Hear about relevant research from faculty from around the country, as SPA’s Department of Public Policy and Administration convenes the Spring 2021 Research Seminar Series.

Next Seminar

Health Insurance for Whom? The ‘Spill-up’ Effects of Children’s Health Insurance on Mothers

Thursday, April 1, 2021

12:00 PM ET

 

Join Sebastian Tello-Trillo of the University of Virginia as he discusses how, in most countries, social safety net programs focus on a parent’s well-being. His research explores how targeting children could have important impacts on parent’s well-being, and focuses on the case of expansions in children’s public health insurance provided and its effects on the parents’ economic and behavioral outcomes. Using a simulated instrument for Medicaid eligibility expansions in the 80s and 90s and geo-coded National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data, Dr. Tello-Trillo and his co-authors isolate variation in children’s Medicaid eligibility due to changes in government policies and find that increases in children’s public insurance increases the likelihood a mother is married, decreases labor market participation, and reduces smoking and alcohol consumption. They also find improvements in maternal mental health, specifically a seven-item Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression score, and use these results to re-interpret the current literature’s estimates of these Medicaid’s expansion accounting for these spillovers.