31 OCTOBER, 2019: IIMB’s Research and Publications Office will host Dr. Anaka Aiyar, from Cornell University, on 7 November 2019. Dr Aiyar will present findings from a paper on ‘Health Insurance and Infant Mortality: Evidence from India’. The research seminar will be held in Classroom P-22 at 2:30 pm.

Dr Aiyar and her co-authors have studied the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), a national-level public health insurance program in India, on child mortality. In their analysis, they combine information on the staggered rollout of RSBY across districts with detailed health information from over 200,000 households. Using a difference in differences approach, they find that RSBY access during pregnancy reduces both infant mortality (1.8 per 1000 births) and under-2 mortality rates (3.4 per 1000 births). This translates into a mortality decline of 5 to 10 percent. Families in the lowest income quintile, girl children and children of higher birth parity experience higher gains. They find evidence that increased post-natal care, institutional births and immunization rates in RSBY regions are potential mechanisms driving these results. Their analysis demonstrates that health insurance access can bring about large child health benefits in resource poor contexts, potentially through the increased utilization of formal reproductive and child health services.