The present paper thoroughly explores second-best efficient allocations in an adverse selection insurance economy. We start from a natural extension of the classical model, assuming less than perfect risk perceptions. We propose first and second welfare theorems, by means of which we describe efficiencyenhancing policies. Notions of weak and strong adverse selection are promising for interpreti...

The formation of human capital is important for a society's welfare and economic success. Recent literature shows that child health can provide an important explanation for disparities in children’s human capital development across different socio-economic groups. While this literature focuses on cognitive skills as determinants of human capital, it neglects non-cognitive skills. We analyze dat...

We model asymmetric information arising from physician agency, and its effect on the design of payment and healthcare quantity. The physician-patient coalition aims to maximize a combination of physician profit and patient benefit. The degree of substitution between profit and patient benefit in the physician-patient coalition is the physician’s private information, as is the patient’s intrinsi...

Objective: In this study, we examined the effect of iridoid (I) derived from lyophilized aqueous extract of Ajuga iva on serum HDL2 and HDL3 compositions and lecithin:cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) activity, enzyme responsible for reverse cholesterol transport. Methods: Male Wistar rats (n=24) weighing 120±5 g were fed a diet containing 1% cholesterol-rich diet for 15 days. After this phase...

We model asymmetric information arising from physician agency, and its effect on the design of payment and health care quantity. The physician-patient coalition aims to maximize a combination of physician profit and patient benefit. The degree of substitution between profit and patient benefit in the physician-patient coalition is the physician’s private information, as is the patient’s intrins...

Location-specific norms of behavior are a widespread phenomenon. In the case of medical practice, numerous studies have found that geographic location exerts a strong influence on the choice of treatments and procedures. This paper shows how the presence of social influence on treatment decisions can help to explain this phenomenon. We construct a theoretical model in which physicians’ treatmen...

Quality report cards addressing information asymmetry in the health care market have become a popular strategy used by policymakers to improve the quality of care for elderly. Using individual level data from the largest German sickness fund merged with institutional level data, we examine the relationship between nursing home quality, as measured by recently introduced report cards, nursing ho...

Publicly provided health care implies considerable intergenerational redistribution. The possibility of accumulating a fund or debt will a®ect the degree of redistribution as well as how e±cient the ̄nancing of health care is. In a voting model we study how governments inability to make binding long-term policy commitments will a®ect the accumulation of a fund or debt. Today's government will b...

A number of studies have shown that teenagers who abstain from sex are more likely to graduate from high school and attend college than their sexually active peers. However, it is unclear whether this association represents a causal relationship or can be explained by unmeasured heterogeneity. This study employs a variety of econometric techniques to distinguish between these hypotheses using d...

Hospital acquired infections (HAI) are a largely avoidable and costly burden on public health systems. Accurate estimates of the costs of HAI are necessary to gauge the cost efficiency of alternative infection control measures, but are traditionally very difficult to compute. In particular, existing studies of the costs of HAI do not take into account the possible endogeneity bias between the r...