A medical test that an insurance company could use to distinguish between high- and low-risk types would create an equilibrium in which both high- and low-risk types could have full insurance. Sketch a brief proof using a diagram. Why is this equilibrium not an equilibrium under the normal information asymmetry assumptions? Show which of the three equilibrium criteria does not hold.

A medical test that an insurance company could use to distinguish between high- and low-risk types would create an equilibrium in which both high- and low-risk types could have full insurance. Sketch a brief proof using a diagram. Why is this equilibrium not an equilibrium under the normal information asymmetry assumptions? Show which of the three equilibrium criteria does not hold.

Managerial Economics: A Problem Solving Approach

5th Edition

ISBN:9781337106665

Author:Luke M. Froeb, Brian T. McCann, Michael R. Ward, Mike Shor

Publisher:Luke M. Froeb, Brian T. McCann, Michael R. Ward, Mike Shor

Chapter19: The Problem Of Adverse Selection

Section: Chapter Questions

Problem 19.5IP

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Which of the following statements is FALSE regarding the concept of "adverse selection"? Multiple Choice Adverse selection describes a situation where an individual's demand for insurance is positively correlated with the individual's risk of loss. Adverse selection occurs when someone increases their exposure to risk when insured. This can happen, for example, when a person takes more risks because someone else bears the cost of those risks. The relationship between smoking status and mortality provides a good illustration for adverse selection, especially in the case in which a life insurance company did not vary its premiums according to smoking status of its customers. To counter the effects of adverse selection, insurers may offer premiums that are proportional to a customer's risk.
Provide an intuitive discussion of how adverse selection affects the used-car market. Describe one potential signal that can help alleviate the problem of adverse selection in this market and discuss how this signal satisfies the two necessary assumptions for it to be used as a credible signal.
Give an example, real or imaginary, of an adverse selection problem. Your example must clearly point out: what information is private/asymmetric (is it an attribute or an action?) which party has the private information when does the information asymmetry arise (before or after the contract/transaction?) what is the likely outcome and in which way it can be inefficient
This question is broken into 4 parts. Please answer all parts. A. Explain the relation between moral hazard and insurance premiums. B. Now think about how people with different health risks assess insurance products with a given deductible, and explain how supporters of minimizing adverse selection should think about a proposal (say from Bernie Sanders) that all insurance policies should have zero deductibles and coinsurance. C. Does community rating make the policy tradeoffs inherent in b harder or easier to manage? D. Would a purchase mandate make the policy tradeoffs inherent in b + c harder or easier to manage?
Let firms not have perfect information about the consumer's type; that is, they do not know if the consumer is a robust type or a frail type. Explain why a firm offering two insurance plans Omega1 and Omega3 is an equilibrium.
Suppose that Elaine’s demand for doctor visits per year is given by the equation: P = 250 – 20Q, where Q is the number of doctor visits and P is the price. The marginal cost of providing this service is fixed at $130 per patient. What is the efficient level of visits per year? What would be the total cost to provide the efficient level of visits? On a supply/demand graph, illustrate this situation; label the efficient levels from part (a). If Elaine obtains insurance with no deductible and a copayment of $10 per visit, how many times would she visit the doctor per year? In total, how much does Elaine pay out of pocket for her visits and how much does the insurer have to pay? Calculate the deadweight loss resulting from the insurance policy and show this region on your graph. What happens to the size of the deadweight loss as the copayment increases? Briefly explain why the insurance policy can induce moral hazard.
The problem of adverse selection in insurance markets means that it is generally a bad deal for companies to offer insurance at the same price for all potential customers. Why then do we observe some insurance companies (such as those selling “trip insurance” that refunds money to people who purchase trips that they are unable to take) do exactly this?
Indicate whether the statement is true or false, and justify your answer.In a Rothschild–Stiglitz model separating equilibrium, low-risk consumers of insurance are quantity constrained. They cannot buy as much insurance as they want because the insurance company is worried it will lose money on them.
Suppose that left-handed people are more prone to injury than right-handed people. Lefties have an 80 percent chance of suffering an injury leading to a $1,000 loss (in terms of medical expenses and the monetary equivalent of pain and suffering) but righties have only a 20 percent chance of suffering such an injury. The population contains equal numbers of lefties and righties. Individuals all have logarithmic utility-of-wealth functions and initial wealth of $10,000. Assume perfectly competitive insurance market and find (i) the first best and (ii) the second-best contracts.
In the mid-1990s, the state of New Jersey revised its rules for the individual insurance market and began requiring that insurers charge the same premiums for the same coverage to all applicants. Assuming that insurers had previously used medical underwriting, which of the following is a predictable consequence of adverse selection? 1) Insurance becomes less attractive to the healthiest individuals, so fewer of them buy it 2) Insurers’ average costs of providing coverage increase because of a changing risk pool 3) The average age of those buying in the individual market goes up 4) All of the above
Asymmetric information makes it hard for investors to sell securities. Banks, meaning both investment and commercial, specialize in reducing asymmetric information. What methods do they have for reducing information asymmetries? Be sure to specify if the methods are designed to reduce the problems of adverse selection or moral hazard.
Give an example, real or imaginary, of a moral hazard problem. Again, your example must clearly point out: what information is private/asymmetric (is it an attribute or an action?) which party has the private information when does the information asymmetry arise (before or after the contract/transaction?) what is the likely outcome and in which way it can be inefficient