|
on Insurance Economics |
|
Issue of 2015‒09‒18
five papers chosen by Soumitra K. Mallick Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management |
| By: | Shun-ichiro Bessho (Faculty of Economics, Keio University); Reo Takaku (Institute for Health Economics and Policy) |
| Abstract: | Japan Medical Association (JMA), a lobby of physicians, went on strike in July 1971 against the medical reform led by the government. While physicians of JMA resigned from the health insurance doctor, they continued to provide medical care, and even virtually continued to provide the health insurance treatment in some areas. This paper uses the regional difference of resignation as a natural experiment to examine the effect of payment method of health insurance on medial service utilization and health status. Our results suggest that the resignation substantially decreased the medical service utilization, but not affected significantly health status measured by gross mortality rate and infant mortality rate. |
| Keywords: | health insurance, medical service utilization, payment method, physicians strike |
| JEL: | I13 I18 I12 |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:keo:dpaper:2014-006&r=all |
| By: | Dirk Krueger; Alexander Ludwig |
| Abstract: | In this paper we compute the optimal tax and education policy transition in an economy where progressive taxes provide social insurance against idiosyncratic wage risk, but distort the education decision of households. Optimally chosen tertiary education subsidies mitigate these distortions. We highlight the quantitative importance of general equilibrium feedback effects from policies to relative wages of skilled and unskilled workers: subsidizing higher education increases the share of workers with a college degree thereby reducing the college wage premium which has important redistributive benefits. We also argue that a full characterization of the transition path is crucial for policy evaluation. We find that optimal education policies are always characterized by generous tuition subsidies, but the optimal degree of income tax progressivity depends crucially on whether transitional costs of policies are explicitly taken into account and how strongly the college premium responds to policy changes in general equilibrium. |
| JEL: | E62 H21 H24 |
| Date: | 2015–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21538&r=all |
| By: | C. Cacciamani |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2013–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2013_ind_109&r=all |
| By: | Johannes S. Kunz; Rainer Winkelmann |
| Abstract: | From 2004 to 2012, the German social health insurance levied a co-payment for the first doctor visit in a calendar quarter. We develop a new model for estimating the effect of such a co-payment on the individual number of visits per quarter. The model allows for a one time increase in the otherwise constant hazard rate determining the timing of doctor visits, and uses a difference-in-differences strategy to identify the reform effect. The model can be adapted to a situation where the reporting period and the calendar quarter differ. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we do not find an effect of the co-payment on demand for doctor visits. |
| Keywords: | Count data, Poisson process, co-payment, hurdle model |
| JEL: | I10 C25 |
| Date: | 2015–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:econwp:204&r=all |
| By: | Patrick Hullegie (VU University Amsterdam); Pierre Koning (VU University Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | In the past two decades the OECD has regularly voiced concern about the labor market exclusion of people with disabilities and about the cost of disability insurance programs. This paper examines whether the fundamental disability insurance reforms that were implemented in the Netherlands have helped or hindered employment opportunities of workers with health problems or disability. An important component of the Dutch reforms was to enhance employer incentives, which was done by making them responsible for paying sickness benefits and by strengthening their sickness monitoring obligations. These employer incentives may stimulate preventive and reintegration activities by firms, thereby improving the employment opportunities of disabled workers. However, the reforms also impose substantial costs on employers when an employee gets sick and may therefore reduce employme nt opportunities of disabled workers. We use data from the Dutch Labor Force Survey and rich administrative data from hospital admission records, social security records, and the municipality registers containing demographic information to examine whether the disability reforms have in fact improved the economic situation for the disabled. On balance, we conclude that the DI reforms implemented by the Dutch government have mainly protected those who already have a job, and may have inadvertently reduced the hiring opportunities of people with a disability. |
| Keywords: | Disability Insurance; employer incentives; policy evaluation |
| JEL: | H53 J14 J18 |
| Date: | 2015–09–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20150109&r=all |