{"id":17001,"date":"2025-04-14T11:10:28","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T16:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/business\/?post_type=tribe_events&#038;p=17001"},"modified":"2025-04-14T11:10:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T16:10:28","slug":"retention-costs-investments","status":"publish","type":"tribe_events","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/business\/event\/retention-costs-investments\/","title":{"rendered":"Retention Costs or Human Capital Investments: A Dual Perspective on Employer-Sponsored Health Benefits?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Part of the Lubar Research Seminar Series<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Speaker:\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><strong> Xuelin Li, Columbia University<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Employer-sponsored health insurance is the predominant coverage source for the U.S. workforce, yet the rationale behind firms&#8217; provision of these benefits remains debated. We examine two primary motivations: as a retention mechanism reducing employee turnover, and as a human capital investment enhancing workforce productivity. To disentangle these perspectives, we exploit policy-induced shocks to labor mobility and track firms\u2019 benefit adjustments. We employ a stacked difference-in-differences approach using novel datasets on health plan details, individual healthcare utilization, and state-level variations in non-compete agreement (NCA) enforceability from 2013 to 2020. Our results show that increased NCA enforceability leads firms to lower premiums primarily by shifting to High-Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs). This shift, in turn, boosts HDHP enrollment rates and significantly reshapes healthcare utilization among affected employees, leading to fewer preventive care visits but a greater incidence of severe, high-cost medical procedures. Overall, our findings support the retention cost perspective while also highlighting the unintended long-term consequences of such cost-saving strategies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Part of the Lubar Research Seminar Series Speaker:\u00a0 Xuelin Li, Columbia University Employer-sponsored health insurance is the predominant coverage source for the U.S. workforce, yet the rationale behind firms&#8217; provision of these benefits remains debated. We examine two primary motivations: &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_tribe_events_status":"","_tribe_events_status_reason":"","_tribe_events_is_hybrid":"","_tribe_events_is_virtual":"","_tribe_events_virtual_video_source":"","_tribe_events_virtual_embed_video":"","_tribe_events_virtual_linked_button_text":"","_tribe_events_virtual_linked_button":"","_tribe_events_virtual_show_embed_at":"","_tribe_events_virtual_show_embed_to":[],"_tribe_events_virtual_show_on_event":"","_tribe_events_virtual_show_on_views":"","_tribe_events_virtual_url":"","footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"tags":[],"tribe_events_cat":[63],"class_list":["post-17001","tribe_events","type-tribe_events","status-publish","hentry","tribe_events_cat-research-seminar-series","cat_research-seminar-series"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lubar College of Business<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/business\/event\/retention-costs-investments\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Retention Costs or Human Capital Investments: A Dual Perspective on Employer-Sponsored Health Benefits?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Part of the Lubar Research Seminar Series Speaker:\u00a0 Xuelin Li, Columbia University Employer-sponsored health insurance is the predominant coverage source for the U.S. workforce, yet the rationale behind firms&#8217; provision of these benefits remains debated. We examine two primary motivations: &hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/business\/event\/retention-costs-investments\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lubar College of Business\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/event\\\/retention-costs-investments\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/event\\\/retention-costs-investments\\\/\",\"name\":\"Retention Costs or Human Capital Investments: A Dual Perspective on Employer-Sponsored Health Benefits? - Lubar College of Business\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-14T16:10:28+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/event\\\/retention-costs-investments\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/event\\\/retention-costs-investments\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/event\\\/retention-costs-investments\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Events\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/events\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Retention Costs or Human Capital Investments: A Dual Perspective on Employer-Sponsored Health Benefits?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/\",\"name\":\"Lubar College of Business\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/554\\\/2020\\\/11\\\/uwm-seo-logo.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/554\\\/2020\\\/11\\\/uwm-seo-logo.jpg\",\"width\":225,\"height\":224,\"caption\":\"University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/business\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Lubar College of Business","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/business\/event\/retention-costs-investments\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Retention Costs or Human Capital Investments: A Dual Perspective on Employer-Sponsored Health Benefits?","og_description":"Part of the Lubar Research Seminar Series Speaker:\u00a0 Xuelin Li, Columbia University Employer-sponsored health insurance is the predominant coverage source for the U.S. workforce, yet the rationale behind firms&#8217; provision of these benefits remains debated. 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