Papers by Andrea Kutinova
Dysphagia, Jan 19, 2024
Dysphagia imposes a substantial economic burden on global healthcare systems due to its pervasive... more Dysphagia imposes a substantial economic burden on global healthcare systems due to its pervasive, high-cost nature. To comprehend this burden, we must first assess dysphagia's prevalence and incidence in the general population. Existing studies on dysphagia prevalence encompass minor symptoms, while it is the severe cases that drive significant healthcare costs. We address this knowledge gap by estimating dysphagia incidence and prevalence in the New Zealand population, projecting future demographics of affected individuals. Incidence and prevalence rates of dysphagia within specific underlying medical conditions are sourced from existing literature. Median projected population estimates from Statistics New Zealand, by age, sex, and ethnicity are used to calculate dysphagia projections. Where possible, projections by age and ethnicity are provided until 2038 and projections by age and sex until 2073. In 2020, 9300 New Zealanders are estimated to have newly developed dysphagia while 1.5% of the general New Zealand population are estimated to have been living with the effects of the condition. By 2073, the number of individuals newly diagnosed annually is projected to increase to 24,500 and the prevalence of dysphagia is projected to increase to 2.6%. These results indicate that a significant number of New Zealanders are impacted by dysphagia. This number is predicted to dramatically increase in the future, mostly due to population ageing, indicating an increased burden on society and healthcare systems. Our work provides a useful starting point for countries worldwide to assess future healthcare resource demands associated with dysphagia, assisting with healthcare provision planning.
Social Science Research Network, 2019
Psychological maternal stress is thought to be a factor in poor infant health, but direct evidenc... more Psychological maternal stress is thought to be a factor in poor infant health, but direct evidence is difficult to obtain. We posit that the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles, California provides a natural test of the effect of mothers' stress on infants' birth weight and gestation. The Northridge disaster featured a low rate of injury and a quick recovery, but long-lasting and well documented consequences for mental health. Difference-indifference results show that infants born closest to the epicenter were 0.2 percentage points more likely to be born with low birth weight. Impacts were larger and more precisely identified for women who experienced the earthquake in their first or third trimester. Among the subsample of mothers most susceptible to stress-first-time, single mothers-low birth weight was 0.5 percentage points more likely to occur. We find little evidence that the earthquake affected preterm delivery.
Social Science Research Network, 2006
Are recessions good for pregnancy? In this paper, I investigate the relationship between unemploy... more Are recessions good for pregnancy? In this paper, I investigate the relationship between unemployment fluctuations, prenatal care utilization, and infant and maternal health. Analyzing the US Natality Detail Files data for the period 1989-99 aggregated by county, year, and race, I find the overall effects of unemployment to be beneficial but conclude that at least some of the apparent benefits may be attributable to the Medicaid ‘safety net’.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Nov 30, 2016
Rising health care costs are a policy concern across the Organisation for Economic Cooperation an... more Rising health care costs are a policy concern across the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and relatively little consensus exists concerning their causes. One explanation that has received revived attention is Baumol's cost disease (BCD). However, developing a theoretically appropriate test of BCD has been a challenge. In this paper, we construct a 2-sector model firmly based on Baumol's axioms. We then derive several testable propositions. In particular, the model predicts that (a) the share of total labor employed in the health care sector and (b) the relative price index of the health and non-health care sectors should both be positively related to economy-wide productivity. The model also predicts that (c) the share of labor in the health sector will be negatively related and (d) the ratio of prices in the health and non-health sectors unrelated, to the demand for non-health services. Using annual data from 28 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries over the years 1995-2016 and from 14 U.S. industry groups over the years 1947-2015, we find little evidence to support the predictions of BCD once we address spurious correlation due to coincident trending and other econometric issues.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2019
The relationship between social capital and health has received extensive attention in fields suc... more The relationship between social capital and health has received extensive attention in fields such as public health, medicine, epidemiology, gerontology and other health-related disciplines. In contrast, the economics literature on this subject is relatively small. To address this research gap, we investigate the cross-disciplinary empirical literature using meta-analysis. We analyze 12,778 estimates from 470 studies. Our analysis finds that social capital is significantly related to a variety of positive health outcomes. However, the effect sizes are consistently very small. This finding is robust across different types of social capital (e.g., cognitive, structural, bonding, bridging, linking), and for many different measures of health outcomes (e.g., mortality, disease/illnesses, depression). The small effects that we estimate cast doubt on recent initiatives to promote health through social capital such as those by the WHO, the OECD, and US Healthy People 2020.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Apr 4, 2006
