IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sef/csefwp/145.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Competitive Markets with Endogenous Health Risks

Author

Abstract

We study a general equilibrium model where agents’ preferences, productivity and labor endowments depend on their health status, and occupational choices affect individual health distributions. Efficiency typically requires agents of the same type to obtain different expected utilities if assigned to di¤erent occupations. Under mild assumptions, workers with riskier jobs must get higher expected utilities if health a¤ects production capabilities. The same holds if health affects preferences and health enhancing consumption activities are sufficiently effective, so that income and health are substitutes. The converse obtains when health a¤ects preferences, but health enhancing consumption activities are not very effective, and hence income and health are complements. Competitive equilibria are first-best if lottery contracts are enforceable, but typically not if only assets with deterministic payoffs are traded. Compensating wage differentials which equalize the utilities of workers in different jobs are incompatible with ex-ante efficiency. Finally, absent asymmetric information, there exist deterministic cross-jobs transfers leading to ex-ante efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Bennardo & Salvatore Piccolo, 2005. "Competitive Markets with Endogenous Health Risks," CSEF Working Papers 145, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 01 Mar 2008.
    • Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:145
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csef.it/WP/wp145.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Bennardo & Pierre-Andre Chiappori, 2003. "Bertrand and Walras Equilibria under Moral Hazard," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(4), pages 785-817, August.
    2. Hansen, Gary D., 1985. "Indivisible labor and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 309-327, November.
    3. Gianni de Fraja, 2002. "The Design of Optimal Education Policies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(2), pages 437-466.
    4. Malinvaud, E, 1973. "Markets for an Exchange Economy with Individual Risks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(3), pages 383-410, May.
    5. Richard Arnott & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1988. "Randomization with Asymmetric Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(3), pages 344-362, Autumn.
    6. Makowski, Louis & Ostroy, Joseph M, 1995. "Appropriation and Efficiency: A Revision of the First Theorem of Welfare Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 808-827, September.
    7. Viscusi, W Kip, 1993. "The Value of Risks to Life and Health," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1912-1946, December.
    8. Cole, Harold L. & Prescott, Edward C., 1997. "Valuation Equilibrium with Clubs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 19-39, May.
    9. Rochet, Jean-Charles, 2004. "Is Health Insurance an Appropriate Tool for Redistribution?," IDEI Working Papers 291, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    10. Atsushi Kajii & Antonio Villanacci & Alessandro Citanna, 1998. "Constrained suboptimality in incomplete markets: a general approach and two applications," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 11(3), pages 495-521.
    11. Garratt, Rod, 1995. "Decentralizing Lottery Allocations in Markets with Indivisible Commodities," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 5(2), pages 295-313, March.
    12. Bryan Ellickson & Birgit Grodal & Suzanne Scotchmer & William R. Zame, 1999. "Clubs and the Market," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(5), pages 1185-1218, September.
    13. Kehoe, Timothy J. & Levine, David K. & Prescott, Edward C., 2002. "Lotteries, Sunspots, and Incentive Constraints," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 107(1), pages 39-69, November.
    14. Lucas, Robert E B, 1974. "The Distribution of Job Characteristics," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 56(4), pages 530-540, November.
    15. Rogerson, Richard, 1988. "Indivisible labor, lotteries and equilibrium," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 3-16, January.
    16. Dominique Henriet & Jean-Charles Rochet, 2006. "Is public health insurance an appropriate instrument for redistribution?," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 83-84, pages 61-88.
    17. Alberto Bisin & Piero Gottardi, 2006. "Efficient Competitive Equilibria with Adverse Selection," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(3), pages 485-516, June.
    18. John Geanakoplos & Heracles M. Polemarchakis, 1985. "Existence, Regularity, and Constrained Suboptimality of Competitive Allocations When the Asset Market Is Incomplete," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 764, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    19. Cass, David & Chichilnisky, Graciela & Wu, Ho-Mou, 1996. "Individual Risk and Mutual Insurance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(2), pages 333-341, March.
    20. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    21. Zinde-Walsh, Victoria, 1995. "ESTIMATION AND INFERENCE IN ECONOMETRICSRussell Davidson and James G. MacKinnon Oxford University Press, 1993," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(3), pages 631-635, June.
    22. Rosen, Sherwin, 1987. "The theory of equalizing differences," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 641-692, Elsevier.
    23. Viscusi, W Kip & Evans, William N, 1990. "Utility Functions That Depend on Health Status: Estimates and Economic Implications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 353-374, June.
    24. William N. Evans & W. Kip Viscusi, 1993. "Income Effects and the Value of Health," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 28(3), pages 497-518.
    25. Abowd, John M & Card, David, 1989. "On the Covariance Structure of Earnings and Hours Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 411-445, March.
    26. Beatrice Rey & Jean-Charles Rochet, 2004. "Health and Wealth: How do They Affect Individual Preferences?," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory, Springer;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 29(1), pages 43-54, June.
    27. Diamond, Peter & Sheshinski, Eytan, 1995. "Economic aspects of optimal disability benefits," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 1-23, May.
    28. Prescott, Edward C & Townsend, Robert M, 1984. "Pareto Optima and Competitive Equilibria with Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 21-45, January.
    29. Cole, Harold Linh, 1989. "General Competitive Analysis in an Economy with Private Information: Comment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 30(1), pages 249-252, February.
    30. Béatrice Rey & Jean-Charles Rochet, 2004. "Health and Wealth: How do They Affect Individual Preferences?*," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 29(1), pages 43-54, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gianluigi Coppola, 2012. "Health, Lifestyle and Growth," AIEL Series in Labour Economics, in: Giuliana Parodi & Dario Sciulli (ed.), Social Exclusion. Short and Long Term Causes and Consequences, edition 1, chapter 1, pages 17-34, AIEL - Associazione Italiana Economisti del Lavoro.

