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Contracting with Limited Commitment: Evidence from Employment-Based Health Insurance Contracts

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Author Info
Keith J. Crocker
John R. Moran
Abstract

When an individual's health status is observable, but evolving over time, the key to maintaining a successful health insurance arrangement is to have the healthier members of the group cross-subsidize those who experience adverse health outcomes. We argue that impediments to worker mobility may serve to mitigate the attrition of healthy individuals from employer-sponsored insurance pools, thereby creating a de facto commitment mechanism that allows for more complete insurance of health risks than would be possible in the absence of such frictions. Using data on health insurance contracts obtained from the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey, we find that the quantity of insurance provided, as measured by lifetime limits on benefits and annual stop-loss amounts, is positively related to the degree of worker commitment. These results illustrate the importance of commitment in the design of long-term contracts, and provide an additional rationale for the practice of bundling health insurance with employment.

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Paper provided by Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University in its series Center for Policy Research Working Papers with number 45.

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Length: 60 pages
Date of creation: Jul 2002
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Handle: RePEc:max:cprwps:45

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H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies

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  1. Pauly, Mark V & Kunreuther, Howard & Hirth, Richard, 1995. "Guaranteed Renewability in Insurance," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 143-56, March.
  2. Encinosa, William, 2001. "A comment on Neudeck and Podczeck's "adverse selection and regulation in health insurance markets"," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 667-673, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Crocker, Keith J & Snow, Arthur, 1986. "The Efficiency Effects of Categorical Discrimination in the Insurance Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(2), pages 321-44, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. David M. Cutler & Richard J. Zeckhauser, 1999. "The Anatomy of Health Insurance," NBER Working Papers 7176, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Moulton, Brent R., 1986. "Random group effects and the precision of regression estimates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 385-397, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Jonathan Gruber & Brigitte C. Madrian, 1994. "Health insurance and job mobility: The effects of public policy on job-lock," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 48(1), pages 86-102, October.
  7. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1976. "Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets: An Essay on the Economics of Imperfect Information," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 90(4), pages 630-49, November.
  8. Steven Shavell, 1979. "Risk Sharing and Incentives in the Principal and Agent Relationship," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 55-73, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Altman, Daniel & Cutler, David M & Zeckhauser, Richard J, 1998. "Adverse Selection and Adverse Retention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 122-26, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Pauly, Mark V, 1986. "Taxation, Health Insurance, and Market Failure in the Medical Economy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 24(2), pages 629-75, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Kate Bundorf, M., 2002. "Employee demand for health insurance and employer health plan choices," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 65-88, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-38, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Cochrane, John H, 1995. "Time-Consistent Health Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 445-73, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Topel, Robert H, 1991. "Specific Capital, Mobility, and Wages: Wages Rise with Job Seniority," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(1), pages 145-76, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Diamond, Peter, 1992. "Organizing the Health Insurance Market," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(6), pages 1233-54, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Cardon, James H & Hendel, Igal, 2001. "Asymmetric Information in Health Insurance: Evidence from the National Medical Expenditure Survey," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(3), pages 408-27, Autumn.
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