Deductibles in health insurance are often regarded as a means to contain health care costs when individuals exhibit moral hazard. However, in the absence of moral hazard, voluntarily chosen deductibles may instead lead to self-selection into different insurance contracts. We use a set of new variables in the German Socioeconomic Panel for the years 2002, 2004, and 2006 that measure individual h...

Health care costs in the United States have been rising faster than most other goods and services for more than 20 years. The fundamental reason for this rise in cost is unbridled demand for health care services. Demand is high because those who receive the benefits (patients) pay a relatively small portion of the cost of their health insurance. The bulk of health insurance costs are paid by em...

This paper provides fi eld evidence on (a) how price framing aff ects consumers’ decision to switch health insurance plans and (b) how the price elasticity of demand for health insurance can be infl uenced by policymakers through simple regulatory eff orts. In 2009, in order to foster competition among health insurance companies, German federal regulation required health insurance companies to ...

This paper reviews the puzzles of insurance demand, and provides an overview behavioural-based explanations on concept underinsurance. In particular, study outlines biases (among myopia, narrow framing others) that help to explain existence those puzzles. The results indicate do motivate chances underinsurance through sub-optimal probability weighting or wrong estimation risks. We discuss liter...

In China, with the economic reforms leading to the raise in agricultural productivity, the rural healthcare organisation has been weakened. In a 1991-2006 database, a decrease in the healthcare demand is observed. If many papers study the effect of the insurance system (NCMS) on the healthcare demand, other factors explaining the healthcare demand have not received much research attention yet. ...

This paper evaluates a randomized field experiment that eased the enrollment process into a new public health insurance product among 817 informal sector workers in Managua, Nicaragua. The study randomly selected a subset of workers and offered to let them enroll at their place of business. In addition, the study also randomly varied the health insurance premium through a subsidy, allowing us t...

Deductibles in health insurance are often regarded as a means to contain health care costs when individuals exhibit moral hazard. However, in the absence of moral hazard, voluntarily chosen deductibles may instead lead to self-selection into different insurance contracts. We use a set of new variables in the German Socioeconomic Panel for the years 2002, 2004, and 2006 that measure individual h...

In Absolute or Relative Terms?How Framing Prices Affects the Consumer Price Sensitivity ofHealth Plan Choice This paper provides field evidence on (a) how price framing affects consumers’ decision toswitch health insurance plans and (b) how the price elasticity of demand for health insurancecan be influenced by policymakers through simple regulatory efforts. In 2009, in order to...

We provide a graphical illustration of how standard consumer and producer theory can be used to quantify the welfare loss associated with inefficient pricing in insurance markets with selection. We then show how this welfare loss can be estimated empirically using identifying variation in the price of insurance. Such variation, together with quantity data, allows us to estimate the demand for i...