Research On The Impact Of Medical Insurance On Household Financial Asset Allocation

With the rapid development of China’s economy,the continuous enrichment of financial market products and the gradual increase of resident households’ income level,guiding resident households to allocate their financial assets more rationally is an important issue worthy of attention nowadays.Based on the existing research,this paper further explores the intrinsic relationship between residents’ household medical insurance participation and household financial asset allocation and its influence mechanism from the perspective of defense against health shocks,and then investigates the influence of social medical insurance and commercial medical insurance on household financial asset allocation based on the large differences between social medical insurance and commercial medical insurance in terms of coverage degree,nature and protection level.The study has both theoretical and practical significance for the further improvement of the medical insurance system and the healthy development of the financial market.Based on the panel data of the Survey and Research Center for China Household Finance for 2015 and 2017,this paper uses social medical insurance and commercial medical insurance as the entry point.Firstly,the panel Probit model is used to study the effect of both on household financial asset allocation;secondly,robustness tests were performed using the replacement Logit model and replacing the explanatory variables,and the propensity score matching method is further used to overcome the endogeneity problem;on this basis,whether such effects are heterogeneous at the regional,urbanrural,and basic medical insurance urban-rural integration policy levels is examined in depth;finally,the mediating effect model based on the substitution effect theory is established to analyze the mechanism of the impact of medical insurance on household risky financial asset allocation.The results of the study show that: first,participation in either social or commercial medical insurance increases the probability and proportion of risky financial assets held by residential households.Since the protection function of medical insurance reduces the potential risk of "poverty due to illness" or "return to poverty due to illness" in the future,households prefer risky financial assets with higher returns when allocating their assets;second,at present,China’s commercial medical insurance has not been able to play an adequate complementary role to social medical insurance.When resident families participate in both social medical insurance and commercial medical insurance,commercial medical insurance plays a limited supplementary protection role,thus making it difficult to improve the possibility of family allocation of risky financial assets by further reducing family health risks;third,the promotion effect of medical insurance on household risky financial asset allocation varies significantly by region and nature of household registration.Participation in social medical insurance has a significant contribution to risky financial asset allocation for households in the eastern region and urban areas only,while the contribution of participation in commercial medical insurance to household risky financial asset allocation is more pronounced in the eastern region and urban households;fourth,the policy of urban-rural integration of basic medical insurance affects the level of medical insurance coverage,which in turn affects the possibility of household allocation of risky financial asset allocation.When households are in provinces that have achieved urban-rural integration of basic medical insurance,their participation in medical insurance can contribute to a greater extent to households’ allocation of risky financial assets;fifth,the substitution effect plays a partially mediating role between medical insurance and the probability of holding risky financial assets by households,which indicates that medical insurance affects the probability of holding risky financial assets by residential households through the substitution effect.Based on the above analysis,the following policy recommendations are proposed:first,further improve China’s social medical insurance system;second,strengthen the support for commercial medical insurance;third,optimize the allocation of financial resources and balance urban-rural and regional development;fourth,from the supply side,strengthen the construction of financial environment and financial product innovation.