Spending induced by health insurance is often called moral hazard and definitionally assumed to be inefficient. We adapt standard models and show that for those living "hand-to-mouth", the financing benefits of insurance cause a portion of moral hazard to be efficient. Although insurance's price...

It is well known that health insurance coverage increases the demand for health services. However, evidence on the effects of this increased demand on the structure and capacity of the health services market is relatively scarce. We analyze the effects of a reform in the German social health...