable Care Act marketplaces fell short for a vulnerable population in Hawaii
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010 to expand access to health insurance in the USA and promote innovation in health care delivery. While the law significantly reduced the proportion of uninsured, the market-based protection it provides for poor and vulnerable US residents is an imperfect substitute for government programs such […]
Read MoreUHERO Annual Report: Response to COVID-19
By the end of 2020, The University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization (UHERO) received $1.2 million in private support to fund critical economic research, and help Hawai‘i on the path to recovery. Donors include Hawai‘i Community Foundation, Bank of Hawai‘i Foundation, Kamehameha Schools, First Hawaiian Bank Foundation, DGM Group, Hawaiian Electric Industries Charitable Foundation, Hawai‘i […]
Read MoreIntra-familial transfers, son preference, and retirement behavior in South Korea
Abstract: We consider the nexus of intra-familial transfers, the sex composition of the sibship, and parental retirement behavior in South Korea. To investigate this, we employ the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging and a research design that relies on plausibly exogenous variation in the sex composition of the sibship. We provide evidence that it costs […]
Read MoreThe effects of population aging on South Korea’s economy: The National Transfer Accounts approach
This study examines how two factors of population aging, changes in fertility and mortality, will respectively affect South Korea’s economic future. The economic effects of population aging are examined by considering the population in each age group under alternative demographic scenarios. Utilizing recent population projections and South Korea’s National Transfer Accounts, the paper applies a simple decomposition model […]
Read MoreExpanding Health Insurance for the Elderly of the Philippines
Abstract: This paper evaluates a Filipino policy that expanded health insurance coverage of its senior citizens, aged 60 and older, in 2014. We employ an instrumental variables estimator in which the first stage is a difference-in-differences specification that exploits the age discontinuity at age 60, along with data from before and after the policy. First stage […]
Read MoreThe Economics of Health and Migration
Abstract: Migration and health are intimately connected. It is known that migrants tend to be healthier than non-migrants. However, the mechanisms for this association are elusive. On the one hand, the costs of migration are lower for healthier people, thereby making it easier for the healthy to migrate. Empirical evidence from a variety of contexts shows […]
Read MoreCOVID-19 infections, vaccines, and economic recovery
By Carl Bonham, Peter Fuleky, Byron Gangnes, and Justin Tyndall A year ago Hawaii was operating under its first COVID-19 Stay at Home Order. As business activity contracted, the state quickly shed more than 150,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate jumped from 2% to 22%. Today there is hope that the devastation brought by the […]
Read MoreIntergenerational mobility in self-reported health status in the US
Abstract: We present estimates of intergenerational mobility in self-reported health status (SRHS) in the US using data from the PSID. We estimate that the rank-rank slope in SRHS is 0.26. We show that including both parent health and income in models of intergenerational mobility increases the explanatory power of child outcomes. We construct a monetary metric for […]
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