This paper empirically assesses the relative role of health plan prices, service quality and optional benefits in the decision to choose a health plan. We link representative German SOEP panel data from 2007 to 2010 to (i) health plan service quality indicators, (ii) measures of voluntary benefit provision on top of federally mandated benefits, and (iii) health plan prices for almost all German health ...
Die Finanzierung der Rentenversicherung ist langfristig aufgrund demographischer Entwicklungen starken Belastungen ausgesetzt. Das Verhältnis von Rentenempfängern zu Beitragszahlern wird sich in den nächsten Jahren verschlechtern und läßt erwarten, daß ab 1985 - je nachdem wie sich die Wirtschaft entwickelt - der Beitragssatz in der Rentenversicherung schrittweise angehoben werden müßte. Die bisher ...
In Germany, individuals in need of long-term care receive support through benefits of the long-term care insurance. A central goal of the insurance is to support informal care provided by family members. Care recipients can choose between benefits in kind (formal home care services) and benefits in cash. From a budgetary perspective family care is a cost-saving alternative to formal home care and to ...
In response to the growing burden of obesity, public primary prevention programs against obesity have been widely recommended. Several studies estimated the cost effects of diabetes prevention trials for different countries and found that diabetes prevention can be costeffective. Nevertheless, it is still controversial if prevention conducted in more real-world settings and among people with increased ...
Indirect psychological effects induced by crime are likely to contribute significantly to the total costs of crime beyond the financial costs of direct victimization. Using detailed crime statistics for the whole of Germany and linking them to individual-level mental health information from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we analyze whether local crime rates affect the mental health of residents. ...
Population ageing combined with a shrinking potential workforce are main factors influencing future socio-economic development and the labour market. This paper has the objective to show the impact of population change on one important sector of the economy, the health care market. As the need for health care services increases with age, the population ageing is expected to have a direct influence ...
This paper shows the impact of demographic change on the demand for and supply of health care workforce in Denmark. As the need for health care services increases with age, the population ageing is expected to have a direct influence on the demand for health care and its workforce. The future supply of the health workforce is determined by the currently considerable portion of workforce that is approaching ...
This paper uses Hierarchical Bayes Models to model and estimate spatial health effects in Germany. We combine rich individual-level household panel data from the German SOEP with administrative county-level data to estimate spatial county-level health dependencies. As dependent variable we use the generic, continuous, and quasi-objective SF12 health measure. We find strong and highly significant spatial ...
This study empirically evaluates the effectiveness of different health care cost containment measures. The measures investigated were introduced in Germany in 1997 to reduce moral hazard and public health expenditures in the market for rehabilitation care. Of the analyzed measures, doubling the daily copayments was clearly the most effective cost containment measure, resulting in a reduction in utilization ...