Death Spirals and Other Selection Problems with Amy Finkelstein

Amy Finkelstein is Professor of Economics at MIT. Amy’s research focuses on market failures and government intervention in insurance markets and she has won numerous awards include a MacArthur Fellowship and the John Bates Clark Medal. Amy is co-author with Liran Einav and Ray Fisman of the forthcoming book: “Risky Business: Why Insurance Markets Fail and What to do about it”.

Buy the book
https://www.amazon.com/Risky-Business-Insurance-Markets-About/dp/0300253435/
Amy on wikipedia 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Finkelstein

episode on youtube: https://youtu.be/nvVlNSolE3s
show notes: https://notunreasonable.com/?p=7706

When is government compelled insurance a good idea? 0:02
How the public option or the mandate can create two different equilibria in the market. 8:53

Dental insurance isn’t really an insurance product. 13:27

The subsidy is not an objective, it’s a problem. 19:18

How do we choose whether to pay attention to some of these issues or not? 25:47

Why do we feel compelled to act when people are suffering from chronic conditions? 29:53

What are the benefits of giving people cash instead of insurance? 33:44

The problem of moral hazard in insurance. 39:51

The concept of affinity and intermediation. 45:28

Insurance can be learned the hard way. 51:02

What happens when the price of insurance gets too high in compulsory markets. 54:46

Why nobody ever wants to buy insurance. 1:01:06

Some of the studies that contradict what you think you know. 1:05:23

Twitter: @davecwright
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