When Should There Be Vertical Choice in Health Insurance Markets?
研究了在受监管的健康保险市场中，允许消费者在不同保障水平间选择（垂直选择）的福利效果，发现只有当支付意愿高的人群有效保障水平也更高时，垂直选择才有效，且实证表明福利收益很小或为零。
We study the welfare effects of offering choice over coverage levels—“vertical choice”—in regulated health insurance markets. We emphasize that heterogeneity in efficient coverage level is not sufficient to motivate choice. When premiums cannot reflect individuals’ costs, it may not be in consumers’ best interest to select their efficient coverage level. We show that vertical choice is efficient only if consumers with higher willingness to pay have a higher efficient level of coverage. We investigate this condition empirically and find that as long as a minimum coverage level can be enforced, the welfare gains from vertical choice are either zero or economically small.