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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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- Innovation (3)
- Disability and Long-Term Care (2)
- Health Insurance (2)
- Obesity and Body Weight (2)
- Terrorism Risk and Insurance (2)
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- Education Production (1)
- Health disparities (1)
- Insurance (1)
- Market structure (1)
- Medical care (1)
- Medicare (1)
- Nonprofit Behavior (1)
- Nonprofit firms (1)
- Poverty (1)
- Research policy; Technological change; Patents; Research contracts (1)
- Self-protection (1)
- Social Insurance (1)
- Socioeconomic status (1)
- Technology (1)
- Terrorism (1)
Articles 1 - 13 of 13
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Labor Supply And Weight, Darius Lakdawalla, Tomas Philipson
Labor Supply And Weight, Darius Lakdawalla, Tomas Philipson
Darius N. Lakdawalla
We use panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to investigate on-the-job exercise and weight. For male workers, job-related exercise has causal effects on weight, but for female workers, the effects seem primarily selective. A man who spends 18 years in the most physical fitness-demanding occupation is about 25 pounds (14 percent) lighter than his peer in the least demanding occupation. These effects are strongest for the heaviest quartile of men. Conversely, a male worker spending 18 years in the most strength-demanding occupation is about 28 pounds (15 percent) heavier than his counterpart in the least demanding job.
Welfare-Enhancing Technological Change And The Growth Of Obesity, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Tomas J. Philipson, Jay Bhattacharya
Welfare-Enhancing Technological Change And The Growth Of Obesity, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Tomas J. Philipson, Jay Bhattacharya
Darius N. Lakdawalla
No abstract provided.
Intellectual Property And Marketing, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Tomas J. Philipson, Y. Richard Wang
Intellectual Property And Marketing, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Tomas J. Philipson, Y. Richard Wang
Darius N. Lakdawalla
Patent protection spurs innovation by raising the rewards for research, but it usually results in less desirable allocations after the innovation has been discovered. In effect, patents reward inventors with inefficient monopoly power. However, previous analysis of intellectual property has focused only on the costs patents impose by restricting price-competition. We analyze the potentially important but overlooked role played by competition on dimensions other than price. Compared to a patent monopoly, competitive firms may engage in inefficient levels of non-price competition-such as marketing-when these activities confer benefits on competitors. Patent monopolies may thus price less efficiently, but market more efficiently …
The Economics Of Teacher Quality, Darius Lakdawalla
The Economics Of Teacher Quality, Darius Lakdawalla
Darius N. Lakdawalla
Concern is often voiced about the quality of American schoolteachers. This paper suggests that, while the relative quality of teachers is declining, this decline may be the result of technological changes that have raised the price of skilled workers outside teaching without affecting the productivity of skilled teachers. Growth in the price of skilled workers can cause schools to lower the relative quality of teachers and raise teacher quantity instead. Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth demonstrates that wage and schooling are good measures of teacher quality. Analysis of U.S. census microdata then reveals that the relative schooling …
The Nonprofit Sector And Industry Performance, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Tomas Philipson
The Nonprofit Sector And Industry Performance, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Tomas Philipson
Darius N. Lakdawalla
Given the importance of nonprofit industries in the economy, little analysis has been conducted as to whether the behavior of such industries differs from that of for profit industries. Extending previous firm-level analyses, we propose a neoclassical theory with an endogenous nonprofit sector. Our analysis implies that nonprofit firms have a competitive advantage over for-profit firms, so that marginal changes in the industry operate through the for-profit sector. As such, marginal industry behavior is identical to that of a for-profit industry, and nonprofit regulations may have a limited impact or even no impact on overall industry performance. Our theory has …
Health Insurance As A Two-Part Pricing Contract, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Neeraj Sood
Health Insurance As A Two-Part Pricing Contract, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Neeraj Sood
Darius N. Lakdawalla
Monopolies appear throughout medical care markets, as a result of patents, limits to the extent of the market, or the presence of unique inputs and skills. Economists typically think of such monopolies as necessary evils or even pure inefficiencies. However, in the health care industry, the deadweight costs of monopoly may be much smaller or even absent. Health insurance, frequently implemented as an ex ante premium coupled with an ex post co-payment per unit consumed, operates as a two-part pricing contract. This allows monopolists to extract consumer surplus without inefficiently constraining quantity. This view of health insurance contracts has several …
Does Medicare Benefit The Poor?, Darius Lakdawalla, Jay Bhattacharya
Does Medicare Benefit The Poor?, Darius Lakdawalla, Jay Bhattacharya
Darius N. Lakdawalla
Measuring the progressivity of age-targeted government programs is difficult because no single data set measures income and benefit use throughout life. Previous research, using zip code as a proxy for lifetime income, has found that Medicare benefits flow primarily to the most economically advantaged groups, and that the financial returns to Medicare are often higher for the rich than the poor. However, our analysis produces the starkly opposed result that Medicare is an extraordinarily progressive public program, in dollar terms or welfare terms. These new results owe themselves to our measurement of socioeconomic status as an individual’s education, rather than …
Insurance, Self-Protection, And The Economics Of Terrorism, Darius Lakdawalla, George Zanjani
Insurance, Self-Protection, And The Economics Of Terrorism, Darius Lakdawalla, George Zanjani
Darius N. Lakdawalla
This paper investigates the rationale for public intervention in the terrorism insurance market. It argues that government subsidies for terror insurance are aimed, in part, at discouraging self-protection and limiting the negative externalities associated with self-protection. Cautious self-protective behavior by a target can hurt public goods like national prestige if it is seen as “giving in” to the terrorists, and may increase the loss probabilities faced by others by encouraging terrorists to substitute toward more vulnerable targets. We argue that these externalities are essential for normative analysis of government intervention and may also explain why availability problems in this market …
A Theory Of Health Disparities And Medical Technology, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Dana Goldman
A Theory Of Health Disparities And Medical Technology, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Dana Goldman
Darius N. Lakdawalla
Better-educated people are healthier, although the sources of this relationship remain unclear. Starting with basic principles of consumer theory, we develop a model of how health disparities are determined that does not depend on the precise causal mechanism. Improvements in the productivity of health care disproportionately benefit the heaviest health care users. Since richer patients tend to use the most health care, this suggests that new technologies—by making more diseases treatable, reducing the price of health care, or improving health care productivity—could widen socioeconomic disparities in health. An exception to this rule, however, is a simplifying technology, which can contract …
Terrorism Insurance Policy And The Public Good, Darius Lakdawalla, George Zanjani
Terrorism Insurance Policy And The Public Good, Darius Lakdawalla, George Zanjani
Darius N. Lakdawalla
No abstract provided.
Social Insurance And The Design Of Innovation Incentives, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Neeraj Sood
Social Insurance And The Design Of Innovation Incentives, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Neeraj Sood
Darius N. Lakdawalla
We consider the insurance aspects of research policy. Patents or rewards have an advantage over research subsidies when a new invention replaces an existing good at lower cost. Research subsidies have an advantage when inventions spawn an entirely new product.
Is Nursing Home Demand Affected By The Decline In Age Difference Between Spouses?, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Robert F. Schoeni
Is Nursing Home Demand Affected By The Decline In Age Difference Between Spouses?, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Robert F. Schoeni
Darius N. Lakdawalla
No abstract provided.
The Rise In Old-Age Longevity And The Market For Long-Term Care, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Tomas Philipson
The Rise In Old-Age Longevity And The Market For Long-Term Care, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Tomas Philipson
Darius N. Lakdawalla
No abstract provided.