Moral Hazard in Health Insurance: What We Know and How We Know It
© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of European Economic Association. We describe research on the impact of health insurance on healthcare spending ("moral hazard"), and use this context to illustrate the value of and important complementarities between dif...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press (OUP)
2021
|
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134717 |
| _version_ | 1826211357774577664 |
|---|---|
| author | Einav, Liran Finkelstein, Amy |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics Einav, Liran Finkelstein, Amy |
| author_sort | Einav, Liran |
| collection | MIT |
| description | © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of European Economic Association. We describe research on the impact of health insurance on healthcare spending ("moral hazard"), and use this context to illustrate the value of and important complementarities between different empirical approaches. One common approach is to emphasize a credible research design; we review results from two randomized experiments, as well as some quasi-experimental studies. This work has produced compelling evidence that moral hazard in health insurance exists-that is, individuals, on average, consume less healthcare when they are required to pay more for it out of pocket-as well as qualitative evidence about its nature. These studies alone, however, provide little guidance for forecasting healthcare spending under contracts not directly observed in the data. Therefore, a second and complementary approach is to develop an economic model that can be used out of sample. We note that modeling choices can be consequential: different economic models may fit the reduced form but deliver different counterfactual predictions. An additional role of the more descriptive analyses is therefore to provide guidance regarding model choice. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:04:37Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/134717 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:04:37Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1347172023-10-05T19:36:40Z Moral Hazard in Health Insurance: What We Know and How We Know It Einav, Liran Finkelstein, Amy Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of European Economic Association. We describe research on the impact of health insurance on healthcare spending ("moral hazard"), and use this context to illustrate the value of and important complementarities between different empirical approaches. One common approach is to emphasize a credible research design; we review results from two randomized experiments, as well as some quasi-experimental studies. This work has produced compelling evidence that moral hazard in health insurance exists-that is, individuals, on average, consume less healthcare when they are required to pay more for it out of pocket-as well as qualitative evidence about its nature. These studies alone, however, provide little guidance for forecasting healthcare spending under contracts not directly observed in the data. Therefore, a second and complementary approach is to develop an economic model that can be used out of sample. We note that modeling choices can be consequential: different economic models may fit the reduced form but deliver different counterfactual predictions. An additional role of the more descriptive analyses is therefore to provide guidance regarding model choice. 2021-10-27T20:08:49Z 2021-10-27T20:08:49Z 2018 2019-10-22T17:29:04Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134717 en 10.1093/JEEA/JVY017 Journal of the European Economic Association Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ application/pdf Oxford University Press (OUP) Oxford University Press |
| spellingShingle | Einav, Liran Finkelstein, Amy Moral Hazard in Health Insurance: What We Know and How We Know It |
| title | Moral Hazard in Health Insurance: What We Know and How We Know It |
| title_full | Moral Hazard in Health Insurance: What We Know and How We Know It |
| title_fullStr | Moral Hazard in Health Insurance: What We Know and How We Know It |
| title_full_unstemmed | Moral Hazard in Health Insurance: What We Know and How We Know It |
| title_short | Moral Hazard in Health Insurance: What We Know and How We Know It |
| title_sort | moral hazard in health insurance what we know and how we know it |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134717 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT einavliran moralhazardinhealthinsurancewhatweknowandhowweknowit AT finkelsteinamy moralhazardinhealthinsurancewhatweknowandhowweknowit |