In Absolute or Relative Terms? How Framing Prices Affects the Consumer Price Sensitivity of Health Plan Choice

Hendrik Schmitz and Nicolas Ziebarth ()

No 6241, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper provides field evidence on (a) how price framing affects consumers' decision to switch health insurance plans and (b) how the price elasticity of demand for health insurance can be influenced by policymakers through simple regulatory efforts. In 2009, in order to foster competition among health insurance companies, German federal regulation required health insurance companies to express price differences between health plans in absolute Euro values rather than percentage point payroll tax differences. Using individual-level panel data, as well as aggregated health plan-level panel data, we find that the reform led to a sixfold increase in an individual's switching probability and a threefold demand elasticity increase.

Keywords: health insurance; health plan switching; price competition; price elasticity; SOEP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H51 I11 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2011-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ias, nep-mkt and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Published - revised version published as: 'Does Price Framing Affect the Consumer Price Sensitivity of Health Plan Choice?' in: Journal of Human Resources, 2017, 52(1): 89-128

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp6241.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: In absolute or relative terms? How framing prices affects the consumer price sensitivity of health plan choice (2012)
Working Paper: In Absolute or Relative Terms?: How Framing Prices Affects the Consumer Price Sensitivity of Health Plan Choice (2011)
Working Paper: In Absolute or Relative Terms? How Framing Prices Affects the Consumer Price Sensitivity of Health Plan Choice (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6241

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().