Despite the widespread provision of retiree health insurance for public sector workers, little attention has been paid to its effects on employee retirement. This is in contrast to the large literature on health-insurance-induced “job-lock” in the private sector. I use the introduction of...

Several empirical studies provide evidence that their actual health state affects people’s attitudes towards health and medical care in hypothetical health states. In the tradition of behavioural economics this paper considers the actual health state as a point of reference and builds a model...

In long-term private health insurance contracts, aging provisions are used to flatten premium profiles. An individual would like to change insurers if she perceives a low service quality. The first-best optimum is characterized by provision transfers which are higher for high risks and may be...

We consider lifetime health insurance contracts in which ageing provisions are used to smooth the premium profile. The stock of capital accumulated for each individual can be split into two parts: a premium insurance and an annuitised life insurance, where the latter would be transferable...

We estimate the impact on health care utilization and out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditures of a major reform in Thailand that extended health insurance to one-quarter of the population to achieve universal coverage while keeping health spending below 4% of GDP. Identification is through comparison...

This paper examines the role of both cost-sharing schemes in health insurance systems and entry regulation for pharmaceutical R&D expenditure, drug prices, aggregate productivity, and income. The analysis suggests that both an increase in the coinsurance rate and stricter price regulations...

Employer-provided health insurance may restrict job mobility, resulting in “job lock.” Previous research on job lock finds mixed results using several methodologies. We take a new approach to examine job-lock by exploiting the discontinuity created at age 65 through the qualification for...

In the United States child adoption costs vary considerably, ranging from no out-of-pocket expense to $50,000 or more. What are the causes for the variability in adoption expenses? We administered a survey to a sample of Michigan adoptive families to link adoptive parent characteristics, child...

This paper sheds new light on the effects of the minimum wage on employment from a two-sided theoretical perspective, in which firms’ job offer and workers’ job acceptance decisions are disentangled. Minimum wages reduce job offer incentives and increase job acceptance incentives. We show...