ESSAYS IN HEALTH AND NATURAL RESOURCE ECONOMICS

Ashutosh Kumar

doi:10.7273/000002476

This dissertation has three chapters. First two chapters discuss healthcare access and its impact on homeless and low-income communities in the United States and last chapter sheds light on dynamic allocation of water in changing demand and supply. The first chapter, “Moving to Better Healthcare? Estimating the Impact of Medicaid Expansion on Homelessness”, investigates the impact of Medicaid Expansion on where single homeless individuals are located. Medicaid expansion in 2014 was instrumental in providing healthcare to homeless population. Using both the state and contiguous border county data of homeless counts, significant evidence in support of expansion-induced migration of single homeless adults from non-expansion to expansion states is found. Specifically, the estimates suggest that the expansion states have experienced about 10% increase in number of single homeless individuals during post-expansion period when compared to non-expansion states.In the second chapter, “Healthcare Access and Expenditure: Estimating the Impact of Medicaid Expansion at Household-Level”, the impact of Medicaid Expansion on financial well-being and healthcare access of households is explored using individual-level panel data. Considering low education as proxy for low-income, the expansion impact on non-college educated individuals, including adults with and without dependent children, is estimated. The results suggest that the expansion led to significant increase in coverage by 3-7 percentage points and reduced healthcare expenditures by 40-50%, with pronounced effect among childless adults. Third chapter, “Modeling Water Allocation in Food, Energy and Water (FEW) Context in the Yakima Basin”, simulates and measures the allocation and value of water across three sectors in a Food-Energy-Water (FEW) context. Using Yakima, Washington as a small model economy, partial equilibrium model is integrated with system dynamics to model water allocation in dynamic setting across competing sectors. The results describe equilibrium changes in water prices when supply is reduced in each sector under various scenarios. Specifically, it is found that the food and energy sector are more sensitive to water allocation, where supply reduction by 25% would lead to price increase by 15% in food sector and 17% in energy sector, respectively.

ESSAYS IN HEALTH AND NATURAL RESOURCE ECONOMICS

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