Variations in Claims Making and Compensation in the United States

在受伤和生病之后，美国人依靠各种各样的机制来获得补偿。人们将私人保险、公共保险和民事司法系统内的机制结合起来。早期的学术研究发现了法律领域与人口特征和索赔之间的关系。近年来，关于人们如何索赔的实证研究很少，然而，美国人的人口特征以及美国的保险和民事司法机构都发生了重大变化。该项目将分析人们如何寻求与伤害和疾病相关的损失赔偿，并分析各种赔偿机构的互补作用。该项目将依赖于一个基于概率的互联网小组。在初始筛选之后，项目将选择一个子样本来解决伤害和赔偿问题。更好地了解人们是如何提出索赔的，哪些系统是有效的，以什么方式工作，如何随人口特征而变化，以及人们如何理解他们获得的赔偿，对于理解美国重大的社会和私人支出是至关重要的。这些问题涉及广泛的公共政策，包括私人和公共社会支出。主要研究人员将能够向决策者提供有关补充机制的信息。此外，该项目将培养学生的社会科学方法。

After injuries and illness, people in the United States rely upon a variety of mechanisms for compensation. People combine private insurance, public insurance, and mechanisms within the civil justice system. Earlier scholarship found relationships between the area of law and the demographic characteristics of people and claims making. In recent years there has been very little empirical scholarship on how people make claims, yet there have been substantial transformations in both the demographic characteristics of the people of the United States and in the insurance and civil justice institutions in the United States. This project will analyze how people search for compensation for losses associated with injuries and illnesses and analyze the complementary roles of various compensation institutions. The project will rely upon a probability-based Internet panel. After an initial screen, the project will select a subsample to address injuries and compensation. A better understanding of how people make claims, which systems work and in what way, how that varies by demographic characteristics, and how people understand the compensation they receive is fundamental to understanding significant social and private spending in the United States.The questions are relevant to a broad range of public policies, including private and public social spending. The principal investigators will be able to provide information to policymakers concerning complementary mechanisms. In addition, the project will train students in methods of the social sciences.