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Are application hassles, or “ordeals,” an effective way to limit public program enrollment? We provide new evidence by studying (removal of) an auto-enrollment policy for health insurance, adding an extra step to enroll. This minor ordeal has a major...

Adverse selection is a classic market failure known to limit or "unravel" trade in high-quality insurance and many other economic settings. While the standard theory emphasizes quality distortions, we argue that selection has another big-picture...

We provide a new method to analyze discrete choice models with state dependence and individual-by-product fixed effects, and use it to analyze consumer choices in a policy-relevant environment (a subsidized health insurance exchange). Moment inequalities...

There is increasing interest in expanding Medicare health insurance coverage in the U.S., but it is not clear whether the current program is the right foundation on which to build. Traditional Medicare covers a uniform set of benefits for all income...

There is growing interest in market design using default rules and other "choice architecture” principles to steer consumers toward desirable outcomes. Using data from Massachusetts’ health insurance exchange, we study an “automatic retention” policy...

Insurance markets often feature consumer sorting along both an extensive margin (whether to buy) and an intensive margin (which plan to buy). We present a new graphical theoretical framework that extends the workhorse model to incorporate both selection...