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Estimating demand elasticities using nonlinear pricing

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  • Dalton, Christina M.

Abstract

Nonlinear pricing is prevalent in industries such as health care, public utilities, and telecommunications. However, this pricing scheme introduces bias into estimating elasticities for welfare analysis or policy changes. I develop a local elasticity estimation method that uses nonlinear price schedules to isolate consumers' expenditure choices from selection and simultaneity biases. This method improves over previous approaches by using commonly-available observational data and requiring only a single general monotonicity assumption. Using claims-level data on health insurance with two nonlinearities, I am able to measure two separate elasticities, and find that elasticity declines from −0.26 to−0.09 by the second nonlinearity. These estimates are then used to calculate moral hazard deadweight loss. This method enables estimation of many policies with nonlinear pricing which previous tools could not address.

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  • Dalton, Christina M., 2014. "Estimating demand elasticities using nonlinear pricing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 178-191.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:indorg:v:37:y:2014:i:c:p:178-191
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijindorg.2014.08.007
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    Cited by:

    1. Michael Gerfin & Boris Kaiser & Christian Schmid, 2015. "Healthcare Demand in the Presence of Discrete Price Changes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(9), pages 1164-1177, September.
    2. Herr, A. & Suppliet, M., 2011. "Co-Payment Exemptions and Reference Prices: an Empirical Study of Pharmaceutical Prices in Germany," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 11/18, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. Toshiaki Iizuka & Hitoshi Shigeoka, 2018. "Free for Children? Patient Cost-sharing and Healthcare Utilization," NBER Working Papers 25306, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Minke Remmerswaal & Jan Boone & Michiel Bijlsma & Rudy Douven, 2017. "Cost-Sharing Design Matters: A Comparison of the Rebate and Deductible in Healthcare," CPB Discussion Paper 367, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    5. Kowalski, Amanda E., 2015. "Estimating the tradeoff between risk protection and moral hazard with a nonlinear budget set model of health insurance," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 122-135.
    6. M. Antonini & R. C. van Kleef & J. Henriquez & F. Paolucci, 2023. "Can risk rating increase the ability of voluntary deductibles to reduce moral hazard?," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 48(1), pages 130-156, January.
    7. Gregory Cox, 2018. "Almost Sure Uniqueness of a Global Minimum Without Convexity," Papers 1803.02415, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2019.
    8. Remmerswaal, Minke & Boone, Jan & Bijlsma, Michiel & Douven, Rudy, 2019. "Cost-sharing design matters: A comparison of the rebate and deductible in healthcare," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 83-97.
    9. Boone, Jan & Remmerswaal, Minke & Bijlsma, Michiel & Douven, Rudy, 2017. "Cost-Sharing Design Matters: A Comparison of the Rebate and Deductible in Healthcare," CEPR Discussion Papers 12507, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Lin, Haizhen & Sacks, Daniel W., 2019. "Intertemporal substitution in health care demand: Evidence from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 29-43.
    11. Remmerswaal, Minke & Boone, Jan & Bijlsma, Michiel & Douven, R.C.M.H., 2017. "Cost-Sharing Design Matters : A Comparison of the Rebate and Deductible in Healthcare," Other publications TiSEM 67163c04-3d3b-499c-882c-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    12. Alex Hoagland & David M. Anderson & Ed Zhu, 2022. "Medical Bill Shock and Imperfect Moral Hazard," Papers 2211.01116, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    13. Patrick Bajari & Christina Dalton & Han Hong & Ahmed Khwaja, 2014. "Moral hazard, adverse selection, and health expenditures: A semiparametric analysis," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(4), pages 747-763, December.
    14. Suppliet, Moritz & Herr, Annika, 2016. "Cost-Sharing and Drug Pricing Strategies : Introducing Tiered Co-Payments in Reference Price Markets," Other publications TiSEM 4d692f0e-8577-4392-b413-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Remmerswaal, Minke & Boone, Jan & Bijlsma, Michiel & Douven, R.C.M.H., 2017. "Cost-Sharing Design Matters : A Comparison of the Rebate and Deductible in Healthcare," Other publications TiSEM 624251d4-89fb-4c0b-8dd1-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    16. Kairies-Schwarz, Nadja & Harrison, Glenn W. & Han, Johann, 2018. "Deductibles and Health Care Utilization: An Experiment on the Role of Forward-Looking Behavior," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181588, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    17. Remmerswaal, Minke & Boone, Jan & Bijlsma, Michiel & Douven, R.C.M.H., 2017. "Cost-Sharing Design Matters : A Comparison of the Rebate and Deductible in Healthcare," Discussion Paper 2017-039, Tilburg University, Tilburg Law and Economic Center.
    18. Guo, Audrey & Zhang, Jonathan, 2019. "What to expect when you are expecting: Are health care consumers forward-looking?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    19. Liang Chen & Yao Luo, 2023. "Empirical Analysis of Network Effects in Nonlinear Pricing Data," Working Papers tecipa-758, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    20. Haizhen Lin & Daniel W. Sacks, 2016. "Intertemporal Substitution in Health Care Demand: Evidence from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment," NBER Working Papers 22802, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Elasticity; Nonlinear; Health insurance; Moral hazard;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General
    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General

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