The Demand for Insurance and Rationale for a Mandate: Evidence from Workers’ Compensation Insurance
利用无强制投保市场的行政数据，估计工伤保险需求的价格弹性，并检验市场失灵是否足以证明政府强制投保的合理性。
Workers’ compensation insurance, which provides no-fault coverage for work-related injuries, is mandatory in nearly all states. We use administrative data from a unique market without a coverage mandate to estimate the demand for workers’ compensation insurance, leveraging regulatory premium updates for identification. We find that a 1 percent increase in premiums leads to approximately a 0.3 percent decline in coverage. Drawing upon these estimates and data on costs, we examine potential justifications for government intervention to increase coverage. This analysis suggests that several forms of market failure—such as adverse selection, market power, and externalities—may not justify a mandate in this setting.