Health Care Expenditure and Farm Income Loss: Evidence from Natural Disasters / Hung-Hao Chang, Chad Meyerhoefer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chang, Hung-Hao.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Meyerhoefer, Chad.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w29898.

NBER working paper series no. w29898

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2022.

Summary:

Farmers have higher rates of disability and illness than the general population and more volatile incomes due to frequent crop and livestock losses from extreme weather events. This raises concerns that sudden, weather-related drops in farm income could reduce access to health care for an already vulnerable population. We estimate the sensitivity of health care use to the loss in farm income brought about by natural disasters in Taiwan. To account for endogenous exposure to disaster risks, we estimate an instrumental variables model and find that farm income elasticities of demand for outpatient care and prescriptions range from 0.11 to 0.32. Reductions in health care use may be due, in part, to changes in time allocations within farm households.

Notes:

Print version record

April 2022.