WORK IN PROGRESS

Does a more stringent quality regulatory regime facilitate or chill the diffusion of new technology? On the one hand, quality regulation can increase consumers' perception of products' quality. On the other hand, stricter regulation may deter product entrants due to increased compliance costs or entry costs. To empirically answer this question, I assess the impact of state-level quality assurance (QA) programs on the utilization of mammogram, an X-ray-based medical technology, to screen breast cancers. Preliminary evidence suggests the introduction of quality assurance programs increased the take-up rate of routine mammograms. This positive response (an increase of 14.47%) is exclusively from younger women (25-35), who have less prior knowledge about mammograms, suggesting the QA program has partially resolved asymmetric information.

In the U.S. home care industry, immigrants make up 32% of the workforce. Does tightening immigration policies distort their service quality? To answer this question, I assess the causal effects of Secure Communities, a county-based immigration enforcement program, on the quality of home care. Using establishment-level data and exploiting the staggered phase-in of Secure Communities, I found some evidence suggesting that the health outcomes of patients declined following the enforcement: Both the percentage of patients who need urgent unplanned medical care and the percentage of patients who had to be admitted to the hospital substantially increased, whereas the share of patients who get better at bathing and taking drugs significantly declined. One potential channel is that the quality of home health aide services offered by immigrant workers decreased: The probability of being employed in the home care industry declines among female undocumented immigrants. I also show such deteriorated health outcomes are not driven by a decline in the likelihood of providing such services at the facility level. Going forward, I will combine both administrative and survey data to check other relevant margins: the compositions of the workers and more measures of service quality among home care agencies.  

This paper investigates the impact of language access requirements on the provision of behavioral healthcare services. Exploiting the introduction of such language access regulations, we find that it significantly increases the provision of non-language services. Our results also indicate a rise in the availability of regular outpatient SAT and residential SAT services. Additionally, we observe a notable increase in the likelihood of healthcare providers accepting uninsured patients. These findings suggest that language access requirements not only facilitate better communication and care for non-English speaking patients, but also enhance the overall capacity and inclusivity of behavioral healthcare services. This research highlights the broader benefits of language access policies, advocating for their continued and expanded implementation to promote health equity and access for all patient populations. 

Over the past several years, the national movement to end substance prohibition has accelerated, such as the legalization of recreational and medical marijuana. Currently, it is a heated question: how do such (de)regulations actually work? What are the costs and benefits of these regulations? Besides the direct effects on public health and criminal justice outcomes, little is known regarding to what extent regulating substances influences local government spending and fiscal outcomes, especially the provision of local public goods. To provide some empirical evidence, I looked into the largest substance control in US history, the alcohol prohibition in the early twentieth century, which directly banned the manufacture, transportation, and sale of intoxicating liquors. Prior to the Fed prohibition in 1919, the city’s tax revenue from liquor license fees was approximately 7% - 9% and city governments were largely fiscally independent of state and federal governments. Consequently, the prohibition created a sudden shortfall in tax revenue among city governments, who were the primary providers of local public goods in education, medical services, and public safety. I aim to digitize a novel historical dataset to implement my analysis.