Suchergebnisse

Vera-Hernández acknowledges support from the ESRC Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy (RES-544-28-0001). Olivella acknowledges the support of the Government of Catalonia, project 2009SGR-169; as well as from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, project ECO2009-07616 and CONSOLIDER-INGENIO CSD2006-16. Olivella is a Research Fellow of MOVE. ; Altres ajuts: RES-544-28-0001 ; We test for asymmetric information in the UK private health insurance (PHI) market. In contrast to earlier research that considers either a purely private system or one where private insurance is complementary to public insurance, PHI is substitutive of the public system in the UK. Using a theoretical model of competition among insurers incorporating this characteristic, we link the type of selection (adverse or propitious) with the existence of risk-related information asymmetries. Using the British Household Panel Survey, we find evidence that adverse selection is present in the PHI market, which leads us to conclude that such information asymmetries exist.

This paper provides evidence on household responses to the relaxation of one barrier constraining adoption of health practices - lack of information - in a resource constrained setting. It examines the effects of a randomized intervention in Malawi which provides mothers with information on infant nutrition and health. It finds that the intervention results in increases in household food consumption, particularly of protein-rich foods by children. The increased household consumption is funded by increased father's labor supply, constituting evidence that changes in the perceived child health production function affect adult labor supply. Improved consumption also results in better child health.

We study how agents respond to performance incentives according to key personality traits (conscientiousness and neuroticism) through a field experiment offering financial incentives for improving maternal and neonatal health outcomes to rural Indian doctors. More conscientious providers performed better--but improved less--under performance incentives. The effect of the performance incentives was also smaller for providers with higher levels of neuroticism. Our results contribute to a growing body of empirical research on heterogeneous responses to incentives and have implications for worker selection.