Seminar - What standard surveys miss: Health insurance effects in weekly data from Kenya

The Lausanne Center for Health Economics, Behavior, and Policy (LCHE) regularly organizes seminars about Health Economics. More details on www.lche.ch.

Topic of the Seminar

What standard surveys miss:

Health insurance effects in weekly data from Kenya

Health insurance in low- and middle-income countries increases financial protection and utilization, but has not consistently improved health, prompting debate about the value of subsidized coverage. We revisit this question using weekly survey diaries collected over eighteen months in a cluster-randomized experiment in Kenya. High-frequency measurement reveals that insurance reduces out-of-pocket health expenditure, shifts responses to illness from self-medication toward formal care, shortens delays between falling sick and consulting, and provides suggestive evidence of health improvements. Weekly measurement captures care-seeking dynamics and health expenditure patterns that retrospective surveys with longer recall periods are likely to miss.

Speaker

• Dr Clotilde Mahé, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam School of Business and Economics, the Netherlands

Clotilde Mahé is Research Associate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam School of Business and Economics, the Netherlands. Previously, she was Impact Evaluation Consultant at the Inter-American Development Bank (USA), Postdoctoral Researcher at Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), Luxembourg University (Luxembourg) and Maastricht University (Netherlands), where she defended her PhD in Economics in 2018. Her research interests include development economics, applied microeconometrics and policy evaluation.

Practical information

• Free admission
• No need to register
• This seminar is given in English
• This conference is possible on WebEx or on site at Unisanté New building Valine  (Vennes)

About LCHE

The Lausanne Center for Health Economics, Behavior, and Policy (LCHE) at the University of Lausanne (UNIL) promotes research, teaching, and policy advice in the fields of health economics, behavior, and policy.

The interdisciplinary center brings together researchers of the Center for Primary Care and Public Health (Unisanté), the Faculty of Biology and Medicine (CHUV-FBM), and the Faculty of Business and Economics (HEC).