Other
Goals

  • NO POVERTY
  • ZERO HUNGER
  • GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
  • QUALITY EDUCATION
  • GENDER EQUALITY
  • CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION
  • AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY
  • DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
  • INDUSTORY, INNOVATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
  • REDUCED INEQUALITIES
  • SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES
  • RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION
  • CLIMATE ACTION
  • LIFE BELOW WATER
  • LIFE ON LAND
  • PEACE, JUSTICE AND STRONG INSTITUTIONS
  • PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS
  • SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
ponpoje_01

PORAPAKKARM, Ponpoje

Associate Professor

Specialized field
Macroeconomics and Computational macroeconomics

Reducing Medical Spending of the Publicly Insured: The Case for a Cash-Out Option (joint with Svetlana Pashchenko, and accepted for publication in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy)

Individuals’ medical spending has both necessary and discretionary components which are not, however, separately observable. This paper studies ways to improve upon existing public health insurance policies by using a framework where both the discretionary and necessary components of medical spending are explicitly modeled. First, using a simple theoretical framework the paper shows that the key to reducing discretionary medical spending is to introduce a trade-off between non-medical and medical consumption. Next, using a rich quantitative life-cycle model the paper shows that this trade-off can be successfully implemented by introducing an option to substitute public health insurance with cash transfers.

American Economic Journal

Read more
Close