Emily Conover

Health consequences of easier access to alcohol: New Zealand evidence

We evaluate the health effects of a reduction in New Zealands minimum legal purchase age for alcohol. Difference-in-differences (DD) estimates show a substantial increase in alcohol-related hospitalizations among those newly eligible to purchase liquor, around 24.6% (s.e.=5.5%) for males and 22% (s.e.=8.1%) for females. There is less evidence of an effect among ineligible younger cohorts. There is little evidence of alcohol either complementing or substituting for drugs. We do not find evidence that earlier access to alcohol is associated with learning from experience. We also present regression discontinuity estimates, but emphasize DD estimates since in a simulation of a rational addiction model DD estimates are closer than regression discontinuity estimates to the policys true effect.

Effects of Subsidized Health Insurance on Newborn Health in a Developing Country

Colombia’s rapid and considerable expansion of health insurance coverage in the 1990s provides an opportunity to evaluate in a developing country whether health insurance improves health outcomes. Using administrative data and a regression discontinuity design, we find that babies born from mothers with health insurance have a lower incidence of low birth weight. We also find some indication that mothers with health insurance had better access to health facilities. These results are robust to different specifications and sample restrictions.

Conditional Cash Transfers, Political Participation, and Voting Behavior

This paper estimates the effect of enrollment in a large scale anti-poverty program in Colombia, Familias en Accion, on intent to vote, turnout and electoral choice. For identification the analysis uses discontinuities in program eligibility and variation in program enrollment across voting booths. It finds that Familias en Accion had a positive effect on political participation in the 2010 presidential elections by increasing the probability that program beneficiaries registered to vote and cast a ballot, particularly among women. Regarding voters choice, the authors find that program participants expressed a stronger preference for the official party that implemented and expanded the program. Overall, the findings show that voters respond to targeted transfers and that these transfers can foster support for incumbents, thus making the case for designing political and legislative mechanisms, as the laws recently passed by the Colombian government, that avoid successful anti-poverty schemes from being captured by political patronage.

Manipulation of Social Program Eligibility: Detection, Explanations and Consequences for Empirical Research

We document manipulation of a targeting system which used a poverty index score to determine eligibility for social welfare programs in Colombia, including health insurance. We show strategic behavior in the timing of the household interviews around local elections, and direct manipulation when some households had their eligibility scores lowered. Initially the number of interviews increased around local elections. After the algorithm was made public to local officials, the score density exhibited a sharp discontinuity exactly at the eligibility threshold. The discontinuity at the threshold is larger where mayoral elections are more competitive; and smaller in municipalities with less competitive elections, more community organizations and higher newspaper circulation.

Heat Waves, Droughts and Preferences for Environmental Policy

Using data from a new household survey on environmental attitudes, behaviors, and policy preferences, we find that current weather conditions affect preferences for environmental regulation. Individuals who have recently experienced extreme weather (heat waves or droughts) are more likely to support laws to protect the environment even if it means restricting individual freedoms. We find evidence that the channel through which weather conditions affect policy preference is via perceptions of the importance of the issue of global warming. Furthermore, individuals who may be more sophisticated consumers of news are less likely to have their attitudes towards global warming changed by current weather conditions.

Misallocation and Productivity in Colombia's Manufacturing Industries

Following Hsieh and Klenow (2009), this paper studies productivity dispersions in Colombian industrial establishments using the Colombian Annual Manufacturing Survey (AMS) from 1982 to 1998. The United States is used as a benchmark to estimate the reallocation of capital and labor to equalize marginal products across plants in Colombia. Gains are found in manufacturing Total Factor Productivity (TFP) of approximately 3-8 percent and TPF is positively correlated with exporting status, age, size, and location in the central region of the country. There is also suggestive evidence that opening the economy in 1991 is associated with an increase in plant productivity levels for firms that export goods. The 1990 reform that reduced dismissal costs is associated with an increase in productivity, while the reform that increased labor costs in 1993 is associated with a decrease in plants’ productivity. Further work is needed to establish a causal relation between productivity and policy changes.

Effects of Subsidized Health Insurance on Newborn Health in Colombia

Colombias rapid expansion of health insurance coverage in the 1990s provides an opportunity to evaluate whether health insurance coverage positively affects health care usage and outcomes. We use the discontinuity in eligibility for the Subsidized Regime (SR), the subsidized health insurance for the poor, to see if the Subsidized Regime increased the incidence of doctor assisted births, prenatal care, and hospital deliveries; and if it improved newborn health measured by birth weight, gestation period, Apgar score and incidence of low (lbw) and very low birth weight (vlbw). We find that the Subsidized Regime had positive effects on newborn birth weight, but although positive, not consistently significant effects on other health measures or access to medical personnel and facilities.

Cash and Ballots: Conditional Transfers, Political Participation and Voting Behavior

We estimate the effect of participation in a large antipoverty program in Colombia on turnout and electoral choice. Using variation in the proportion of beneficiaries across voting booths within a polling station and eligibility as an instrument for take-up, we find that in the 2010 presidential elections, enrolled women were more likely to vote and support the incumbent party candidate. Results for men are smaller and not always significant. Voters respond to targeted transfers, and women, as the direct recipients of the transfers, respond more strongly. Potential mechanisms explaining the results are civic engagement and gratitude toward the incumbent party.