New papers
Socioeconomic Network Heterogeneity and Pandemic Policy Response
with Mohammad Akbarpour, Cody Cook, Aude Marzuoli, Simon Mongey, Abhishek Nagaraj, Matteo Saccarola, Shoshana Vasserman, and Hanbin Yang
Extras: www.reopenmappingproject.com
with Mohammad Akbarpour, Cody Cook, Aude Marzuoli, Simon Mongey, Abhishek Nagaraj, Matteo Saccarola, Shoshana Vasserman, and Hanbin Yang
Extras: www.reopenmappingproject.com
Working papers
Estimating Equilibrium in Health Insurance Exchanges: Price Competition and Subsidy Design under the ACA
(R&R - The American Economic Review)
Extras: BFI research brief , A fine theorem (blog)
Nonparametric Estimates of Demand in the California Health Insurance Exchange
(R&R - Econometrica) NBER wp # 25827
with Alex Torgovitsky and Hanbin Yang
Regulated Age-Based Pricing under the Affordable Care Act
(R&R - Journal of Health Economics)
with Joe Orsini
Market Design in Regulated Health Insurance Markets: Risk Adjustment vs. Subsidies
with Liran Einav and Amy Finkelstein
The Costs of Payment Uncertainty in Healthcare Markets
with Abe Dunn, Joshua Gottlieb, Adam Shapiro
(R&R - The American Economic Review)
Extras: BFI research brief , A fine theorem (blog)
Nonparametric Estimates of Demand in the California Health Insurance Exchange
(R&R - Econometrica) NBER wp # 25827
with Alex Torgovitsky and Hanbin Yang
Regulated Age-Based Pricing under the Affordable Care Act
(R&R - Journal of Health Economics)
with Joe Orsini
Market Design in Regulated Health Insurance Markets: Risk Adjustment vs. Subsidies
with Liran Einav and Amy Finkelstein
The Costs of Payment Uncertainty in Healthcare Markets
with Abe Dunn, Joshua Gottlieb, Adam Shapiro
Work in progress (slides or drafts available upon request)
Distance to Physicians and Value of Choice in Individual Health Insurance
with Jose Ignacio Cuesta
Health insurance plans differ vertically and horizontally. If horizontal differences are not valued by buyers, alternative market designs under which the uninsured are assigned to the same carrier ---chosen through a competitive procurement process--- would limit welfare losses from adverse selection and imperfect competition. We use rich data from the California health insurance marketplace regulated under the ACA to compare consumer surplus under the status quo to the consumer surplus if only a limited set of insurers are left in the market. Young households without children value shopping on premium more than shopping on networks, while older households and households with children incur a large loss if only narrow networks are available in the market. If a large network PPO plan was the only option in the market, and this plan was pricing to extract a 15% markup (85% medical-loss-ratio), the median consumer would be better off than under the status quo.
Choice Frictions and Information Provision in Health Insurance Marketplaces
with Honglin Li
We study the effects of information provision to individuals choosing plans in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. We combine data on individual-level plan choice and type of enrollment assistance received with zip-code-level in-person assistance channels from Covered California. We find that a 10 percentage point increase in receiving assistance lowers the probability of choosing a dominated option by 40% of the baseline mistake rate (3-5%). In-person assistance provided by the government is more effective than assistance provided by agents and insurance brokers.
with Jose Ignacio Cuesta
Health insurance plans differ vertically and horizontally. If horizontal differences are not valued by buyers, alternative market designs under which the uninsured are assigned to the same carrier ---chosen through a competitive procurement process--- would limit welfare losses from adverse selection and imperfect competition. We use rich data from the California health insurance marketplace regulated under the ACA to compare consumer surplus under the status quo to the consumer surplus if only a limited set of insurers are left in the market. Young households without children value shopping on premium more than shopping on networks, while older households and households with children incur a large loss if only narrow networks are available in the market. If a large network PPO plan was the only option in the market, and this plan was pricing to extract a 15% markup (85% medical-loss-ratio), the median consumer would be better off than under the status quo.
Choice Frictions and Information Provision in Health Insurance Marketplaces
with Honglin Li
We study the effects of information provision to individuals choosing plans in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. We combine data on individual-level plan choice and type of enrollment assistance received with zip-code-level in-person assistance channels from Covered California. We find that a 10 percentage point increase in receiving assistance lowers the probability of choosing a dominated option by 40% of the baseline mistake rate (3-5%). In-person assistance provided by the government is more effective than assistance provided by agents and insurance brokers.
Publications
3. Interactive Epistemology in Simple Dynamic Games with a Continuum of Strategies
Economic Theory, 2018
with Pierpaolo Battigalli
2. The Impact of Market Size and Composition on Health Insurance Premiums: Evidence from the First Year of the ACA
American Economic Review, Papers & Proceedings, 2015
with Michael Dickstein, Mark Duggan, and Joe Orsini
1. M Statistic Commands: Interpoint Distance Distribution Analysis
The Stata Journal, 2011
with Marco Bonetti and Marcello Pagano
Economic Theory, 2018
with Pierpaolo Battigalli
2. The Impact of Market Size and Composition on Health Insurance Premiums: Evidence from the First Year of the ACA
American Economic Review, Papers & Proceedings, 2015
with Michael Dickstein, Mark Duggan, and Joe Orsini
1. M Statistic Commands: Interpoint Distance Distribution Analysis
The Stata Journal, 2011
with Marco Bonetti and Marcello Pagano
Other work
Centrality Measures in Networks
with Francisc Bloch and Matthew Jackson
A Forest Fire Theory of the Duration of a Boom and the Size of a Subsequent Bust
with Matthew Jackson
with Francisc Bloch and Matthew Jackson
A Forest Fire Theory of the Duration of a Boom and the Size of a Subsequent Bust
with Matthew Jackson