Does Public Healthcare Affect Firm Outcomes? Plant-level Evidence from U.S. Manufacturing Firms

Abstract

Using confidential establishment-level data from the U.S. Census Bureau, this paper studies the effects of ACA Medicaid expansion on corporate behavior in the U.S. manufacturing sector. We find that Medicaid expansion leads to a significant decrease in capital investment and productivity at the plant level. However, the effect of Medicaid expansion on plant-level employment or labor compensation is economically small. We find that there are no differential pre-treatment trends in the outcomes across plants in states that expanded and did not expand Medicaid.

Keywords: Corporate Investment; Labor; Healthcare

JEL Classification: E20; E22; I13