The design of social insurance is modelled through majority voting. Individuals, risking the loss of income, vote sequentially on the type of benefits, flat v. proportional, as well as the level of social insurance benefits. The effects of allowing social insurance to be topped up in the private market are then examined. As expected, the existence of an actuarially fair insurance alternative de...

Many countries have reformed, or plan to reform, their pension system, often replacing defined benefits with some sort of savings account. In recent years proposals have been made to apply personal savings accounts also to other elements of social insurance, such as unemployment insurance, social assistance or parental leave compensation. This paper evaluates the consequences of replacing these...

When the insurer has access to information about test status, genetic insurance can handle the negative effects of genetic testing on insurance coverage and income distribution. Hence, efficient testing is promoted. When information about prevention and test status is private, two types of social inefficiencies may occur; genetic testing may not be done when it is socially efficient and genetic...

Most of the world’s poor face large risks, which affect their investment decisions and contribute to the perpetuation of poverty (Karlan et al. forthcoming). In this context, insurance products targeted at the poor are seen as having substantial promise, as opportunities both to make pro!t and to improve ef!ciency and social welfare. The marketing of insurance products to the poor has faced two...

This study uses Social Security administrative data on historical taxes and benefits by year, age, gender, and race for an ex post analysis of redistribution under the Disability Insurance (DI) program. The relationship between the taxes paid and benefits received to date under the program is described for successive cohorts as a whole and for specific race and gender groups both within cohorts...

People with medical conditions that limit their ability to work tend to receive short-term disability benefits initially and may then move to long-term and eventually to permanent disability benefits. The progression of older workers (those aged 55 to 64) along that continuum of benefits is documented here with data from a large disability insurance company. The data show that older workers who...

This paper uses individual level data to analyze the effect of changes in the compulsory benefit package of the German statutory health insurance scheme on the demand for private supplementary insurance. In particular, we aim at measuring the effect of excluding dentures from the benefit package in 1997 as well as the effect of re-including them in 1999.A difference-in-differences estimator is ...