Hips and Hearts: The Variation in Incentive Effects of Insurance across Hospital Procedures
39 Pages Posted: 12 Jun 2013 Last revised: 25 Jun 2013
Date Written: May 29, 2013
Abstract
The separate identification of effects due to incentives, selection and preference heterogeneity in insurance markets is the topic of much debate. In this paper, we investigate the presence and variation in moral hazard across health care procedures. The key motivating hypothesis is the expectation of larger causal effects in the case of more discretionary procedures. The empirical approach relies on an extremely rich and extensive dataset constructed by linking survey data to administrative data for hospital medical records. Using this approach we are able to provide credible evidence of large moral hazard effects but for elective surgeries only.
Keywords: health insurance, asymmetric information, moral hazard
JEL Classification: D82, I11, I13
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation