Affordable Care Encourages Healthy Living: Theory and Evidence from China’s New Cooperative Medical Scheme

On May 25th, 2016, the Brookings-Tsinghua Center and China Institute for Rural Studies hosted a public lecture on the topic –Affordable Care Encourages Healthy Living: Theory and Evidence from China’s New Cooperative Medical Scheme, featuring Dr. Yu Ning, assistant professor of Economics at Emory University.

In his research, Dr. Yu finds out that providing insurance can encourage healthy living by making longevity more affordable. They test the theory utilizing a unique experiment of China introducing the New Cooperative Medical Scheme, unique in its long-term credibility necessary for their proposed channel. This scheme reduces cigarette use by around 9% and bolsters subjective perception of the importance of physical exercise and healthy diet. These effects depend significantly on the number of children and the local culture of elderly care. These empirics affirm a causal link between concerns about negative bequest and unhealthy behavior, and how to break it.

Dr. Yu is an assistant professor of Economics at Emory University. He holds a Ph.D. degree in management from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University. He studies the social and economic life of China. His articles have appeared in journals including Economic Theory and China Economic Review. He also regularly contributes to media outlets including Wenhuibao, ThePaper.cn, and Guancha.cn.