Event description

A Department of Health Economics Wellbeing and Society (DHEWS) Policy Seminar presented by A/Prof Daniel Grossman from West Viriginia University.

Abstract

Policies that increase contraceptive access for young women and their partners are a potentially low-cost way of reducing unintended pregnancies and improving later life outcomes. Several states in the US have recently implemented laws that allow pharmacists to prescribe contraceptives to women without the need to see a physician. We study the effect of these state laws on fertility rates. Using US Natality files for 2014-2018, we employ a difference-in-differences strategy using the 6 states that had enacted a law during our sample period as the treated group, and 12 policy-implementing states post-2018 as the control group. We find that, for every thousand women between the ages of 15 and 49, between 0.336 and 0.409 fewer births per 1000 women per quarter occur post law implementation, compared to control states. This is approximately a 2-3% decrease. The effect of the policy appears to be focused among women aged 25–34.

Speaker Biography

Daniel Grossman is an associate professor of economics at West Viriginia University and a faculty associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in the Economics of Health group. He has a PhD from Cornell University in Policy Analysis and Management. Trained as an applied health economist, his research focuses on the effects of government policy on health and human capital development. Much of his research focuses on social safety net programs focused on women and children related to health, and their effects on healthcare utilization, educational attainment, and spillovers of the programs onto other family members. His work has been published in peer-reviewed outlets including Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Urban Economics, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Pediatrics, and Demography.