IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/albaec/2021_001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

When Social Assistance Meets Market Power: A Mixed Duopoly View of Health Insurance in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Ranasinghe, Ashantha

    (University of Alberta, Department of Economics)

  • Su, Xuejuan

    (University of Alberta, Department of Economics)

Abstract

We develop a mixed duopoly model with quality-differentiated products. The public firm offers its product for free to eligible individuals, while the private firm chooses its product quality and price to maximize profit. We calibrate the model to health insurance for the U.S. working-age population, with Medicaid being the public firm. We examine distributional implications of policies that expand Medicaid to various degrees. Despite potentially significant inefficiency of Medicaid, its expansion is welfare improving. Central to these findings is the significant market power of the private firm when left unchecked, which is increasingly disciplined as more individuals become Medicaid eligible.

Suggested Citation

  • Ranasinghe, Ashantha & Su, Xuejuan, 2021. "When Social Assistance Meets Market Power: A Mixed Duopoly View of Health Insurance in the United States," Working Papers 2021-1, University of Alberta, Department of Economics, revised 18 May 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:albaec:2021_001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~econwps/2021/wp2021-01.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anderson, Simon P. & de Palma, Andre & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 1997. "Privatization and efficiency in a differentiated industry," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(9), pages 1635-1654, December.
    2. Laine, Liisa T. & Ma, Ching-to Albert, 2017. "Quality and competition between public and private firms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 336-353.
    3. Rabah Amir & Giuseppe Feo, 2014. "Endogenous timing in a mixed duopoly," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 43(3), pages 629-658, August.
    4. Roozbeh Hosseini & Kai Zhao & Karen Kopecky, 2018. "How Important Is Health Inequality for Lifetime Earnings Inequality?," 2018 Meeting Papers 1093, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Motta, Massimo, 1993. "Endogenous Quality Choice: Price vs. Quantity Competition," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 113-131, June.
    6. Leemore Dafny & Mark Duggan & Subramaniam Ramanarayanan, 2012. "Paying a Premium on Your Premium? Consolidation in the US Health Insurance Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 1161-1185, April.
    7. Martin Gaynor & Kate Ho & Robert J. Town, 2015. "The Industrial Organization of Health-Care Markets," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(2), pages 235-284, June.
    8. Ulrich Lehmann-Grube, 1997. "Strategic Choice of Quality When Quality is Costly: The Persistence of the High-Quality Advantage," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(2), pages 372-384, Summer.
    9. Koji Ishibashi & Toyokazu Kaneko, 2008. "Partial privatization in mixed duopoly with price and quality competition," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 95(3), pages 213-231, December.
    10. Victor R. Fuchs, 1996. "Individual and Social Responsibility: Child Care, Education, Medical Care, and Long-Term Care in America," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fuch96-1, October.
    11. Ishida, Junichiro & Matsushima, Noriaki, 2009. "Should civil servants be restricted in wage bargaining? A mixed-duopoly approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 634-646, April.
    12. Ann P. Bartel & Ann E. Harrison, 2005. "Ownership Versus Environment: Disentangling the Sources of Public-Sector Inefficiency," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(1), pages 135-147, February.
    13. Cremer, Helmuth & Marchand, Maurice & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 1991. "Mixed oligopoly with differentiated products," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 43-53, March.
    14. Ilyana Kuziemko & Michael I. Norton & Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2015. "How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1478-1508, April.
    15. Jeske, Karsten & Kitao, Sagiri, 2009. "U.S. tax policy and health insurance demand: Can a regressive policy improve welfare?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 210-221, March.
    16. Avner Shaked & John Sutton, 1982. "Relaxing Price Competition Through Product Differentiation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(1), pages 3-13.
    17. Amanda Starc, 2014. "Insurer pricing and consumer welfare: evidence from Medigap," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(1), pages 198-220, March.
    18. Barros, Fatima, 1995. "Incentive schemes as strategic variables: An application to a mixed duopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 373-386, September.
    19. Jeffrey Clemens & Joshua D. Gottlieb, 2017. "In the Shadow of a Giant: Medicare’s Influence on Private Physician Payments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(1), pages 1-39.
    20. Ziad Ghandour & Odd Rune Straume, 2022. "Optimal funding coverage in a mixed oligopoly with quality competition and price regulation," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 136(3), pages 201-225, August.
    21. Jeffry M. Netter & William L. Megginson, 2001. "From State to Market: A Survey of Empirical Studies on Privatization," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 321-389, June.
    22. Lockwood, Benjamin B. & Weinzierl, Matthew, 2016. "Positive and normative judgments implicit in U.S. tax policy, and the costs of unequal growth and recessions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 30-47.
    23. Hejer Lasram & Didier Laussel, 2019. "The determination of public tuition fees in a mixed education system: A majority voting model," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 21(6), pages 1056-1073, December.
    24. Fuchs, Victor R. (ed.), 1996. "Individual and Social Responsibility," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226267869, October.
    25. Pedro Pita Barros & Xavier Martinez‐Giralt, 2002. "Public and Private Provision of Health Care," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 109-133, March.
    26. Matsumura, Toshihiro, 1998. "Partial privatization in mixed duopoly," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 473-483, December.
    27. Chaoran Chen & Zhigang Feng & Jiaying Gu, 2025. "Health, Health Insurance, And Inequality," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 66(1), pages 107-141, February.
    28. Tilman Klumpp & Xuejuan Su, 2019. "Price–quality competition in a mixed duopoly," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 21(3), pages 400-432, June.
    29. Barberis, Nicholas & Maxim Boycko & Andrei Shleifer & Natalia Tsukanova, 1996. "How Does Privatization Work? Evidence from the Russian Shops," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(4), pages 764-790, August.
