This paper empirically assesses the relative role of health plan prices, service quality and optional benefits in the decision to choose a health plan. We link representative German SOEP panel data from 2007 to 2010 to (i) health plan service quality indicators, (ii) measures of voluntary...

This paper provides fi eld evidence on (a) how price framing aff ects consumers' decision to switch health insurance plans and (b) how the price elasticity of demand for health insurance can be influenced by policymakers through simple regulatory efforts. In 2009, in order to foster competition...

Deductibles in health insurance are often regarded as a means to contain health care costs when individuals exhibit moral hazard. However, in the absence of moral hazard, voluntarily chosen deductibles may instead lead to self-selection into different insurance contracts. We use a set of new...

We study the effect of education on vaccination against COVID-19 and influenza in Germany and Europe. Our identification strategy makes use of changes in compulsory schooling laws and allows to estimate local average treatment effects for individuals between 59 and 91 years of age. We find no...

We study the effects of retirement on cognitive functioning among women aged 63 to 67 by exploiting a German retirement reform that raised the early retirement age for women born after 1951 by three years, from 60 to 63. Our indicators of cognitive functioning are experimental measures (word...

We analyze the effect of education on wages using German Socio-Economic Panel data and regional variation in mandatory years of schooling and the supply of schools. This allows us to estimate more than one local average treatment effect and heterogeneous effects for different groups of...