Description

Empirical studies have now been widely used in legal scholarship. However, there remains methodological concerns in creating credible causal inference studies. In this talk, we use the illustrative example of health insurance on near-elderly health and mortality to illustrate how empirical methods can be carried out in legal scholarship to strengthen the causal inference strategies. In this example, we use the best available longitudinal dataset, the Health and Retirement Survey, and a battery of causal inference methods to provide both central estimates and bounds on the effect of health insurance on health and mortality among the near elderly (initial age 50-61) over an 18-year period. Those uninsured in 1992 consume fewer healthcare services, but are not less healthy and, in our central estimates, do not die sooner than their insured counterparts. We discuss why a zero average effect of uninsurance on mortality and health is plausible, some selection effects that might explain our full results, and methodological concerns with prior studies.

About The Speaker

Bernard S. Black, Nicholas D. Chabraja
Professor
Northwestern University

Bernard S. Black is Nicholas D. Chabraja Professor at Northwestern University, with positions in the School of Law and the Kellogg School of Management, Department of Finance. He is also managing director of the Social Science Research Network, and founding chairman of the annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies. Professor Black received a B.A. from Princeton University, an M.A. in physics from University of California at Berkeley and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. He was Professor of Law at Stanford Law School from 1998-2004 and at Columbia Law School from 1988- 1998. His principal research areas are health care, health policy, and medical malpractice, law and finance, international corporate governance, corporate and securities law; and research design for causal inference. His books include To Sue is Human: A Profile of Medical Malpractice Litigation (forthcoming 2016, with David Hyman, Charles Silver, and William Sage), The Law and Finance of Corporate Acquisitions (3rd edition forthcoming 2016). His academic articles are available at http://ssrn.com/author=16042