The Effect of Health Insurance Coverage on Homeownership and Housing Prices: Evidence from the Medicaid Expansion

Authors

Masanori Kuroki, Arkansas Tech UniversityFollow
Xiangbo Liu, Renmin University of China

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-1-2021

Department

School of Business

Abstract

Objective: Homeownership as a way of wealth accumulation is important for low-income people and the U.S. government has implemented policy to encourage homeownership among low-income people. This article investigates the effects of health insurance coverage among low-income people on homeownership and house prices. Methods: To estimate the causal effects of health insurance coverage, we exploit the Medicaid expansion provisions of the Affordable Care Act as a source of exogenous variation in health insurance coverage and use it as an instrumental variable. Results: Using county-level data from 2010 to 2018, this study finds that an increase in health insurance coverage among low-income people results in an increase in homeownership rates and housing prices for bottom-tier houses, and the results are robust. Conclusion: Our study provides new evidence in supporting that higher shares of population with health insurance could increase both homeownership and house prices.

DOI

10.1111/ssqu.12932

First Page

633

Last Page

648

Volume

102

Issue

2

ISSN

00384941

Recommended Citation

Kuroki, M. and Liu, X. (2021). The effect of health insurance coverage on homeownership and housing prices: Evidence from the Medicaid expansion. Social Science Quarterly, 102(2): 633-648. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12932