During the conflict in Vietnam, married men with dependents could obtain a deferment from the dra... more During the conflict in Vietnam, married men with dependents could obtain a deferment from the draft. In 1965, following President Johnson's Executive Order 11241 and a subsequent Selective Service System announcement, the particulars of this policy changed substantially in a way which provided strong incentives for childless American couples to conceive a first-born child. This study examines the effects of the intervention on the decision to start a family. In my empirical analysis, I extract data from the Vital Statistics for the period 1963-1968 and employ a difference-indifferences methodology. The estimated magnitude of the effect is substantial.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Apr 8, 2016
This study is the first to our knowledge to document the extent and correlates of occupational re... more This study is the first to our knowledge to document the extent and correlates of occupational regulation in New Zealand. Using data from the Census and the Survey of Working Life, we estimate that 28% of workers' primary jobs are affected by occupational regulation. This is lower than the 35% reported for the US but identical to UK estimates of 28%. Furthermore, we find that holding observable factors constant, occupational regulation is associated with a wage premium of 5%. This is lower than the 18% licensing premium found for the US but within the range of estimates for the UK.
Economics and Human Biology, Jun 1, 2023
Social Science Research Network, 2013
This research explores the role of sunshine in birth outcomes production. Its most obvious role i... more This research explores the role of sunshine in birth outcomes production. Its most obvious role is through Vitamin D absorption, which could explain racial disparities because skin pigmentation inhibits this process. However, the effects of sunshine are complex and closely connected to environmental factors (e.g., air pollution and temperature), season of birth, and policies like Medicaid. Combining daily weather data with 1989-2004 birth outcomes from the Natality Detail Files, we estimate sunshine’s effects in a range of models that disentangle these confounding factors and find they differ by race and explain a nontrivial portion of racial differences in birth weight.
New Zealand economic papers, Mar 4, 2014
In this paper, we estimate the effect of changes in the unemployment rate on private health insur... more In this paper, we estimate the effect of changes in the unemployment rate on private health insurance coverage of New Zealanders using quarterly national data from 1999 to 2009. A one percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate is associated with a decrease of 9,843 lives covered by private health insurance or a 0.32 percentage point decrease in the coverage rate of the total New Zealand populationrepresenting a change of 0.7-1.0% from the baseline. We also find some evidence of a stronger effect on men and the elderly and of an asymmetric effect on new insurance contracts vs. terminations.
Economic Inquiry, Apr 1, 2009
During the conflict in Vietnam, married men with dependents could obtain a deferment from the dra... more During the conflict in Vietnam, married men with dependents could obtain a deferment from the draft. In 1965, following President Johnson's Executive Order 11241 and a subsequent Selective Service System announcement, the particulars of this policy changed substantially in a way which provided strong incentives for childless American couples to conceive a first-born child. This study examines the effects of the intervention on the decision to start a family. In my empirical analysis, I use data from the Vital Statistics for the period 1963-1968 and employ a difference-indifferences methodology. The estimated magnitude of the effect is substantial.
Journal of Health Economics, Jul 1, 2020
This study investigates the extensive empirical literature on social capital and health using met... more This study investigates the extensive empirical literature on social capital and health using meta-analysis. Our final sample consists of 12,459 estimated effects taken from 450 studies. Our main result is that the overall mean size of the effect of social capital on health is very small, though it is statistically significant. This low association follows from a relatively large share of individually insignificant estimates, combined with the large sample sizes that characterize this literature. Furthermore, despite an extensive theoretical literature concerned with delineating different kinds of social capital, we find few systematic empirical differences. While cognitive social capital has a significantly stronger association with health than structural social capital, especially for mental health, the difference is empirically minor. There is no evidence of significant differences between bonding, bridging, and linking social capital.
