Labor Supply Responses to Employer-Provided Health Insurance

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2002-04-01
Authors
Mayer, Rebecca
Orazem, Peter
Wachenheim, William
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Economics

The Department of Economic Science was founded in 1898 to teach economic theory as a truth of industrial life, and was very much concerned with applying economics to business and industry, particularly agriculture. Between 1910 and 1967 it showed the growing influence of other social studies, such as sociology, history, and political science. Today it encompasses the majors of Agricultural Business (preparing for agricultural finance and management), Business Economics, and Economics (for advanced studies in business or economics or for careers in financing, management, insurance, etc).

History
The Department of Economic Science was founded in 1898 under the Division of Industrial Science (later College of Liberal Arts and Sciences); it became co-directed by the Division of Agriculture in 1919. In 1910 it became the Department of Economics and Political Science. In 1913 it became the Department of Applied Economics and Social Science; in 1924 it became the Department of Economics, History, and Sociology; in 1931 it became the Department of Economics and Sociology. In 1967 it became the Department of Economics, and in 2007 it became co-directed by the Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Business.

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1898–present

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  • Department of Economic Science (1898–1910)
  • Department of Economics and Political Science (1910-1913)
  • Department of Applied Economics and Social Science (1913–1924)
  • Department of Economics, History and Sociology (1924–1931)
  • Department of Economics and Sociology (1931–1967)

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Economics
Abstract

Variation in income tax policies and health insurance costs are shown to be theoretically appropriate instruments to identify endogenous firm wage and benefit offers in a labor supply model. Empirical results show that firms are more likely to provide health insurance benefits in states with high marginal income tax rates and low hospitalization costs. The model implies that over the 1983-1995 period, large increases in health insurance costs and reductions in marginal income tax rates lowered the probability of receiving health insurance benefits from employers by 10 percentage points. This decrease in benefits lowered hours of labor supply by 4-7%.

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