    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. Alberto Bennardo & Salvatore Piccolo, 2005. "Competitive occupational choices with endogenous health risks," Levine's Working Paper Archive 784828000000000199, David K. Levine.
    2. Prescott, Edward C. & Shell, Karl, 2002. "Introduction to Sunspots and Lotteries," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 107(1), pages 1-10, November.
    3. Kehoe, Timothy J. & Levine, David K. & Prescott, Edward C., 2002. "Lotteries, Sunspots, and Incentive Constraints," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 107(1), pages 39-69, November.
    4. Daron Acemoglu & Alp Simsek, 2010. "Moral Hazard and Efficiency in General Equilibrium with Anonymous Trading," Levine's Working Paper Archive 661465000000000232, David K. Levine.
    5. Scotchmer, Suzanne & Shannon, Chris, 2019. "Verifiability and group formation in markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 417-477.
    6. Paolo Siconolfi & Aldo Rustichini, 2012. "Economies with Observable Types," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(1), pages 57-71, January.
    7. Edward Simpson Prescott, 1999. "A primer on moral-hazard models," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Win, pages 47-78.
    8. Kilenthong, Weerachart & Townsend, Robert, 2007. "Market Based, Segregated Exchanges with Default Risk," MPRA Paper 20724, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 12 Nov 2009.
    9. Joon Song, 2012. "Futures market: contractual arrangement to restrain moral hazard in teams," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 51(1), pages 163-189, September.
    10. Kokonas, Nikolaos & Monteiro, Paulo Santos, 2021. "Aggregation in economies with search frictions," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    11. Garratt, Rod & Keister, Todd & Qin, Cheng-Zhong & Shell, Karl, 2002. "Equilibrium Prices When the Sunspot Variable Is Continuous," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 107(1), pages 11-38, November.
    12. Rod Garratt & Todd Keister & Karl Shell, 2004. "Comparing Sunspot Equilibrium And Lottery Equilibrium Allocations: The Finite Case," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 45(2), pages 351-386, May.
    13. Mario Menegatti, 2014. "Optimal choice on prevention and cure: a new economic analysis," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 15(4), pages 363-372, May.
    14. Bisin, A. & Geanakoplos, J.D. & Gottardi, P. & Minelli, E. & Polemarchakis, H., 2011. "Markets and contracts," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 279-288.
    15. Alberto Bisin & Piero Gottardi, 2006. "Efficient Competitive Equilibria with Adverse Selection," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(3), pages 485-516, June.
    16. Jerez, Belen, 2003. "A dual characterization of incentive efficiency," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 1-34, September.
    17. Prescott, Edward Simpson, 2004. "Computing solutions to moral-hazard programs using the Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition algorithm," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 777-800, January.
    18. James Hammitt, 2013. "Admissible utility functions for health, longevity, and wealth: integrating monetary and life-year measures," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 311-325, December.
    19. Aldo Rustichini & Paolo Siconolfi, 2008. "General equilibrium in economies with adverse selection," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 37(1), pages 1-29, October.
    20. CITANNA, Alessandro, 2000. "Competitive Equilibrium with Moral Hazard in Economies with Multiple Commodities," HEC Research Papers Series 700, HEC Paris.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    compensating wage differentials; competitive markets; individual health risks; Pareto efficiency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D5 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    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:sef:csefwp:145. 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: Dr. Maria Carannante (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cssalit.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.