One of the most sizable and least predictable shocks to economic opportunities in developing countries is major illness, both in terms of medical care expenditures and lost income from reduced labor supply and productivity. As a result, families may not be able to smooth their consumption over...

In this paper I show that the Medicaid program can improve the access of financially indigent patients to nursing home care by raising the rate of return paid on Medicaid patients' care, but only at the cost of lower quality of care. To quantify the policy tradeoff, I derive expressions for the...

Despite substantial interest in the determination of quality, there has been little empirical work in the area. The problem, of course, is the general lack of data on quality. This paper overcomes the data problem by constructing a Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause (MIMIC) model of quality...

While the critical role of imperfect information has become axiomatic in explaining health care market failure, the theory is backed by little empirical evidence. In this paper we use a unique panel data set with explicit measures of information and an educational intervention to investigate the...

We employ a unique data set from a community based survey to assess the effect of mental distress on earnings. The main advantage of the data is that detailed measurements of mental health status were made on all subjects in the study. This means that our population-based measure of mental...

We estimate the effect of social capital on the ability of households to insure consumption after unexpected negative shocks. Many theoretical models argue that strong ties to extended family members and to one's community help protect families when an adult becomes ill or disabled. Using...

The hospital industry is one of this country's largest mixed industries, with for-profit, nonprofit, and government hospitals operating in the same local markets. But how do ownership types differ? Previous studies have compared costs among different hospitals. However, these studies have not...

A new stylized fact in development economics is the importance of social capital in promoting economic growth. This paper examines the effect of social capital on industrialization in Indonesia. We analyze a rich set of social capital and social interaction measures, including voluntary...

Families in developing countries face enormous financial risks from major illness both in terms of the cost of medical care and the loss in income associated with reduced labor supply and productivity. We test whether access to microfinancial savings and lending institutions helps Indonesian...