Health care financing and funding are usually analyzed in isolation. This paper combines the corresponding strands of the literature and thereby advances our understanding of the important interaction between them. We investigate the impact of three modes of health care financing, namely,...

In 1996, free choice of sickness fund was given to those insured under the German Public Health Insurance System, thus significantly intensifying competition among funds. As funds must not charge risk-related premiums (community rating), there are substantial selection incentives, i.e. funds...

Invoking Yaari's dual theory we develop a model of individual vaccination decisions that incorporates quasi-hyperbolic discounting (present-biasedness), risk aversion, and information. We test the resulting hypotheses for the flu season 2010/2011 using a representative German data set. It turns...

We build a two-dimensional political economy model to explain the provision and financing of long-term care and income redistribution. Voting agents differ in need and income opening up two conflicts: one sets families with disabled parents, who are in favor of a public long-term care program,...

While risk selection within the German public health insurance system has received considerable attention, risk selection between public and private health insurers has largely been ignored. This is surprising since - given the institutional structure - risk selection between systems is likely...

We consider a setting of dual practice, where a physician offers free public treatment and, if allowed, a private treatment for which patients have to pay out of pocket. Private treatment is superior in terms of health outcomes but more costly and time intensive. For the latter reason it...

ABSTRACT We investigate risk selection between public and private health insurance in Germany. With risk‐rated premiums in the private system and community‐rated premiums in the public system, advantageous selection in favor of private insurers is expected. Using 2000 to 2007 data from the...

Health care systems are under reform in many countries. This typically involves a shift towards more competition. But still, markets are highly regulated. This study analyzes competition and regulatory measures in four important fields using the modern tools of microeconomic theory and...

We analyze the deficits of the German Länder for the period from 1960 to 2005 and test a number of hypotheses derived from the literature on the political economy of public deficits. Estimating a dynamic panel data model, we find evidence for political opportunism in the spirit of Rogoff and...