“Health Care Reform and Firm Dynamics: Evidence from Medicare Part D and the Retail Pharmacy Industry” with Brandyn F. Churchill and Kelli Marquardt. NBER WP No. 35380.

Health care reforms are often enacted before implementation, creating uncertainty that can shape firms’ decisions. We examine how Medicare Part D affected the retail pharmacy industry using 2000-2009 establishment-level data, leveraging the fact that Part D disproportionately affected counties with larger elderly populations. Consistent with predictions from a conceptual model in which pre-implementation uncertainty discourages entry and lower post-implementation margins prevent full recovery, we find that Part D was associated with a 5-percent reduction in pharmacies, driven by fewer openings rather than more closures. We also find suggestive evidence that reduced pharmacy access dampened Part D’s mortality benefits.

“SNAP Purchasing Power and Household Time Allocation”

SNAP benefits are set uniformly across the contiguous United States, but geographic variation in food prices creates substantial disparities in the program’s real purchasing power. This paper exploits this variation using a triple-difference strategy that compares SNAP-eligible to near-eligible households across 35 local markets. A 10-percent increase in SNAP purchasing power was associated with a 7-percent reduction in daily purchasing time and a 4-percent increase in leisure time, with no meaningful results on market work, home production, childcare, or sleep. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that these associations differ by gender and parental status. These findings suggest that geographic disparities in benefit adequacy affect not only what households can purchase but how they allocate their time.