-
作者：Ketcham, Jonathan D.; Kuminoff, Nicolai V.; Powers, Christopher A.
作者单位：Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：We develop a method that embeds signals about consumers' knowledge to evaluate prospective choice architecture policies. We analyze three proposals for U.S. Medicare prescription drug insurance markets: (i) menu restrictions, (ii) personalized information, and (iii) defaulting consumers to cheap plans. We link administrative and survey data to identify informed enrollment decisions that proxy for preferences of observationally similar misinformed consumers. Results suggest that each policy yie...
-
作者：Peterman, William B.; Sommer, Kamila
作者单位：Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve System Board of Governors
摘要：Using a computational life cycle model, this article assesses how Social Security affects the welfare of different types of individuals during the Great Recession. Overall, we find that Social Security reduces the average welfare losses for agents alive at the time of the Great Recession by the equivalent of 1.4% of expected future lifetime consumption. Moreover, we show that although the program mitigates some of the welfare losses for most agents, it is particularly effective at mitigating t...
-
作者：Chen, Zhiqi
作者单位：Nanjing University; Carleton University
摘要：This article analyzes the impact of retailer buyer power on a supplier's incentive to conduct innovation, with a focus on the supplier's investment in product variety and quality improvement. The analysis shows that an increase in buyer power, manifested through either a weakening of the supplier's bargaining position or a strengthening of a large retailer's bargaining power, leads to greater product variety and higher quality if the elasticity of demand is not too large. Increased buyer power...
-
作者：Melo, Emerson; Pogorelskiy, Kirill; Shum, Matthew
作者单位：Indiana University System; Indiana University Bloomington; University of Warwick; California Institute of Technology
摘要：We develop a nonparametric test for consistency of player behavior with the quantal response equilibrium (QRE). The test exploits a characterization of the equilibrium choice probabilities in any structural QRE as the gradient of a convex function; thereby, QRE-consistent choices satisfy the cyclic monotonicity inequalities. Our testing procedure utilizes recent econometric results for moment inequality models. We assess our test using lab experimental data from a series of generalized matchin...
-
作者：Toxvaerd, Flavio
作者单位：University of Cambridge
摘要：This article studies a model of disease propagation in which rational and forward-looking individuals can control their exposure to infection by engaging in costly preventive behavior. Equilibrium outcomes under decentralized decision making are characterized and contrasted to the outcomes chosen by a social planner. In general, individuals overexpose themselves to infection, leading to suboptimally high disease prevalence. The model is applied to study the welfare effects of preexposure proph...
-
作者：Troyan, Peter
作者单位：University of Virginia
摘要：Although there is a rich theoretical literature extolling the virtues of the top trading cycles (TTCs) mechanism, it is rarely used in practice. Anecdotal evidence suggests that one possible explanation is that TTC is difficult for participants to understand. This article formalizes this intuition by asking whether it is possible to implement TTC in an obviously strategy-proof (OSP) way. I identify an acyclicity condition that is both necessary and sufficient for OSP implementation of TTC. The...
-
作者：Merlo, Antonio; Tang, Xun
作者单位：Rice University
摘要：We study a model of bargaining with optimism where players have heterogeneous beliefs about the final resolution. Beliefs and bargaining surplus are identified from the settlement probability and the distribution of accepted transfers. Using data from medical malpractice lawsuits in Florida, we estimate doctor and patient beliefs and the distribution of potential compensation. We find that patients are more optimistic and doctors more pessimistic when the severity of injury is higher, and the ...
-
作者：Fischer, Marcel; Khorunzhina, Natalia
作者单位：University of Konstanz; Copenhagen Business School
摘要：We build a life-cycle model of housing decisions under divorce risk that predicts that the recent increase in divorce rates leads to reduced homeownership rates. The risk of a divorce triggers a precautionary-savings motive. However, this motive is weaker when individuals can invest in owner-occupied homes because homeowners' higher savings partially substitute for precautionary savings. When young, the larger asset accumulation due to divorce-risk-induced precautionary savings enables househo...
-
作者：Wrenn, Douglas H.; Klaiber, H. Allen
作者单位：Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Pennsylvania State University; Pennsylvania State University - University Park; University System of Ohio; Ohio State University
摘要：Property taxes and zoning restrictions are prevalent tools for managing land use. We combine microlevel data on residential subdivision development from the Baltimore, Maryland, metro area from 1994 to 2007 with a competing risks model to examine how both policies influence the density and timing of residential development. Consistent with theory, we demonstrate that the impact of both policies on optimal density and timing depends on whether density and time are substitutes or complements in ...
-
作者：Chen, Yi; Mazzocco, Maurizio; Szemely, Bela
作者单位：Jinan University; University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; United States Department of the Treasury; Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
摘要：The U.S. saving rate declined by 8% between 1980 and 2009. We document that the decline can be explained by rising health expenditures. Using exogenous variation in medical expenses generated by Food and Drug Administration drug approvals, we document that a 1 percentage point increase in health expenditure generated a decline in saving rate of 0.9 percentage points. We then estimate a model of household decisions to evaluate the mechanisms behind the decline. We find that the rise in health e...
