Health shocks, village elections, and household income: Evidence from rural China Academic Article

abstract

• Using a sample of 1185 households in 48 Chinese villages for the period 1987-2002, we study the effects of major health shocks on household income and the role played by village elections in mitigating these effects. Major health shocks are defined by abnormal increases in a household's medical expenditure. Our results show that a major health shock reduces households' net income significantly and that village elections alleviate such adverse impacts by almost half. The main mechanism behind this effect is increased coverage of health care insurance, which helps households smooth their consumption when major health shocks happen. 2014.

authors

• Gan, Li

published proceedings

• CHINA ECONOMIC REVIEW

altmetric score

• 3

author list (cited authors)

• Zhang, J., Gan, L. i., Xu, L. C., & Yao, Y.

citation count

• 5

complete list of authors

• Zhang, Jing||Gan, Li||Xu, Lixin Colin||Yao, Yang

publication date

• January 2014

publisher

• Elsevier  Publisher

published in

• China Economic Review (Amsterdam)  Journal

keywords

• Farmers' Income
• Health Shocks
• Village Governance

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1016/j.chieco.2014.06.006

start page

• 155

end page

• 168

volume

• 30

URL

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2014.06.006