Data and Code for: The Impact of Youth Medicaid Eligibility on Adult Incarceration

The materials here will replicate all of the tables and figures in "The Impact of Youth Medicaid Eligibility on Adult Incarceration" (Arenberg, Neller, and Stripling, 2022).<br><br>This paper identifies an important spillover associated with public health insurance: reduced incarceration. In 1990, Congress passed legislation that increased Medicaid eligibility for individuals born after September 30, 1983. We show that Black children born just after the cutoff are 5 percent less likely to be incarcerated by age 28, driven primarily by a decrease in incarcerations connected to financially motivated offenses. Children of other races, who experienced almost no gain in Medicaid coverage as a result of the policy, demonstrate no such decline. We find that reduced incarceration in adulthood substantially offsets the initial costs of expanding eligibility.