Expenditure programs, business cycles, and government interventions can affect many decisions sur... more Expenditure programs, business cycles, and government interventions can affect many decisions surrounding the birth of a child. For example, public insurance programs such as Medicaid have the potential to increase the utilization of prenatal care. This, in turn, may lead to better infant and maternal health outcomes. Given the high and
Economic Record, Jun 15, 2017
Many education funding policies seek to lessen the effect of economic disparities outside schools... more Many education funding policies seek to lessen the effect of economic disparities outside schools on the disparity of student outcomes within them. A national program for New Zealand schools provides an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of government funding in raising graduation rates, and of targeting alternative disadvantage measures. New Zealand targets five deprivation measures: low income, lack of education, low skill employment, crowding, and receiving welfare. Using school fixed effects, we do not find evidence that government funds raise graduation rates for schools, including those serving the most disadvantaged students. We also find no robust evidence that targeting some disadvantage measures is more effective than others. Single parent and rural/urban status are also found to co-vary significantly with graduation rates.
Health Economics, Feb 9, 2018
Rising health care costs are a policy concern across the OECD and relatively little consensus exi... more Rising health care costs are a policy concern across the OECD and relatively little consensus exists concerning their causes. One explanation that has received revived attention is Baumol's Cost Disease (BCD). However, developing a theoretically-appropriate test of BCD has been a challenge. In this paper, we construct a two-sector model firmly based on Baumol's axioms. We then theoretically derive two propositions that can be tested using observable variables. In particular, we predict that: 1) the relative price index of the health care sector, and 2) the share of total labor employed in the health care sector should both be positively related to economy-wide productivity. Using annual data from 27 OECD countries over the years 1995-2013 and from 14 U.S. industry groups over the years 1947-2015, we show that empirical evidence for the existence of BCD in health care is sensitive to model specification and disappears once we address spurious correlation due to contemporaneous trending and other econometric issues.
Journal of family and economic issues, Oct 9, 2012
Do recessions improve birth outcomes? This study investigated the relationship between unemployme... more Do recessions improve birth outcomes? This study investigated the relationship between unemployment fluctuations, prenatal care utilization and infant health. Analyzing the US Natality Detail Files for the period 1989–1999 aggregated by county, year, and race, I found the overall effects of unemployment to be beneficial but concluded that at least some of the apparent benefits are attributable to the Medicaid “safety net.” In supplementary analyses stratified by socioeconomic status, Medicaid played the largest role among economically disadvantaged (single and less educated) women. Thus, unemployment seems to be good for at least some pregnancies—provided Medicaid steps in.
New Zealand economic papers, Apr 15, 2011
This paper uses daily data from 43 districts across New Zealand from 2000 to 2008 and employs pan... more This paper uses daily data from 43 districts across New Zealand from 2000 to 2008 and employs panel econometric techniques to investigate the effect of weather on crime. Temperature and precipitation are found to have a significant effect on the number of violent crimes recorded and temperature also affects the number of property crimes recorded. Studies of this nature are important for the allocation of police resources. As an extension, the common belief that the Nor'wester wind causes 'disorderly' behavior is empirically investigated. Data on violent crime from three Canterbury police districts is used. The Nor'wester is found to be statistically insignificant in determining the number of violent crimes in Canterbury.
New Zealand economic papers, Oct 26, 2016
This study is the first to our knowledge to document the extent and correlates of occupational re... more This study is the first to our knowledge to document the extent and correlates of occupational regulation in New Zealand. Using data from the Census and the Survey of Working Life, we estimate that 29% of workers' primary jobs are affected by occupational regulation. This is lower than the 35% reported for the US but close to UK estimates of 28%. Furthermore, we find that holding observable factors constant, occupational regulation is associated with a wage premium of 5%. This is lower than the 18% licensing premium found for the US but within the range of estimates for the UK.
Health Economics, Sep 22, 2020
Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research pu... more Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but IZA takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics is an independent economic research institute that conducts research in labor economics and offers evidence-based policy advice on labor market issues. Supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation, IZA runs the world's largest network of economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. Our key objective is to build bridges between academic research, policymakers and society. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Jun 26, 2006
ABSTRACT. Are recessions good for pregnancy? In this paper, I investigate the relationship betwee... more ABSTRACT. Are recessions good for pregnancy? In this paper, I investigate the relationship between unemployment fluctuations, prenatal care utilization, and infant and maternal health. Analyzing the US Natality Detail Files data for the period 1989-99 aggregated by county, year, and race, I find the overall effects of unemployment to be beneficial but conclude that at least some of the apparent benefits may be attributable to the Medicaid ‘safety net’.
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Papers by Andrea Kutinova