Code for: Does the individual mandate affect insurance coverage? Evidence from tax returns

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Ithai Lurie, United States Department of the Treasury. Office of Tax Analysis; Daniel Sacks, Indiana University; Brad Heim, Indiana University

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
penalty			05/26/2020 04:59:PM
readme.pdf	application/pdf	913.5 KB	05/26/2020 01:00:PM

Project Citation:

Lurie, Ithai, Sacks, Daniel, and Heim, Brad. Code for: Does the individual mandate affect insurance coverage? Evidence from tax returns. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2020. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2020-10-26. https://doi.org/10.3886/E118502V1

Project Description

Summary:

We estimate the effect of the ACA’s individual mandate on insurance coverage using regression discontinuity and regression kink designs with tax return data. We have four key results. First, the actual penalty paid per uninsured month is less than half the statutory amount. Second, nonetheless, we find visually clear and statistically significant responses to both extensive margin exposure to the mandate and to marginal increases in the mandate penalty. Third, we find substantial heterogeneity in who responds; men are especially responsive. Fourth, our estimates imply fairly small quantitative responses to the individual mandate, especially in the Health Insurance Exchanges.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: health insurance; tax returns

JEL Classification:
G22 Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies

Geographic Coverage: United States

Time Period(s): 1/1/2015 – 12/31/2016

Universe: These are synthetic data to help researchers understand the confidential, restricted-access data used in the paper. The actual data are drawn from the universe of individual income tax returns.

Data Type(s): other; program source code

Methodology

Data Source: These are synthetic data to help researchers understand the confidential, restricted-access data used in the paper. The source of the restricted-access data is IRS population files.

Unit(s) of Observation: tax return

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Published Versions

V1 [2020-10-26]

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