    30. Hiroaki Ino & Toshihiro Matsumura, 2010. "What role should public enterprises play in free-entry markets?," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 101(3), pages 213-230, November.
    31. Jaskold Gabszewicz, J. & Thisse, J. -F., 1979. "Price competition, quality and income disparities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 340-359, June.
    32. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    33. Pal, Debashis, 1998. "Endogenous timing in a mixed oligopoly," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 181-185, November.
    34. James M. Poterba, 1996. "Government Intervention in the Markets for Education and Health Care: How and Why?," NBER Chapters, in: Individual and Social Responsibility: Child Care, Education, Medical Care, and Long-Term Care in America, pages 277-308, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    35. Krishnan, Ranjani, 2001. "Market restructuring and pricing in the hospital industry," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 213-237, March.
    36. Yoram Amiel & John Creedy & Stan Hurn, 1999. "Measuring Attitudes Towards Inequality," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(1), pages 83-96, March.
    37. Wauthy, Xavier, 1996. "Quality Choice in Models of Vertical Differentiation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 345-353, September.
    38. Capatina, Elena, 2015. "Life-cycle effects of health risk," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 67-88.
    39. Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2016. "Generalized Social Marginal Welfare Weights for Optimal Tax Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(1), pages 24-45, January.
    40. Wang, X. Henry & Yang, Bill Z., 2001. "Mixed-strategy equilibria in a quality differentiation model," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 213-226, January.
    41. Leemore S. Dafny, 2010. "Are Health Insurance Markets Competitive?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1399-1431, September.
    42. Theodore Groves & Yongmiao Hong & John McMillan & Barry Naughton, 1994. "Autonomy and Incentives in Chinese State Enterprises," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 183-209.
    43. Capps, Cory & Dranove, David & Ody, Christopher, 2018. "The effect of hospital acquisitions of physician practices on prices and spending," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 139-152.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Benassi, Corrado & Castellani, Massimiliano & Mussoni, Maurizio, 2016. "Price equilibrium and willingness to pay in a vertically differentiated mixed duopoly," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 86-96.
    2. Laine, Liisa T. & Ma, Ching-to Albert, 2017. "Quality and competition between public and private firms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 336-353.
    3. Tilman Klumpp & Xuejuan Su, 2019. "Price–quality competition in a mixed duopoly," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 21(3), pages 400-432, June.
    4. João Correia-da-Silva & Joana Pinho, 2018. "Collusion in mixed oligopolies and the coordinated effects of privatization," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 19-55, May.
    5. Martin Gaynor & Kate Ho & Robert J. Town, 2015. "The Industrial Organization of Health-Care Markets," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(2), pages 235-284, June.
    6. Klumpp, Tilman & Su, Xuejuan, 2017. "Public Private Competition," Working Papers 2017-10, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    7. Sang-Ho Lee & Toshihiro Matsumura & Susumu Sato, 2018. "An analysis of entry-then-privatization model: welfare and policy implications," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 123(1), pages 71-88, January.
    8. Sreya Kolay & Rajeev K. Tyagi, 2022. "On the Effects of Raised Rival’s Costs," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 60(4), pages 567-586, June.
    9. Rupayan Pal, 2010. "How much should you own? Cross-ownership and privatization," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2010-015, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    10. Ishida, Junichiro & Matsushima, Noriaki, 2009. "Should civil servants be restricted in wage bargaining? A mixed-duopoly approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 634-646, April.
    11. Horn-In Kuo & Fu-Chuan Lai & K. L. Glen Ueng, 2020. "Privatization neutrality with quality and subsidies," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 71(3), pages 405-419, July.
    12. Hiroaki Ino & Toshihiro Matsumura, 2010. "What role should public enterprises play in free-entry markets?," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 101(3), pages 213-230, November.
    13. Toshihiro Matsumura & Yoshihiro Tomaru, 2013. "Mixed duopoly, privatization, and subsidization with excess burden of taxation," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 46(2), pages 526-554, May.
    14. Juan Carlos Bárcena-Ruiz & María Begoña Garzón, 2020. "Partial privatization in an international mixed oligopoly under product differentiation," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 77-100, September.
    15. Rasha Ahmed & Kathleen Segerson, 2007. "Emissions Control and the Regulation of Product Markets: The Case of Automobiles," Working papers 2007-40, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    16. Haraguchi, Junichi & Matsumura, Toshihiro, 2014. "Price versus quantity in a mixed duopoly with foreign penetration," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 338-353.
    17. Buehler, Benno & Schuett, Florian, 2014. "Certification and minimum quality standards when some consumers are uninformed," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 493-511.
    18. Corrado Benassi & Alessandra Chirco & Caterina Colombo, 2019. "Vertical differentiation beyond the uniform distribution," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 126(3), pages 221-248, April.
    19. Toshihiro Matsumura & Akira Ogawa, 2017. "Inefficient but Robust Public Leadership," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 387-398, December.
    20. Junichi Haraguchi & Toshihiro Matsumura, 2020. "Endogenous public and private leadership with diverging social and private marginal costs," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 88(5), pages 699-730, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    mixed duopoly; quality differentiation; public provision of private goods; distribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
    • H44 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Goods: Mixed Markets
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • L38 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Public Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ris:albaec:2021_001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joseph Marchand (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deualca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.