The talk was delivered by Prof. Chirantan Chatterjee, University of Sussex
10 April 2023, Bengaluru: The Office of Research and Publications (R&P) at IIM Bangalore hosted a research seminar on ‘Sweet Cash: Is Healthcare a Normal Good for Women in Developing Countries?’, led by Prof. Chirantan Chatterjee, University of Sussex (Public Policy area), on 7th April 2023 (Friday).
Abstract: The research paper explores the little studied role of gender-based tastes and preferences in the empirical relationship between income and demand for healthcare. Based on a large body of evidence which suggests that the gender identity of the recipient of money can significantly influence allocation of resources within the household, it is conjectured that an increase in women’s income may have interesting and unconventional effects on demand for healthcare.
Using data from a high-frequency large nationally representative household survey in India, the research exploits exogenous variation in women’s take-home salary incomes, generated by a change in the mandated rates of contribution to the employees’ provident fund, to estimate impacts on healthcare spending. It is found that an increase in take-home salary of women is associated with a decrease in overall spending on healthcare expenses, such as consultations and medication. While this could potentially be explained by improved health outcomes of women, the researchers control for health-status and compare healthcare utilization at the intensive margin, that is, conditional on hospital visits for seeking treatment, and find a similar negative correlation. They achieve this by supplementing the primary analysis using administrative data on hospital electronic medical records from a leading chain of eye hospitals in India.
The results using two novel datasets and examining decisions at the extensive and intensive margins suggest that women’s preferences for healthcare may be guided by various other factors, such as social and household norms, and therefore it is not obvious that estimated income elasticities of healthcare demand for women would always be positive, particularly in a developing country context.
About the speaker: Prof. Chirantan Chatterjee is currently a Reader in Economics of Innovation at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) of University of Sussex Business School. He is also the PhD Program Convenor at SPRU-Sussex and Co-Director in Policy Training & Executive Education at SPRU.
Prof. Chatterjee is an applied economist with interests in economics of technological change, pharmaceutical economics and global health. He is also a Visiting Fellow with Hoover Institution, Stanford University and a Visiting Adjunct Professor in Economics at IIM Ahmedabad (IIMA) in India. In the past decade (2011-2021), he has been a full-time faculty member in India, working as an associate and assistant professor in economics, public policy and strategy at premier B-schools like IIM Bangalore, Indian School of Business and IIMA. At IIMA most recently, he held the ICICI Bank Chair in Strategic Management and was Chairperson of the Centre for Management of Health Services (CMHS).
Between 2018 and 2019, Prof. Chatterjee was awarded the prestigious Campbell and Edward Teller National Fellowship at Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His current research is supported by The Wellcome Trust India Alliance Grant and Alliance for a Healthy World Launchpad Grant at Johns Hopkins University. He holds a PhD and M Phil from Carnegie Mellon University (in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US) in Public Policy and Management. Before going to the US, he completed his undergraduate and postgraduate education in Civil Engineering and Management from IIT Roorkee and IIM Calcutta, in India. Between 2003 and 2005, he was working as a business journalist and analyst with the ET Intelligence Group (of the Times of India group) in their Mumbai office.
He has published in top peer-reviewed journals like Management Science, The RAND Journal of Economics, Research Policy, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Health Economics, Social Science & Medicine, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, The Journal of Law and Economics, Strategy Science, Journal of Business Ethics, Stanford Social Innovation Review and Harvard Business Review. His work on gender and global health has been published in Psychology of Women Quarterly and on regulatory economics in healthcare markets in Health Policy and Planning, Economic and Political Weekly and Journal of Antitrust Enforcement.
In the past, his research has been supported by the World Bank, Pfizer, Qualcomm, US National Science Foundation and Sloan Foundation. During 2020 to 2021, he worked with the United Nations evaluating their Multi Partner Trust Fund response to Covid-19 and its impact on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across global vulnerable economies in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America. During 2021-22, he was invited to join an interdisciplinary team to assess non-price innovation policy instruments for bio-pharmaceutical R&D working for the World Health Organization and Oslo Medicines Initiative.
