Measuring Ex Ante Welfare in Insurance Markets
开发了衡量保险补贴和强制参保对事前预期效用影响的工具，仅需支付意愿曲线和风险厌恶度量，并应用于马萨诸塞州低收入健康保险市场，发现事前最优价格比观察到的市场剩余最大化价格低约30%。
Abstract The willingness to pay for insurance captures the value of insurance against only the risk that remains when choices are observed. This article develops tools to measure the ex ante expected utility impact of insurance subsidies and mandates when choices are observed after some insurable information is revealed. The approach retains the transparency of using reduced-form willingness to pay and cost curves, but it adds one additional sufficient statistic: the percentage difference in marginal utilities between insured and uninsured. I provide an approach to estimate this additional statistic that uses only the reduced-form willingness to pay curve, combined with a measure of risk aversion. I compare the approach to structural approaches that require fully specifying the choice environment and information sets of individuals. I apply the approach using existing willingness to pay and cost curve estimates from the low-income health insurance exchange in Massachusetts. Ex ante optimal insurance prices are roughly 30% lower than prices that maximize observed market surplus. While mandates reduce market surplus, the results suggest they would actually increase ex ante expected utility.