Title: Women Left Behind: Gender Inequality Within Rajasthan's Health Insurance Program

Radhika Jain 
Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Shorenstein APARC
Working with Karen Eggleston, PhD, Director of the Asia Health Policy Program, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and Fellow at the Center for Health Policy and the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research.

Abstract: Using data on millions of hospital visits, we document striking gender disparities under a government health insurance program that entitles 46 million poor households in Rajasthan, India to free hospital care. Young girls and elderly women comprise only 40% of all transactions in their age groups and these gaps are larger for private and tertiary care. The gender gap does not decrease over four years of implementation, despite substantial increases in total utilization. We find evidence consistent with the theory that the gap is driven by households’ willingness to allocate more resources to male than female health. Reducing the cost of care increases levels of utilization as well as male-female disparities. Female political representation reduces disparities, but not among the elderly.     

 

Title: Is Preference for Gender Concordance Good in Patient-Provider Relationships?

Rebecca Staiger
Postdoctoral Scholar 
Stanford University 
Center for Health Policy and Center for Primary Care & Outcomes Research 

Abstract: Choosing a primary care physician (PCP) of the same gender is a common heuristic used by many patients. However, there is limited evidence as to whether gender concordance in primary care settings produces better health outcomes. Using a novel and largely under-utilized national Medicaid claims database, the Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX) files, and an instrumental variables (IV) approach, I evaluate whether gender concordance in the patient-PCP relationship generates good health outcomes among Medicaid managed care enrollees, as measured by improved primary use and the avoidance of hospitalizations and emergency department use. My instrument is based on the availability of male physicians treating other patients in the HSA a particular patient lives in. Preliminary results indicate that while a naive approach (OLS) suggests that gender concordance may lead to better outcomes, adjusting for the endogeneity of patient selection through use of an IV suggests that male PCPs may help both male and female patients achieve better health outcomes.

ABSTRACT

This talk is based on the co-authors' recent paper "How Much Will the Pandemic Change Egyptian Governance and for How Long?" The Egyptian regime has reacted in an unexpected way to the global pandemic—with civilian, technocratic, and expert bodies leading the way and even some (admittedly officially patrolled) political debate being allowed to emerge. This talk examines these recent developments and evaluates whether they mark a real change in Egyptian governance, and if so, why, what kind, and will it last.

Co-Authors Bios

Amr Hamzawy is currently a senior research scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. He studied political science and developmental studies in Cairo, The Hague, and Berlin. He was previously an associate professor of political science at Cairo University and a professor of public policy at the American University in Cairo. Between 2016 and 2017, he served as a senior fellow in the Middle East program and the Democracy and Rule of Law program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC. His research and teaching interests as well as his academic publications focus on democratization processes in Egypt, tensions between freedom and repression in the Egyptian public space, political movements and civil society in Egypt, contemporary debates in Arab political thought, and human rights and governance in the Arab world. His new book On The Habits of Neoauthoritarianism – Politics in Egypt Between 2013 and 2019appeared in Arabic in September 2019. Hamzawy is a former member of the People’s Assembly after being elected in the first Parliamentary elections in Egypt after the January 25, 2011 revolution. He is also a former member of the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights. Hamzawy contributes a weekly op-ed to the All Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi.

Nathan Brown is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at The George Washington University. He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at The Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and serves on the board of trustees at the American University in Cairo. His contributions span a wide range of topics, including Islamist movements, Egyptian politics, Palestinian politics, and Arab law and constitutionalism. Dr. Brown served as the president of the Middle East Studies Association between 2013 and 2015. He was previously named a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and is a former fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His previous research was funded by the United States Institute of Peace and two Fulbright fellowships. He received the Oscar and Shoshana Trachtenberg Award for Scholarship from George Washington University in 2015 and the Harry Harding teaching award from the Elliott School of International Affairs in 2014. His dissertation received the Malcolm Kerr award from the Middle East Studies Association in 1987. Dr. Brown is the author of six books, including Arguing Islam after the Revival of Arab Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), and When Victory is Not an Option: Islamist Movements in Arab Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012). He received his B.A. in political science from the University of Chicago and his M.A. and Ph.D. in politics and Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. 

Title: Surviving Mass School Shootings

Prashant Bharadwaj 
University of California, San Diego (UCSD) 

Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of California, San Diego. Research interests are in development and labor economics. Research affiliations include BREAD, CEGA, CERP and the NBER. Currently a co-editor at  Journal of Human Resources and an associate editor at the Journal of Development Economics and the Journal of Health Economics. Currently, also the Vice Chair of Graduate Studies in the Department of Economics and the Program Director of the South Asian Studies minor at UCSD.