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on Insurance Economics |
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Issue of 2008‒04‒29
four papers chosen by Soumitra K Mallick Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Bussiness Management |
| By: | Carine Franc (CERMES centre de recherche medecine, sciences, sante et societe); Marc Perronnin (IRDES institut for research and information in health economics); Aurelie Pierre (IRDES institut for research and information in health economics) |
| Abstract: | In France, private health insurance, that supplements public health insurance, is essential for access to health care. About 90% of the population is covered by a private contract and around half of them obtain their coverage through their employer. Considering the financial benefits associated with group contracts compared to individual contracts, we assume that the switching behaviors vary among different beneficiaries during the transition to retirement. Indeed, despite a 1989 law, the gap in premiums increases at retirement between group and individual contracts affords the opportunity to study the marginal price effect on switching behaviors. In this study, we consider the nature of the contract prior to retirement (compulsory or voluntary membership group contract and individual contract) as an indirect measure of the price effect. We focus on its role and check for a large number of individual characteristics that may influence the new retirees' health insurance demand. |
| Keywords: | private health insurance, retirement, switching behavior |
| JEL: | D12 G22 I19 |
| Date: | 2008–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irh:wpaper:dt9&r=ias |
| By: | Geoffroy Enjolras; Patrick Sentis |
| Abstract: | Using data for 2002-2005 on a representative survey of French farms (FADN-RICA), we investigate the different factors that lead farmers to insure against crop risk. Our analysis takes into account a mix of both standard individual, financial and agricultural criteria. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses as well as logistic regressions underline the main differences between insured and non-insured farms. Compared to non-insured farms, we find that insured farms present greater financial and agricultural sizes, a more diversified production and have been motivated by the occurrence of recent catastrophic climatic events. Although essential in the cross-sectional analysis, the influence of financial parameters in the decision to insure is mitigated. On the other hand, the agricultural characteristics of the farms confirm their leading influence for the subscription of crop insurance policies. |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lam:wpaper:08-06&r=ias |
| By: | Raj Chetty |
| Abstract: | This paper presents new evidence on why unemployment insurance (UI) benefits affect search behavior and develops a simple method of calculating the welfare gains from UI using this evidence. I show that 60 percent of the increase in unemployment durations caused by UI benefits is due to a "liquidity effect" rather than distortions in marginal incentives to search ("moral hazard") by combining two empirical strategies. First, I find that increases in benefits have much larger effects on durations for liquidity constrained households. Second, lump-sum severance payments increase durations substantially among constrained households. I derive a formula for the optimal benefit level that depends only on the reduced-form liquidity and moral hazard elasticities. The formula implies that the optimal UI benefit level exceeds 50 percent of the wage. The "exact identification" approach to welfare analysis proposed here yields robust optimal policy results because it does not require structural estimation of primitives. |
| JEL: | H0 J6 |
| Date: | 2008–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13967&r=ias |
| By: | Robinson, Jonathan |
| Abstract: | This paper presents results from a randomized field experiment to test for the importance of limited commitment (due to incomplete contract enforceability) in explaining intra-household risk sharing arrangements in Kenya. The experiment followed 142 daily income earners and their spouses for 8 weeks. Every week, each individual had a 50% chance of receiving a 150 Kenyan shilling (US $2) income shock (equivalent to about 1.5 days' income for men and 1 week's income for women). This paper has 2 main results. First, since the experimental payments are random, they allow for a direct test of allocative Pareto efficiency. I reject efficiency, as male private goods expenditures are sensitive to the receipt of the payment. Second, the experiment varied the level of intra-household correlation in the experimental payments between couples. I find that women send bigger transfers to their husbands when shocks are independent or negatively correlated, a result consistent with the presence of limited commitment. I find no difference in transfers for men, likely because the shocks were too small to cause the limited commitment constraint to bind for them. |
| JEL: | O12 |
| Date: | 2008–04–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:8314&r=ias |