{"title":"Universal cash transfers and prescription utilization: Evidence from the Alaska permanent fund dividend","authors":"Mouhcine Guettabi, Allison Witman","doi":"10.1016/j.jhealeco.2023.102758","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We investigate the impact of a large cash transfer on prescription utilization. Our identification strategy leverages the Alaksa Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), which is distributed annually in October and comprises 6% of the average household's annual income. We study the impact of the PFD on the use of prescription medications<span> using a within-Alaska comparison group and difference-in-differences design. Using the IBM MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Prescription Drug Database, we observe prescriptions for 50,866 commercially-insured individuals who filled prescriptions between 2013 and 2019. We find no changes in prescription use overall and are able to rule out changes larger than 0.5% in the week of the PFD and 1.4% the week after. Subgroup analyses find no changes by patient characteristics<span>, degree of cost sharing, or prescription type. We also conduct a synthetic control analysis using a non-Alaska comparison group and find no effects of the PFD on prescriptions. These findings are useful for understanding liquidity sensitivity for prescription medication and the effects of cash distributions among individuals with employer-based health insurance.</span></span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":50186,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Health Economics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629623000358","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We investigate the impact of a large cash transfer on prescription utilization. Our identification strategy leverages the Alaksa Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), which is distributed annually in October and comprises 6% of the average household's annual income. We study the impact of the PFD on the use of prescription medications using a within-Alaska comparison group and difference-in-differences design. Using the IBM MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Prescription Drug Database, we observe prescriptions for 50,866 commercially-insured individuals who filled prescriptions between 2013 and 2019. We find no changes in prescription use overall and are able to rule out changes larger than 0.5% in the week of the PFD and 1.4% the week after. Subgroup analyses find no changes by patient characteristics, degree of cost sharing, or prescription type. We also conduct a synthetic control analysis using a non-Alaska comparison group and find no effects of the PFD on prescriptions. These findings are useful for understanding liquidity sensitivity for prescription medication and the effects of cash distributions among individuals with employer-based health insurance.
期刊介绍:
This journal seeks articles related to the economics of health and medical care. Its scope will include the following topics:
Production and supply of health services;
Demand and utilization of health services;
Financing of health services;
Determinants of health, including investments in health and risky health behaviors;
Economic consequences of ill-health;
Behavioral models of demanders, suppliers and other health care agencies;
Evaluation of policy interventions that yield economic insights;
Efficiency and distributional aspects of health policy;
and such other topics as the Editors may deem appropriate.