Subsidized Health Care and Food Security: Evidence from Colombia
The series Working Papers on Economics is published by the Office for Economic Studies at the Banco de la República (Central Bank of Colombia). The works published are provisional, and their authors are fully responsible for the opinions expressed in them, as well as for possible mistakes. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Banco de la República or its Board of Directors.
The series Borradores de Economía (Working Papers on Economics) contributes to the dissemination and promotion of the work by researchers from the institution. On multiple occasions, these works have been the result of collaborative work with individuals from other national or international institutions. This series is indexed at Research Papers in Economics (RePEc)
The opinions contained in this document are the sole responsibility of the author and do not commit Banco de la República or its Board of Directors.
Abstract
In 1993, the Colombian Government created a subsidized health care regime (SR) in order to increase coverage among the poorest population. Using data from the 2008 and 2012 Colombian Living Standards Survey, I estimate the association between SR participation and household food insecurity. Enrollment into the SR is not exogenous due to self-selection from potentially eligible households, discretionary municipalitylevel policies that affect eligibility, and manipulation of the assignment process for electoral purposes. Therefore, I use the proportion of lifetime the household head has resided in the current municipality as an instrumental variable. Taking the uninsured population as the comparison group, the two-stage least squares regression estimates reveal that participation in the SR is associated with a reduction of the probability of being food insecure, principally in rural areas. This result is robust to different
specifications and, moreover, prevails after implementing an imperfect instrumental variables approach.
