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...

We complement the empirical evidence on the sustainability of weight loss achieved through cash rewards and, for the first time, rigorously examine the potential of cash rewards to prevent weight cycling. In a three period randomized controlled trial, about 700 obese persons were first assigned...

The coexistence of social health insurance and private health insurance in Germany is subject to intense public debate. As only few have the opportunity to choose between the two systems, they are often regarded as privileged by the health insurance system. Applying a hazard model in discrete...

We test whether financial incentives have an effect on weight reduction in a randomized controlled trial involving 700 obese persons assigned to three experimental groups. While two treatment groups obtain Euro150 and Euro300, respectively, for achieving an individually assigned target weight...

Over the last years, public smoking bans have been introduced in most European countries. Unlike elsewhere, in Germany such bans were introduced at state level at diff erent points in time, which provides important intra-country regional variation that can be exploited to identify the eff ects...

The classical Heckman (1976, 1979) selection correction estimator (heckit) is misspecified and inconsistent if an interaction of the outcome variable and an explanatory variable matters for selection. To address this specification problem, a full information maximum likelihood estimator and a...

In a randomized controlled trial involving 700 obese persons assigned to three experimental groups, we test whether financial incentives have heterogeneous effects on weight reduction. While two treatment groups obtain EUR 150 and EUR 300, respectively, for achieving an individually-assigned...

This study analyses a parametric estimator for a system of equations with limited dependent variables that was recently proposed. Its performance is compared with those of alternative estimation procedures using Monte Carlo methods. The comparison shows that this new estimator is less efficient...

Nonrandom sample selection may render estimated treatment effects biased even if assignment of treatment is purely random. Lee (2009, Review of Economic Studies, 76: 1071–1102) proposes an estimator for treatment-effect bounds that limit the possible range of the treatment effect. In this...