Estimating Welfare in Insurance Markets Using Variation in Prices

Mark Cullen, Liran Einav and Amy Finkelstein
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Mark Cullen: Stanford University

No 08-046, Discussion Papers from Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We provide an 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 insurance. The same variation, together with cost data, allows us to estimate how insurer's costs vary as market participants endogenously respond to price. The slope of this estimated cost curve provides a direct test for both the existence and nature of selection, and the combination of demand and cost curves can be used to estimate welfare. We illustrate our approach by applying it to data on employer-provided health insurance from one speci?c company. We detect adverse selection but estimate that the quantitative welfare implications associated with inefficient pricing in our particular application are small, in both absolute and relative terms.

Keywords: Asymmetric information; adverse selection; health insurance; efficiency cost (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C13 C51 D14 D60 D82 I1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-08
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Related works:
Journal Article: Estimating Welfare in Insurance Markets Using Variation in Prices (2010)
Working Paper: Estimating Welfare in Insurance Markets Using Variation in Prices (2008)
Working Paper: Estimating Welfare in Insurance Markets Using Variation in Prices (2008)
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