A common approach to markets with adverse selection is to regulate competition to minimize inefficiencies, while preserving consumer choice among firms. We study the role of procurement auctions--leading to sole provision by the winning firm--as an alternative market design. Relative to...

Information technology (IT) can enhance firms' long-run performance but is also a risky investment, with high fixed costs and uncertain returns. Whether market events influence this tradeoff has received limited attention. We leverage the healthcare context to empirically examine hospitals' IT...

This paper studies two major changes in the financing of Part D drugs for Medicare due to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Effective 2025 it capped out of pocket (OOP) payments at $2000 per year, and effective 2026 it will pay lower prices (negotiated by Medicare) for 10 targeted costly and...

While the traditional role of insurers is to provide protection against idiosyncratic risks of individuals, insurers themselves face substantial uncertainties due to aggregate shocks. To prevent insurers from passing through aggregate risks to consumers, governments have increasingly adopted...

Health insurance is increasingly provided through managed competition, in which subsidies for consumers and risk adjustment for insurers are key market design instruments. We illustrate that subsidies offer two advantages over risk adjustment in markets with adverse selection. They provide...

We analyze the value of insurance when individuals have access to credit markets. Loans allow consumers to smooth financial shocks over time, decreasing the value of consumption smoothing from insurance. We derive formulas for the value of insurance that can be taken to data, and show how that...

In 2010, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandated that private insurance plans extend coverage to adult dependents under the age of 26. We hypothesize that this policy may have had the unintended consequence of increasing "job lock" among parents who would otherwise leave their employer. We use a...

Hepatitis C is a major public health concern due to its high rates of infection and mortality. Recent breakthroughs in pharmaceuticals not only have the potential to cure hepatitis C but could also cause large positive health externalities through reduced transmission. The high cost of these...

Libraries have traditionally provided free communal access to books, facilitated by the first sale doctrine's (FSD) guarantee that libraries may purchase physical books at consumer prices. Increasingly restrictive ebook access terms may imperil libraries, and we compare the welfare cost of...

A primary rationale for public provision of K-12 education and state financing of school spending is that education fosters civic engagement and the development of social capital. However, limited evidence exists on whether and how school spending affects civic engagement. Virtually all studies...