The Impact Of Urban And Rural Residents’ Major Illness Insurance On Household Financial Asset Allocation

With the rapid development of China’s economy and the continuous improvement of residents’ income levels,the financial assets of households have continued to increase,and household financial asset allocation has become an important part of household decision-making.Domestic and foreign scholars have explored the influencing factors of household financial asset allocation from various perspectives,but research based on the perspective of urban and rural residents’ major illness insurance is still relatively scarce.Urban and rural residents’ major illness insurance is a further exploration of China’s improved medical security system.Exploring its impact on household financial asset allocation can provide important reference for improving the major illness insurance system and strengthening the construction of the social security system,and has important implications for promoting the improvement of residents’ wealth level and achieving the ultimate goal of common prosperity.This study uses the China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)data from 2012 to 2018 to construct four-panel data sets.Using the time differences in the implementation of the urban and rural residents’ catastrophic medical insurance policy among sample cities and the method of multiple periods and double differences,this study investigates the policy impact on household financial asset allocation from two aspects: the amount of household financial assets held and the structure of household financial assets.The results show that catastrophic medical insurance can significantly increase the allocation of household financial assets,especially risk-free financial assets,and this effect is more pronounced in rural households and lowincome households.At the same time,this study uses two methods,the parallel trend test and the placebo test,in the robustness check,which proves the robustness of the empirical results.Furthermore,this study examines three possible channels of the impact of catastrophic medical insurance on household financial asset allocation,and finds that reducing the expected risk of future medical expenses is the main channel through which catastrophic medical insurance promotes the allocation of risk-free financial assets and affects the overall allocation of household financial assets.