Do I know more than my body can tell? An Empirical Analysis of Private Information

Economic theory stresses the importance of adverse selection in competitive insurance markets. The empirical evidence for adverse selection in different health-related insurance markets, however, is mixed. This study evaluates whether different degrees of private information left after different underwriting processes could explain these findings. The analysis uses data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, one of the rare longitudinal data sets with objectively measured health information. Using self-rated health as a proxy for private information this study finds that thorough underwriting eliminates private information on health risks and thus the scope for adverse selection in life and health insurance

Is Traditional Teaching really all that Bad? A Within-Student Between-Subject Approach

Recent studies conclude that teachers are important for student learning but it remains uncertain what actually determines effective teaching. This study directly peers into the black box of educational production by investigating the relationship between lecture style teaching and student achievement. Based on matched student-teacher data for the US, the estimation strategy exploits between-subject variation to control for unobserved student traits. Results indicate that traditional lecture style teaching is associated with significantly higher student achievement. No support for detrimental effects of lecture style teaching can be found even when evaluating possible selection biases due to unobservable teacher characteristics.teaching practices, educational production, TIMSS, between-subject variation

Is traditional teaching really all that bad? : a within-student between-subject approach

Recent studies conclude that teachers are important for student learning but it remains uncertain what actually determines effective teaching. This study directly peers into the black box of educational production by investigating the relationship between lecture style teaching and student achievement. Based on matched student-teacher data for the US, the estimation strategy exploits between-subject variation to control for unobserved student traits. Results indicate that traditional lecture style teaching is associated with significantly higher student achievement. No support for detrimental effects of lecture style teaching can be found even when evaluating possible selection biases due to unobservable teacher characteristics

Do they know what's at risk? Health risk perception among the Obese

The perception of disease risks and risky health behaviors are closely associated. In this paper, we investigate the accuracy of disease risk perceptions among obese individuals. We compare subjective risk perceptions for various diseases elicited in the American Life Panel (ALP) to individual's objective risks of the same diseases. We find that obese individuals significantly underestimate their 5-year risks of diabetes, arthritis or rheumatism, and hypertension, while they systematically overestimate their 5-year risks of a heart attack and a stroke. Obese individuals are thus aware of some but not all obesity-related risks. For given diseases, we document substantial heterogeneities in the accuracy of expectations across individuals

The Price Sensitivity of Health Plan Choice: Evidence from Retirees in the German Social Health Insurance

We investigate two determinants of the price sensitivity of health plan demand: the size of the choice set and the salience of premium differences. Using variation in both features in the German Social Health Insurance (SHI) and information on health plan switches of retirees in the German Socio Economic Panel, augmented with information on individuals’ choice sets we find that retirees react less to potential savings from switching when they have more plans to choose from and when differences between premiums are less salient. Simplifying choices could save consumers money and improve the functioning of the health insurance market

Plan Responses to Diagnosis-Based Payment: Evidence from Germany's Morbidity-Based Risk Adjustment

Many competitive health insurance markets adjust payments to participating health plans according to their enrollees’ risk – including based on diagnostic information. We investigate responses of German health plans to the introduction of morbidity-based risk adjustment in the Statutory Health Insurance in 2009, which triggers payments based on “validated” diagnoses by providers. Using the regulator’s data from office-based physicians, we estimate a difference-in-difference analysis of the change in the share and number of validated diagnoses for ICD codes that are inside or outside the risk adjustment but are otherwise similar. We find a differential increase in the share of validated diagnoses of 2.6 and 3.6 percentage points (3-4%) between 2008 and 2013. This increase appears to originate from both a shift from not-validated toward validated diagnoses and an increase in the number of such diagnoses. Overall, our results indicate that plans were successful in influencing physicians’ coding practices in a way that could lead to higher payments

Heterogeneous Effects of a Nonlinear Price Schedule for Outpatient Care

Theoretical considerations suggest that nonlinear health care price schedules have heterogeneous effects on health care demand. In this paper, we develop and apply a finite mixture bivariate probit model to analyze whether there are heterogeneous reactions to the introduction of a nonlinear price schedule in the German statutory health insurance system. In administrative insurance claims data from the largest German health insurance plan, we find that some individuals strongly react to the new price schedule while a second group of individuals does not react. Post-estimation analyses reveal that the group of the individuals who do not react to the reform includes the relatively sick. These results are in line with forward-looking behavior: Individuals who are already sick expect that they will hit the kink in the price schedule and thus are less sensitive to the co-payment

Do Teaching Practices Influence Student Achievement? * Preliminary Version

Abstract Recent studies have come to the conclusion that teachers matter for student learning and achievement. But up to now it remains uncertain what actually makes a good teacher. This study tries to shed light on the determinants of teacher quality by analyzing the relationship between a teaching practice and student achievement. The teaching practice looked at is the percentage of time the teacher spends in class giving lecture style presentation compared to having students solve problems. The study is based on matched student-teacher data for the United States from the 2003 Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS). The data set allows to control for subject constant student traits by looking at test score differences between two subjects, math and science. While most teacher characteristics and qualifications do not explain the within student difference in test scores, more time spent on lecture style presentation is found to be an important determinant and therefore is likely an important factor related to teacher quality. JEL-Code: I21, C21

Is traditional teaching really all that bad? A within-student between-subject approach

Recent studies conclude that teachers are important for student learning but it remains uncertain what actually determines effective teaching. This study directly peers into the black box of educational production by investigating the relationship between lecture style teaching and student achievement. Based on matched student-teacher data for the US, the estimation strategy exploits between-subject variation to control for unobserved student traits. Results indicate that traditional lecture style teaching is associated with significantly higher student achievement. No support for detrimental effects of lecture style teaching can be found even when evaluating possible selection biases due to unobservable teacher characteristics.Teaching practices Educational production TIMSS Between-subject variation