This contribution starts out by noting a conflict of interest between consumers and insurers. Consumers face positive correlation in their assets (health, wealth, wisdom, i.e. skills), causing them to demand a great deal of insurance coverage. Insurers on the other hand eschew positively...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the efficiency of the 26 Swiss cantons over the period 2000 to 2004 applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). A Total Public Sector Performance (TPSP) indicator for eight local government activities (administration, public safety, education, culture and...

This study applies financial portfolio theory to determine efficient electricity-generating technology portfolios for the United States and Switzerland, adopting an investor point of view. Expected returns are defined by the rate of decrease of power generation cost (with external costs...

In this paper, the amount of income redistribution in the United States, the European Union, and Switzerland is compared and empirically related to economic, political, and behavioral determinants elaborated in the literature. Lying in between the two poles, Switzerland provides unique evidence...

In this paper, preferences for income redistribution in Switzerland are elicited through a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) performed in 2008. In addition to the amount of redistribution as a share of GDP, attributes also included its uses (working poor, the unemployed, old-age pensioners,...

When premiums are community-rated, risk adjustment (RA) serves to mitigate competitive insurers'; incentive to select favorable risks. However, unless fully prospective, it also undermines their incentives for efficiency. By capping its volume, one may try to counteract this tendency, exposing...

This paper sheds light on some unexpected consequences of health insurance regulation that may pose a big challenge to insurers’ risk management. Because mandated uniform contributions to health insurance trigger risk selection efforts risk adjustment (RA) schemes become necessary. A good deal...

In mixed health care systems a crucial condition for the success of Managed Care (MC) plans is to win over a su±cient number of general practitioners (GPs) acting as gatekeepers. This contribution reports on GPs' willingness-to-accept (WTA) or compensation asked, respectively, for changing from...

The sustainability of the welfare state ultimately depends on citizens’ preferences for income redistribution. They are elicited through a Discrete Choice Experiment performed in 2008 in Switzerland. Attributes are redistribution as GDP share, its uses (the unemployed, old-age pensioners,...

Objectives: Preferences of both Alzheimer patients and their spouse caregivers are related to a willingness-to-pay (WTP) measure which is used to test for the presence of mutual (rather than the conventional one-way) altruism. Methods: Identical contingent valuation interviews were conducted in...