Job Market Paper
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Racial and ethnic differences in the impact of minimum wage increases on health insurance coverage
w. McGovern. M., Rokicki, S. (Available upon request via email)
received the Best Abstract Award in the Health, Labor Markets, and the Economy program at ASHEcon 2025.
Expanding access to health insurance is one of the key policy tools for addressing the affordability of health care in the U.S. While employer-sponsored insurance is the main source of health care funding for the working-age population, we have limited evidence on how labor market policies impact insurance coverage in heterogeneous groups with different occupational characteristics. This study investigates how minimum wage increases affect health insurance coverage, focusing on differential impacts across racial and ethnic groups. Using American Community Survey data from 2010 to 2019 linked to Standard Occupation Classification codes, we exploit variation in minimum wage changes across states to implement a difference-in-differences identification strategy using an event study framework. We find that a $1 minimum wage increase leads to a 1.1 percent decline in health insurance coverage for Black individuals, while the impact for White individuals is not statistically significant. These estimates are consistent in two-way fixed effect models and in models using the Sun and Abraham (2021) estimator. This approach is designed to address the limitations of conventional difference-in-differences estimates and potential treatment effect heterogeneity under staggered policy adoption, as occurs with minimum wages changes. The overrepresentation of Black workers in lower-paying occupations and their greater concentration at wage levels most directly impacted by minimum wage changes appears to be a key mechanism driving these differential impacts.
Publication
Minimum wage policies and obstetric disorders in the U.S. w. McGovern. M., Rokicki, S., and Reichman, N. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Online First, Oct.15, 2025. Available Online.
Minimum wage policies and obstetric disorders in the U.S. w. McGovern. M., Rokicki, S., and Reichman, N. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Online First, Oct.15, 2025. Available Online.
Introduction Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are a major public health problem in the US, with high rates among disadvantaged communities. This study examined the impact of minimum wage (MW) policies on hypertensive and other obstetric disorders in a population-based setting.
Methods This study used U.S. national, state-level data from the 1992-2019 Global Burden of Disease study to estimate associations between changes in state-level MWs and the incidence of maternal hypertensive and other obstetric disorders. Generalized difference-in-differences models were implemented. Analysis was performed January – July 2025.
Results The mean incidence of maternal hypertensive disorders was 410 cases per 100,000 women. In fully adjusted two-way fixed effects models, a $1 or greater increase in the MW was associated with a reduction in the incidence of maternal hypertensive disorders of 64.1 per 100,000 women (95% CI -108.6,-19.7) over 5 years. Results were consistent across a variety of estimation strategies, including two-way fixed effects and alternative approaches designed to account for staggered policy implementation.
Conclusions Findings suggest that MW policies may play a role in reducing maternal hypertensive disorders. Further research is needed using individual-level data to explore effect heterogeneity and examine subgroup impacts by race and ethnicity.
Hotelling in the Korean Domestic Airline Market: Evidence from Differentiation of Flight Departure Times w. Choi, Y., and Kim, S. The Korean Journal of Industrial Organization, 25(4): 43~69
Hotelling in the Korean Domestic Airline Market: Evidence from Differentiation of Flight Departure Times w. Choi, Y., and Kim, S. The Korean Journal of Industrial Organization, 25(4): 43~69
This study empirically tests the effect of competition on differentiation by using data on Korean domestic airline’s departure schedule during the period of 2010--016, when low cost carriers(LCC) entered and it raised the competition of the market. This study finds that more fiercely competing route is less differentiated on their departure schedule than that of highly concentrated route, which supports the prediction of Hotelling model. In other words, the incentive to cluster dominates the incentive to differentiate, as market competition increases. This is more obvious when I separately estimate the effect of competition of LCC, implying price competition is more important for LCC that differentiation.
Working Paper
“The Impact of Minimum Wage Increases on Smoking Before, During, and After Pregnancy: A Difference-in-Differences Analysis.” w. Rokicki, S.*, Ahn, H., Han, H., Duberstein, P., Reichman, N., and McGovern, M. BMJ Public Health — Revise & Resubmit (R&R), Oct 2025.
"Differences in healthcare access among pregnant people by race, ethnicity and education in the United States 2011-2023" w. McGovern, M.*, Ahn, H., Han, H., Eliason, E., and Rokicki, S. —Submitted.
“The Effect of Minimum Wage Increase on SNAP Participation” w. Rokicki, S., McGovern, M. & Reichman, N.
“The Effect of For-profit College Closure on Educational Attainment: Evidence from the Gainful Employment Regulation”
Work in Progress
“The Effect of Child Care Development Fund on Maternal Mental Health” w. Han, H.
“The Effect of SNAP on Chronic Disease: Evidence from the SNAP Eligibility Expansion”
“The Effect of SNAP Expansion on Food Insecurity During Pregnancy”
“The Intergeneration Effect of Education on Child’s Criminal Behavior ”
“The Long-term Effects of Initial Labor Market Condition Across Fields of Study and Industry”
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