This paper analyzes the design of optimal unemployment insurance in a search equilibrium framework where search e¤ort among the unemployed is not perfectly observable. We examine to what extent the optimal policy involves monitoring of search effort and benefit sanctions if observed search is...

Putting a limit on the duration of unemployment benefits tends to introduce a “spike” in the job finding rate shortly before benefits are exhausted. Current theories explain this spike from workers’ behavior. We present a theoretical model in which also the nature of the job matters....

This paper develops a model of search on the labour market with training. The model reveals how the tax system can restore the social optimum if the Hosio s condition is not satisfied in the private equilibrium. Furthermore, the effects are explored of a second-best reform from average to...

We provide a modeling framework to think about selective contracting in the health care sector. Two health care providers differ in quality and costs. When buying health insurance, consumers observe neither provider quality nor costs. We derive an equilibrium where health insurers signal...

Contracts between health insurers and providers are private; i.e. not public. By<br/>modelling this explicitly, we find the following. Insurers with bigger provider networks,pay higher fee-for-service rates to providers. This makes it more likely that a patient is treated and hence health care costs...

This paper introduces a tractable model of health insurance with both moral hazard<br/>and adverse selection. We show that government sponsored universal basic insurance should cover treatments with the biggest adverse selection problems. Treatments not covered by basic insurance can be covered on...

This paper introduces three methodological advances to study the optimal design of static and dynamic markets. First, we apply a mechanism design approach to characterize all incentive-compatible market equilibria. Second, we conduct a normative analysis, i.e. we evaluate alternative competition...

This paper introduces a simple extensive form pricing game.The Bertrand outcome is a Nash equilibrium outcome in this game, but it is not necessarily subgame perfect.The subgame perfect equilibrium outcome features the following comparative static properties.The more similar firms are, the...

Abstract: Many optimal contracting papers use quasi-linear preferences. To exclude stochastic mechanisms they impose a (sufficient) condition on how the curvature of an agent's objective function varies with type. We show with quasi-linear preferences that an optimal deterministic outcome...