In this article we test whether the introduction of social insurance has led to a reduction in private insurance purchases and precautionary saving by examining the introduction of workers' compensation. Our empirical analysis is based on the financial decisions of over 7,000 households surveyed...

A central question concerning the economic motivation for the adoption of workers' compensation is the extent to which workers had access to their desired levels of private accident insurance around the turn of the century. If insurance were rationed, then workers' primary option would have been...