The Impact of Social Health Insurance on Student Performance: Evidence From an RDD in Peru

The literature on the effects of social health insurance focuses on its stated goals, which are health status and financial protection. In contrast, we examine the effect of the Peruvian program on student performance using a sharp RDD. We use a unique individual-level database built from the merger of household survey data and standardized test scores from a national census. We find that social health insurance has large effects on mathematics and reading comprehension scores. The clearest mechanism is a lower incidence of anemia among children and family members.