Webpage link: https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p535606-chirantan-chatterjee
The talk was delivered by Prof. Chirantan Chatterjee, University of Sussex
10 April 2023, Bengaluru: The Office of Research and Publications (R&P) at IIM Bangalore hosted a research seminar on ‘Sweet Cash: Is Healthcare a Normal Good for Women in Developing Countries?’, led by Prof. Chirantan Chatterjee, University of Sussex (Public Policy area), on 7th April 2023 (Friday).
Abstract: The research paper explores the little studied role of gender-based tastes and preferences in the empirical relationship between income and demand for healthcare. Based on a large body of evidence which suggests that the gender identity of the recipient of money can significantly influence allocation of resources within the household, it is conjectured that an increase in women’s income may have interesting and unconventional effects on demand for healthcare.
Using data from a high-frequency large nationally representative household survey in India, the research exploits exogenous variation in women’s take-home salary incomes, generated by a change in the mandated rates of contribution to the employees’ provident fund, to estimate impacts on healthcare spending. It is found that an increase in take-home salary of women is associated with a decrease in overall spending on healthcare expenses, such as consultations and medication. While this could potentially be explained by improved health outcomes of women, the researchers control for health-status and compare healthcare utilization at the intensive margin, that is, conditional on hospital visits for seeking treatment, and find a similar negative correlation. They achieve this by supplementing the primary analysis using administrative data on hospital electronic medical records from a leading chain of eye hospitals in India.
The results using two novel datasets and examining decisions at the extensive and intensive margins suggest that women’s preferences for healthcare may be guided by various other factors, such as social and household norms, and therefore it is not obvious that estimated income elasticities of healthcare demand for women would always be positive, particularly in a developing country context.
About the speaker: Prof. Chirantan Chatterjee is currently a Reader in Economics of Innovation at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) of University of Sussex Business School. He is also the PhD Program Convenor at SPRU-Sussex and Co-Director in Policy Training & Executive Education at SPRU.
Prof. Chatterjee is an applied economist with interests in economics of technological change, pharmaceutical economics and global health. He is also a Visiting Fellow with Hoover Institution, Stanford University and a Visiting Adjunct Professor in Economics at IIM Ahmedabad (IIMA) in India. In the past decade (2011-2021), he has been a full-time faculty member in India, working as an associate and assistant professor in economics, public policy and strategy at premier B-schools like IIM Bangalore, Indian School of Business and IIMA. At IIMA most recently, he held the ICICI Bank Chair in Strategic Management and was Chairperson of the Centre for Management of Health Services (CMHS).
Between 2018 and 2019, Prof. Chatterjee was awarded the prestigious Campbell and Edward Teller National Fellowship at Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His current research is supported by The Wellcome Trust India Alliance Grant and Alliance for a Healthy World Launchpad Grant at Johns Hopkins University. He holds a PhD and M Phil from Carnegie Mellon University (in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US) in Public Policy and Management. Before going to the US, he completed his undergraduate and postgraduate education in Civil Engineering and Management from IIT Roorkee and IIM Calcutta, in India. Between 2003 and 2005, he was working as a business journalist and analyst with the ET Intelligence Group (of the Times of India group) in their Mumbai office.
He has published in top peer-reviewed journals like Management Science, The RAND Journal of Economics, Research Policy, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Health Economics, Social Science & Medicine, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, The Journal of Law and Economics, Strategy Science, Journal of Business Ethics, Stanford Social Innovation Review and Harvard Business Review. His work on gender and global health has been published in Psychology of Women Quarterly and on regulatory economics in healthcare markets in Health Policy and Planning, Economic and Political Weekly and Journal of Antitrust Enforcement.
In the past, his research has been supported by the World Bank, Pfizer, Qualcomm, US National Science Foundation and Sloan Foundation. During 2020 to 2021, he worked with the United Nations evaluating their Multi Partner Trust Fund response to Covid-19 and its impact on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across global vulnerable economies in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America. During 2021-22, he was invited to join an interdisciplinary team to assess non-price innovation policy instruments for bio-pharmaceutical R&D working for the World Health Organization and Oslo Medicines Initiative.
Webpage link: https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p535606-chirantan-chatterjee