We are pleased to announce that the Center for Positive/Empirical Analysis of Political Economy will be inviting Assosiate Professor Tansel Yilmazer (the department of Consumer Sciences at the Ohio State University) to give the seminar: The Affordable Care Act, Marriage Penalties and Marital Status. Prof. Tansel Yilmazer is an editor of the Review of Economics of the Household. We look forward to your active participation!
- Date & Time: April 20th, 5:00-6:30pm
- Format: Hybrid
- Venue: Building 3, 7th floor, Rm 709, Waseda Campus, Waseda University
Please register the following Zoom link for participants via online.
https://list-waseda-jp.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEvcuGprTIqHdZW-mOe3XqxVpwX0vo0CUzW
Seminar Title: The Affordable Care Act, Marriage Penalties and Marital Status
Abstact:
Many tax and transfer policies in the US have embedded marriage penalties or marriage subsidies, which cause a couple’s after tax and transfer income to depend on their marital status. Such policies create unequal access to the economic, social and health advantages of marriage, and limit the ability to opt out of marriage if one so chooses. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provided publicly funded and subsidized health insurance to millions of Americans. However, because of program eligibility and generosity rules, the ACA is not marriage neutral. Depending on a couple’s income level, income distribution across partners, family size, state of residence, and age, ACA insurance benefits grow or shrink if a couple chooses to marry. We illustrate the marriage subsidies and penalties embedded in the ACA Medicaid expansion and premium tax credits for various couple types. Using data from the American Community Survey (ACS), we explore whether the ACA marriage penalties causally affect marriage decisions. Using a difference-in-differences approach, as well as a simulated instrument approach, we find evidence that ACA marriage penalties greatly affected marital behavior. Using a quasi-experimental approach, we estimate that exposure to $1,000 in ACA marriage penalties is associated with a 30 percent reduction in transitions between cohabitation and marriage. We also find evidence that the large marriage subsidy generated by the coverage gap in Medicaid non-expansion states significantly deterred couples from divorcing: we estimate that a 1 percent increase in marriage subsidy exposure is associated with 0.79 percent reduction in new divorces.
Co-sponsors: The Empirical Microeconomics Seminar and TCER
The Ohio State University
