Health Insurance and Labor Markets: Concepts, Open Questions, and Data Needs

Abstract

This paper reviews the recent economic research on the relationship between health insurance and labor markets in the U.S., with an emphasis on research that has emerged since existing major reviews and the aim of identifying the types of data that are needed for this research to progress. We focus on the conceptual and empirical challenges that researchers face in studying these relationships, the data that has allowed this research to proceed, policy-relevant questions that need further study, and the types of data that would help in obtaining better answers to these questions.

Keywords: health, insurance, labor, markets, job lock, worker sorting, employer coverage, wage, fringe, trade-offs, premium, elasticities, data needs

JEL Classification: I10, I11, J20, J32