TY  - JOUR
AU  - Gruber,Jonathan
TI  - Health Insurance and the Labor Market
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6762
PY  - 1998
Y2  - October 1998
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6762
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6762.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jonathan Gruber
MIT Department of Economics
E52-355
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02142-1347
Tel: 617/253-8892
Fax: 617/253-1330
E-Mail: gruberj@mit.edu
AB  - A distinctive feature of the health insurance market in the U.S. is the restriction of group insurance availability to the workplace.  This has a number of important implications for the functioning of the labor market, through mobility from job-to-job or in and out of the labor force, wage determination, and hiring decisions.  This paper reviews the large literature that has emerged in recent years to assess the impact of health insurance on the labor market.  I begin with an overview of the institutional details relevant to assessing the interaction of health insurance and the labor market.  I then present a theoretical overview of the effects of health insurance on mobility and wage/employment determination.  I critically review the empirical literature on these topics, focusing in particular on the methodological issues that have been raised, and highlighting the unanswered questions which can be the focus of future work in this area.
ER  -