Policy Choice and Product Bundling in a Complicated Health Insurance Market: Do People Get It Right?

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Human Resources
Year: 2020
Volume: 55
Issue: 2

Score contribution per author:

4.022 = (α=2.01 / 1 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Understanding how consumers choose health insurance and the quality of those choices is crucial information for policymakers. This paper uses a choice experiment to evaluate choice quality and how this interacts with an important form of complexity—product bundling. The results indicate that consumers are likely to make choices that violate expected utility theory, use heuristic decision strategies, and overinsure relative to minimizing out-of-pocket costs. Product bundling is found to exacerbate all of these tendencies. The experimental approach used overcomes some limitations of revealed preference research in this area, such as the endogeneity of choosing bundled insurance.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:uwp:jhriss:v:55:y:2020:i:2:p:566-610
Journal Field
Labor
Author Count
1
Added to Database
2026-01-25