This discussion paper has led to a publication in <A href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001429211200044X">'European Economic Review'</A>, 56(4), 669-90.<P>We investigate the presence of moral hazard and advantageous or adverse selection in a market for supplementary health insurance. For this we specify and estimate dynamic models for health insurance...</p></a>

This paper empirically analyzes moral hazard in car insurance using a dynamic theory of an insuree's dynamic risk (ex ante moral hazard) and claim (ex post moral hazard) choices and Dutch longitudinal micro data. We use the theory to characterize the heterogeneous dynamic changes in incentives...

We study entrepreneurs’ behavioral responses of effort (moral hazard) to avoid business failure.This is done in the context of an unemployment insurance scheme for self-employed, wherewe estimate how much of the transition probability to unemployment can be causally attributedto being insured....

We explore the role of firms in insuring non-verifiable output. As a device that allows workers to commit to thedelivery of their output, the firm arises endogenously as an alternative to the market if workers are sufficiently riskaverse and the firm can base its incentive payments on good...

Transparent decision-making processes are widely regarded as a prerequisite for the working of a representative democracy. It facilitates accountability, and citizens may suspect that decisions, if taken behind closed doors, do not promote their interests. Why else the secrecy? We provide a...

At the start of their term, politicians often announce which issue they intend to address. To shed light on this agenda setting, we develop a model in which a politician has to decide whether or not to address a public issue. Addressing an issue means that the politician investigates the issue...

Some committees are made up of experts, persons interested in both the (subject) matter at hand and in coming across as able decision-makers. Such committees would like to conceal disagreement from the public. We present a theory that describes the reaction of experts to the requirement to...

In a multiperiod setting, decision-makers can learn about the consequences of their decisions throughexperimentation. In this paper we examine how in a two-party system polarization and political instability affectlearning through experimentation. We distinguish two cases:the decision to be made...

In models of sequential decision making herd behaviour occurs if the signals smart(dumb) agents receive are (un)correlated and if agents have reputational concerns. We show thatintroducing costly effort to become informed about project payoffs (i) eliminates herdbehaviour and (ii) shifts...

A committee makes a decision on a project on behalf of "the public." Members of the committee agree on the a priori value of the project, and hold additional private information about its consequences. They are experts who care about the value of the project and about being considered well...