CAREER: Empirical Analysis of Markets with Adverse Selection

职业：逆向选择市场的实证分析

• 批准号: 0643037
• 负责人: Liran Einav
• 金额: $ 40万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-09-01 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0643037&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Empirical; Analysis; Markets; Adverse

This CAREER research is centered around the empirical analysis of markets with adverse selection. Despite the theoretical importance of adverse selection and evidence of its existence in particular markets, little is known about its quantitative relevance, its relative importance compared to other selection mechanisms, and about the way it affects the operation of markets. The broad aim of the research is to better understand these issues by developing models of consumer-demand and equilibrium firm-behavior in these markets. Markets with adverse selection are "special" in that firms' profits depend on the identity of their customers. Thus, not only do firms face the traditional price-quantity tradeoff, but also an additional price-quality tradeoff induced by selection. When such markets are oligopolistic, as often is the case, their industrial organization is further complicated because price changes by one firm do not only affect the level of demand faced by its rivals, but also their demand quality. Thus, firms may choose, for instance, to strategically affect their rivals' cost structure. The research consists of two components. Both rely on new and unique proprietary individual-level data sets. The first focuses on demand-side analysis in insurance markets in an attempt to estimate efficiency costs resulting from adverse selection, with emphasis on the important role of multiple dimensions of heterogeneity. Heterogeneity in both risk and preferences complicates the efficiency analysis and makes "reduced-form" relationship between choices and outcomes neither sufficient nor necessary for inference about market efficiency. The first part of this component develops a more structural approach to estimate the efficiency cost in the semi-compulsory annuity market in the United Kingdom. The second part applies similar ideas to new data on health insurance choices by Alcoa employees, in which a quasi-experiment allows to estimate the value of choice, and to identify heterogeneity along three dimensions, of health status, the extent of moral hazard, and risk aversion. The second component focuses on supply-side and equilibrium analysis in a particular consumer credit market. The various parts of this component estimate the value of information in such markets, the effect of centralization, and the interaction between better information and other strategies, such as second-degree price discrimination. The analysis utilizes new and rich transaction-level data from a large chain of automobile dealerships, which bundles used car sales with car financing, specializing in the subprime (high risk) market. Over the six year observation period, the company has gradually moved from an interview-based approach towards highly centralized pricing system, which relies on sophisticated credit-scoring and other means of risk-based pricing, thus providing a rare opportunity to estimate the effects of such policy changes within sample.Broader Impact:Due to the inefficiency caused by adverse selection, both insurance and consumer credit markets are highly regulated, and better understanding of these markets will lead to more efficient and directed intervention. All components of the research have direct policy implications. For example, the analysis of choice in the U.K. annuity market speaks to cost-benefit analysis of allowing more choice in defined-contribution social security, the Alcoa data sheds light on policies linked to the new Medicare prescription drug benefits, and the work on consumer credit markets addresses the consequences of states' usury laws and individual bankruptcy laws.

本研究主要围绕逆向选择市场的实证分析展开。 尽管逆向选择的理论重要性和它在特定市场中存在的证据，很少有人知道它的数量相关性，其相对于其他选择机制的重要性，以及它影响市场运作的方式。 研究的主要目的是通过发展这些市场中的消费者需求和均衡企业行为模型来更好地理解这些问题。 逆向选择的市场是“特殊的”，因为公司的利润取决于其客户的身份。 因此，企业不仅面临传统的价格-数量权衡，而且还面临由选择引起的额外的价格-质量权衡。 当这类市场是寡头垄断市场时，其产业组织就更加复杂，因为一家公司的价格变化不仅影响到其竞争对手面临的需求水平，而且影响到其需求质量。 因此，公司可以选择，例如，战略性地影响其竞争对手的成本结构。 研究由两部分组成。 两者都依赖于新的和独特的专有个人数据集。 第一个重点是在保险市场的需求方分析，试图估计效率成本造成的逆向选择，强调异质性的多个维度的重要作用。 风险和偏好的异质性使效率分析复杂化，使得选择和结果之间的“简化形式”关系对于市场效率的推断既不充分也不必要。 本部分的第一部分发展了一种更具结构性的方法来估计英国半强制性年金市场的效率成本。 第二部分采用类似的想法，以新的数据对美国铝业公司的员工的健康保险选择，其中准实验允许估计的选择的价值，并确定异质性沿着三个维度，健康状况，道德风险的程度，风险规避。 第二部分着重于特定消费信贷市场的供应方和均衡分析。 这一部分的各个部分估计信息在这些市场中的价值，集中化的影响，以及更好的信息和其他策略（如二级价格歧视）之间的相互作用。 该分析利用了来自大型汽车经销商连锁店的新的和丰富的交易级数据，该连锁店将二手车销售与汽车融资捆绑在一起，专门从事次级（高风险）市场。 在六年的观察期内，该公司已逐渐从基于面谈的方法转向高度集中的定价系统，该系统依赖于复杂的信用评分和其他基于风险的定价手段，从而提供了一个难得的机会来估计样本内此类政策变化的影响。由于逆向选择造成的低效率，保险和消费信贷市场都受到高度管制，更好地了解这些市场将导致更有效和更有针对性的干预。 研究的所有组成部分都有直接的政策影响。 例如，英国的选择分析年金市场说明了允许在固定缴款社会保障中有更多选择的成本效益分析，美国铝业公司的数据揭示了与新的医疗保险处方药福利有关的政策，消费信贷市场的工作解决了州高利贷法和个人破产法的后果。