This paper quantities the power of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics to account for black-white disparities in life expectancy in the US. While many studies have investigated the linkages between race, SES, and mortality, previous studies have almost universally reported results in...

In many markets, including the new U.S. Exchanges, health insurance plans are paid by risk-adjusted capitation, in some markets combined with reinsurance and other payment mechanisms. This paper proposes three metrics for analyzing the insurer incentives embedded in these complex payment...

The debate over privatizing Medicare stems from a fundamental disagreement about whether privatization would primarily generate consumer surplus for individuals or producer surplus for insurance companies and health care providers. This paper investigates this question by studying an existing...