The Changing of the Guards: Can Physicians Contain Social Insurance Costs? Based on administrative data from Norway, we examine the extent to which family doctors influence their clients’ propensity to claim sick pay and disability benefits. The analysis is based on exogenous shifts of family doctors occurring when physicians quit, retire, or for other reasons sell their patient lists to other ...

Background & Aims: People`s health, life expectancy and quality of life have been affected by social determinants of health, significantly. Also, socio-economic factors may affect health expenditure, considerably. This study has evaluated the effects of socio-economic determinants on health expenditure for the low-income urban householdsin the informalsector of employment. Methods: In this stud...

A hallmark of modern labor economics is the close interplay between the development of theory, data sources and econometric testing. The evolution of the economic analysis of unemployment insurance provides a good illustration. New theoretical approaches, in particular job-search theory, have inspired a large amount of empirical research, some of it methodologically innovative and most of it hi...

This study by adopting rolling regression techniques investigate whether bank and life insurance equity returns sensitivity to long term unanticipated interest rate changes has been changed since the Bank of England was granted operational independence in May 1997. Our results indicate that there may well have been changes in the way banks and life insurance companies manage interest rate risk....

This paper explores how the introduction of an experience rated system of unemployment insurance affects employment and welfare in a model where implicit contracts between firms and workers give rise to wage rigidities and unemployment. In the literature, it has been argued that experience rated systems of unemployment insurance may reduce long term employment as firms anticipate the higher cos...

It is vividly debated how the ongoing process of European integration will a¤ect the need and scope for welfare state activities. To some this process signals that welfare state activities have to be rolled back, while others stress that international integration may increase the need for (explicit or implicit) social insurance arrangements. This paper discusses these issues by first considerin...

A rich literature seeks to explain the distinctive features of equilibrium institutions arising in risky environments which lack formal insurance and credit markets. I develop a theory of endogenous matching between heterogeneously risk-averse individuals who, once matched, choose both the riskiness of the income stream they face (ex ante risk management) as well as how to share that risk (ex p...

Ageing is a global phenomenon. India is no exception to this demographic transition. The problems and issues of its greying population occupy the back seat. The current need is to conduct research and explore new directions in research on population ageing. Multi-disciplinary approaches to geriatric care can be fostered by collaborative training among medical, paramedical and other professional...

Health Status, Disability and Retirement Incentives in Belgium Many Belgian retire well before the statutory retirement age. Numerous exit routes from the labor force can be identified: old-age pensions, conventional early retirement, disability insurance, and unemployment insurance are the most prominent ones. We analyze the retirement decision of Belgian workers adopting an option value frame...

The paper provides novel insights on the effect of a firm’s risk management objective on the optimal design of risk transfer instruments. I analyze the interrelation between the structure of the optimal insurance contract and the firm’s objective to minimize the required equity it has to hold to accommodate losses in the presence of multiple risks and moral hazard. In contrast to the case of ri...