Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976) show that there need not exist a competitive equilibrium in markets with adverse selection. Building on their framework we demonstrate that externalities between agents - an agent's utility upon accepting a contract depends on the average type attracted by the...

In this paper we allude to a novel role played by the non-linear income tax system in the presence of adverse selection in the labor market due to asymmetric information between workers and firms. We show that an appropriate choice of the tax schedule enables the government to affect the wage...

In this paper, we present a matching model with adverse selection that explains why flows into and out of unemployment are much lower in Europe compared to North America, while employment-to-employment flows are similar in the two continents. In the model, firms use discretion in terms of whom...

This paper studies how asymmetric information over inputs affects workers' response to incentives and self-selection at the workplace. Using daily records from a Peruvian egg production plant, we exploit a sudden change in the worker salary structure and find that workers' effort, firm profits,...

We analyze the effects of adverse selection on worker turnover and wage dynamics in a frictional labor market. We consider a model of on-the-job search where firms offer promotion wage contracts to workers of different abilities, which is unknown to firms at the hiring stage. With sufficiently...

This paper considers an economy where individuals differ in productivity and in risk. Rochet (1991) has shown that when private insurance markets offer full coverage at fair rates, social insurance is desirable if and only if risk and productivity are negatively correlated. This condition is...

Information asymmetries can prevent markets from operating efficiently. An important example is the labor market, where employers face uncertainty about the productivity of job candidates. We examine theoretically and with laboratory experiments three key questions related to hiring via...

We present robust evidence on the presence of adverse selection in hospitalization insurance for low-income households. A large randomized control trial from Pakistan allows us to separate adverse selection from moral hazard, to estimate how selection changes at different points of the demand...

Starting from December 2012, insurers in the European Union were prohibited from charging gender-discriminatory prices. We examine the effect of this unisex mandate on risk segmentation in the German health insurance market. While gender used to be a pricing factor in Germany's private health...

A standard hidden information model is considered to study the influence of the a priori productivity distribution on the optimal contract. A priori more productive (hazard rate dominant) agents work less, enjoy lower rents, but generate a higher expected surplus.