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dc.contributor.advisorJames M. Poterba and Jonathan Gruber.en_US
dc.contributor.authorFinkelstein, Amyen_US
dc.contributor.otherMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Economics.en_US
dc.date.accessioned2005-08-23T22:02:27Z
dc.date.available2005-08-23T22:02:27Z
dc.date.copyright2001en_US
dc.date.issued2001en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8652
dc.descriptionThesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2001.en_US
dc.descriptionIncludes bibliographical references (p. 142-143).en_US
dc.description.abstractThis thesis examines the workings of insurance markets. The first two papers examine the effect of government tax and regulatory policy in markets for supplementary health insurance. The third paper presents new evidence of the importance of adverse selection in insurance markets. The first paper examines the empirical consequences of imposing binding minimum standards on the market for private health insurance for the elderly in the United States. I find robust evidence of a substantial (40 percent) decline in insurance coverage associated with imposing these minimum standards. The standards are also associated with a reduction in coverage of non-mandated benefits among the insured. The minimum standards therefore, while requiring additional insurance coverage among the insured, were also associated with both extensive and intensive declines in insurance coverage. Considering all of these various changes, I estimate that the standards were, on net, welfare reducing. The second paper presents new evidence of the effect of the tax subsidy to employer-provided health insurance on coverage by such insurance.en_US
dc.description.abstract(cont.) I study the effects of a 1993 tax change that reduced the tax subsidy to employer-provided supplementary health insurance in Quebec by over half. Using a differences-in-differences methodology in which changes in Quebec are compared with changes in other Canadian provinces not affected by the reform, I estimate an elasticity of employer coverage with respect to the tax price of -0.46 to -0.49. The tax subsidy appears much more critical to the provision of supplementary health insurance in small firms than in larger ones. The third paper, written jointly with James Poterba. re-examines the importance of adverse selection in insurance markets. We use a unique data set of all annuity policies sold by a large U.K. insurance company since the early 1980s to analyze mortality differences among individuals who purchased different types of policies. We find systematic relationships between ex-post mortality and annuity policy characteristics that are consistent with models of asymmetric information in insurance markets. We confirm that the pricing of features of annuity contracts is consistent with the self-selection patterns we find in mortality rates.en_US
dc.description.statementofresponsibilityby Amy Nadya Finkelstein.en_US
dc.format.extent151 p.en_US
dc.format.extent17200960 bytes
dc.format.extent17200721 bytes
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisherMassachusetts Institute of Technologyen_US
dc.rightsM.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.en_US
dc.rights.urihttp://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
dc.subjectEconomics.en_US
dc.titleAdverse selection and government intervention in life and health insurance marketsen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.description.degreePh.D.en_US
dc.contributor.departmentMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
dc.identifier.oclc49621607en_US


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