اثرات بازار کار همسر از بیمه درمانی دولت: شواهد از توسعه امور سربازان بازنشسته  Spousal labor market effects from government health insurance: Evidence from a veterans affairs expansion

Introduction Government-provided benefits can significantly impact the work and retirement decisions of eligible individuals. Although measuring the effect of a benefit on a recipientis relatively straightforward,themeasurement of a program’s total effectis complicated when other family members are not covered by the program. Specifically, a program may have positive or negative spillover effects on the labor supply of uncovered family members. When these spillover effects are not taken into account, the full effect of the benefit on labor supply may be mismeasured. The potential effect of health insurance on work behavior has been of particular interest with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) (e.g. Antwi et al., 2013; Baicker et al., 2014; Dague et al., 2014; Garthwaite et al., 2014; Kolstad and Kowalski, 2014), especially in light of Congressional Budget Office projections of reductions in labor supply as a result of this legislation.2 Although many studies have measured the direct effect of a bene- fit on the labor supply of recipients, few have analyzed the impact on total household labor supply. The budgetary consequences for other public programs like Medicare and Social Security might be exacerbated if spousal labor supply decreases in response to a benefit or mitigated if spouses increase their labor force participation. Theory and empirical evidence on the direct effects of publicly provided health insurance not linked to employment show clear-cut decreases labor supply of recipients (Boyle and Lahey, 2010; Dague et al., 2014; Garthwaite et al., 2014). Standard theory predicts that such a benefit will reduce the opportunity cost of leisure, particularly for workers who were previously reliant on employer-provided coverage. Thus, for these recipients, labor supply is predicted to and is shown to fall.