Daniel Tingskou - Research

Working Papers

Political Economy of Covid-19 Public Health Measures (Job Market Paper)

Abstract: Deaths per 100k persons from COVID-19 vary markedly across jurisdictions within the USA and Canada as well as between these two countries. The USA has nearly three times more deaths per capita than Canada – partially due to stricter and better respected Public Health Measures (PHMs) in most Canadian provinces than in most American states. Significant economic costs are associated with these PHMs; and a broad body of literature exists to measure the macro and microeconomic impact of these policies. It is also clear that mortality due to Covid-19 strongly depends on age. This paper contributes to the political economy and cost-benefit analysis literature pertaining to COVID-19 PHMs. Specifically, how the Net-Present-Value (NPV) of these policies varies with age across the Canadian population, and how that variation influences the political economy of the PHMs. Bergstrom and Hartman’s (2008) framework, which employs population projections and lifetables to estimate the political support for public pension reform, is adapted to this context. Assuming individuals support for PHMs depends solely on their expected NPV, the benefits of PHMs are the expected Value of Life Years saved from not contracting the COVID-19 virus and the costs account for the expected lost income due to the unemployment caused by the PHMs as well as the value of forgone consumption/leisure. Preliminary results find that a minority of voting age Canadians have negative expected NPV from the PHMs, while the majority have positive NPV.

Tingskou.JMP.2022.pdf

Income Splitting and Physician Interprovincial Migration in Canada, with Michel Grignon

Abstract: Historical trends of physician interprovincial migration have remained consistent. British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario receive large positive inflows of physicians while economically smaller, less populated provinces, such as Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan lose physicians annually. Between 1990-2019 Ontario, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and Quebec passed legislation allowing physicians to split income with family members via Canada-Controlled Private Corporations; the remaining provinces had allowed for this since before 1990. There are large financial benefits from income splitting which can exceed $50 000 CAD per year. We use a difference-in-differences model to estimate the effect of not allowing physicians to split income on the net interprovincial migration of physicians to provinces that enacted income splitting rules after 1990. The annual net migration flow to these provinces is on average 20% lower when they did not allow for income splitting compared to when they did. This equates to nearly 0.3% of the average physician’s workforce forgone per year. Our results have implications for economic policy and the utility functions of physicians: it is suboptimal if Canadian provinces design legislation/policy with the intention of poaching physicians or other healthcare professionals from one another; and physicians impose a large cost onto their former healthcare systems as well as patients when they migrate. Presumably, the financial incentive of income splitting is sufficient to outweigh such costs.

Tingskou&Grignon.2023.pdf

Works in Progress

Population Aging, Cost Disease and the Service Economy