Risk classification refers to the use of observable characteristics by insurers to group individuals with similar expected claims, compute the corresponding premiums, and thereby reduce asymmetric information. With perfect risk classification, premiums fully reflect the expected cost associated...

This paper examines the economic consequences of manipulation of social insurance benefits. Using administrative data of the public long-term care insurance (LTCI) in Japan, we document novel discontinuity and bunching in the distribution of health scores that determine benefit levels for LTCI....

Risk classification refers to the use of observable characteristics by insurers to group individuals with similar expected claims, to compute the corresponding premiums, and thereby to reduce asymmetric information. Permitting risk classification may reduce informational asymmetry-induced...

The Affordable Care Act greatly expanded subsidized health insurance opportunities for low-income childless women through Medicaid and the Marketplace. This insurance provides better access to prescription-based contraception, which could reduce the number of births. At the same time, it lowers...

One of the most basic assumptions of our legal system is that when two parties face off in court, the case will be adjudicated before a judge who is trained in the law. This Essay begins by showing that empirically, the assumption that most judges have legal training does not hold true for many...

The article analyzes the use of some theories created to explain the trajectory of the welfare state on the developed countries of North America and Western Europe on the case of underdeveloped countries. It emphasizes that due to differences between developed and underdeveloped countries in...

Economic and political decisions usually involve a trade-off between efficiency and equality considerations. While some inequality is expected to prevail in our societies, high levels of it are objectionable on various grounds. One of the fundamental roles of government is to collect and...

This paper analyses the effects of Oportunidades conditional cash transfer program on school attendance and household income distribution, accounting for its partial and general equilibrium effects. Linking a microeconometric simulation model and a general equilibrium model in a bidirectional...

While decreasing inequality is generally considered desirable, and there is a growing understanding of which policies do and do not promote equality, much less is known regarding why these policies are adopted to varying degrees of intensity in different times and places. To explain this...

This paper examines the potential role of higher education subsidies as an insurance device against the risk of having a short life, that is, as a device reducing the variance in lifetime well-being due to unequal longevities. We use a two-period dynamic OLG economy with human capital and risky...