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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
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 …
How Does Health Insurance Affect Workers’ Compensation Filing?, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Robert T. Reville, Seth A. Seabury
How Does Health Insurance Affect Workers’ Compensation Filing?, Darius Noshir Lakdawalla, Robert T. Reville, Seth A. Seabury
Darius N. Lakdawalla
About half of injured workers choose not to file workers’ compensation claims. This is thought to result from the utilization of health insurance instead of workers’ compensation. However, the data suggest that insured workers are actually less likely to file than their more vulnerable uninsured counterparts. We find that this relationship emerges as the result of employer characteristics, and in particular, whether or not employers offer health insurance to employees; this is much more important than the insurance status of workers themselves. The workplace environment may have a significant, or even a dominant, impact on filing behavior.
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
No abstract provided.
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 …
Economics Of Obesity, Darius Lakdawalla, Tomas Philipson
Economics Of Obesity, Darius Lakdawalla, Tomas Philipson
Darius N. Lakdawalla
No abstract provided.
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 …