Positive Health Externalities of Mandating Paid Sick Leave

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Pichler, Stefan; Wen, Katherine; Ziebarth, Nicolas R.
• 署名单位: Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain; ETH Zurich; Cornell University; Cornell University; Leibniz Association; DIW Berlin - Deutsches Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung; University of York - UK; IZA Institute Labor Economics; Leibniz Association; RWI - Leibniz Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLICY ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1520-6969
• DOI: 10.1002/pam.22284
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 715-743
• 关键词: public-health; herd-immunity; moral hazard; vaccination; presenteeism

摘要

A growing economic literature studies the optimal design of social insurance systems and the empirical identification of welfare-relevant externalities. In this paper, we test whether mandating employee access to paid sick leave has reduced influenza-like-illness (ILI) transmission rates as well as pneumonia and influenza (P&I) mortality rates in the United States. Using uniquely compiled data from administrative sources at the state-week level from 2010 to 2018 along with difference-in-differences methods, we present quasi-experimental evidence that sick pay mandates have causally reduced doctor-certified ILI rates at the population level. On average, ILI rates fell by about 11 percent or 290 ILI cases per 100,000 patients per week in the first year.