Health Insurance Coverage and Entrepreneurship

Abstract:     
The lack of universal health coverage and the high cost of obtaining private health insurance has been hypothesized to have a dampening effect on entrepreneurship. This paper examines this possibility by estimating the importance of health insurance coverage on the probability of self-employment. In particular, using data from the 1993 CPS, we focus on the impact of having health insurance through one's spouse on the likelihood of self-employment. Our estimates suggest that spousal coverage increases the probability of self-employment for husbands by nearly 14 percentage points and approximately 7 percentage points for wives.

JEL Classification: I1, J2, J3

working papers series