Measuring Ex Ante Welfare in Insurance Markets
Measuring Ex Ante Welfare in Insurance Markets
复制标题
衡量保险市场的事前福利
DOI：
10.1093/restud/rdaa015
复制
发表时间：
2020
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Hendren, Nathaniel
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Hendren, Nathaniel
支付保险的意愿只反映了在观察到选择时，保险的价值。本文开发了工具来衡量保险补贴和任务时，观察一些可保信息后，选择的事前预期效用的影响。该方法保留了使用简化形式的支付意愿和成本曲线的透明度，但它增加了一个额外的充分统计数据：投保和未投保之间的边际效用百分比差异。我提供了一种方法来估计这个额外的统计，只使用简化形式的支付意愿曲线，结合风险厌恶的措施。我比较的方法，结构的方法，需要充分指定的选择环境和信息集的个人。我应用现有的支付意愿和成本曲线估计的方法，从低收入医疗保险交易所在马萨诸塞州。事前最优保险价格比最大化观察到的市场剩余的价格低大约30%。虽然授权减少了市场盈余，但结果表明，它们实际上会增加事前预期效用。
The willingness to pay for insurance captures the value of insurance against only the risk that remains when choices are observed. This article develops tools to measure the ex ante expected utility impact of insurance subsidies and mandates when choices are observed after some insurable information is revealed. The approach retains the transparency of using reduced-form willingness to pay and cost curves, but it adds one additional sufficient statistic: the percentage difference in marginal utilities between insured and uninsured. I provide an approach to estimate this additional statistic that uses only the reduced-form willingness to pay curve, combined with a measure of risk aversion. I compare the approach to structural approaches that require fully specifying the choice environment and information sets of individuals. I apply the approach using existing willingness to pay and cost curve estimates from the low-income health insurance exchange in Massachusetts. Ex ante optimal insurance prices are roughly 30% lower than prices that maximize observed market surplus. While mandates reduce market surplus, the results suggest they would actually increase ex ante expected utility.