Positive Health Externalities of Mandating Paid Sick Leave

Arbeitspapier

A growing economic literature studies the optimal design of social insurance systems and the empirical identification of welfare-relevant externalities. In this paper, we test whether mandating employee access to paid sick leave has reduced influenza-like-illness (ILI) transmission rates as well as pneumonia and influenza (P&I) mortality rates in the United States. Using uniquely compiled data from administrative sources at the state-week level from 2010 to 2018 along with difference-in-differences methods, we present quasi-experimental evidence that sick pay mandates have causally reduced doctor-certified ILI rates at the population level. On average, ILI rates fell by about 11 percent or 290 ILI cases per 100,000 patients per week in the first year.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 13530

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Taxation and Subsidies: Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies ; State and Local Government: Health; Education; Welfare; Public Pensions ; Health Behavior ; Health and Inequality ; Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health ; Time Allocation and Labor Supply ; Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs: Public Policy ; Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining: Public Policy
• Subject: sick pay mandates ; population health ; flu infection ; negative externalities

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Pichler, Stefan ; Wen, Katherine ; Ziebarth, Nicolas R.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2020

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/223972
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET