IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v118y2003i1p299-328..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Role of Commitment in Dynamic Contracts: Evidence from Life Insurance

Author

Listed:
  • Igal Hendel
  • Alessandro Lizzeri

Abstract

We use data on life insurance contracts to study the properties of long-term contracts in a world where buyers cannot commit to a contract. The data are especially suited to test a theory of dynamic contracting since they include information on the entire profile of future premiums. All the patterns in the data fit the theoretical predictions of a model with symmetric learning and one-sided commitment à la Harris and Holmstom. The lack of commitment by consumers shapes contracts in the way predicted by the theory: all contracts involve front-loading (prepayment) of premiums. Front-loading generates a partial lock-in of consumers; more front-loading is associated with lower lapsation. Moreover, contracts that are more front-loaded have a lower present value of premiums over the period of coverage. This is consistent with the idea that front-loading enhances consumer commitment and that more front-loaded contracts retain better risk pools.

Suggested Citation

  • Igal Hendel & Alessandro Lizzeri, 2003. "The Role of Commitment in Dynamic Contracts: Evidence from Life Insurance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 299-328.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:118:y:2003:i:1:p:299-328.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1162/00335530360535216
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dionne, Georges & Doherty, Neil A, 1994. "Adverse Selection, Commitment, and Renegotiation: Extension to and Evidence from Insurance Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(2), pages 209-235, April.
    2. Fudenberg, Drew & Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1990. "Short-term contracts and long-term agency relationships," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 1-31, June.
    3. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5369 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Kevin J. Murphy, 1986. "Incentives, Learning, and Compensation: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation of Managerial Labor Contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 59-76, Spring.
    5. David M. Cutler, 1993. "Why Doesn't the Market Fully Insure Long-Term Care?," NBER Working Papers 4301, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Dionne, G. & Doherty, N., 1991. "Adverse Selection in Insurance Markets: a Selective Survey," Cahiers de recherche 9105, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    7. Diamond, Peter, 1992. "Organizing the Health Insurance Market," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(6), pages 1233-1254, November.
    8. Tomas Philipson & John Cawley, 1999. "An Empirical Examination of Information Barriers to Trade in Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 827-846, September.
    9. Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Bernard Salanie & Julie Valentin, 1999. "Early Starters versus Late Beginners," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(4), pages 731-760, August.
    10. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre & Macho, Ines & Rey, Patrick & Salanie, Bernard, 1994. "Repeated moral hazard: The role of memory, commitment, and the access to credit markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1527-1553, October.
    11. Pauly, Mark V & Kunreuther, Howard & Hirth, Richard, 1995. "Guaranteed Renewability in Insurance," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 143-156, March.
    12. Benjamin M. Friedman & Mark Warshawsky, 1985. "The Cost of Annuities: Implications for Saving Behavior and Bequests," NBER Working Papers 1682, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Milton Harris & Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "A Theory of Wage Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(3), pages 315-333.
    14. Cochrane, John H, 1995. "Time-Consistent Health Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 445-473, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pierre-André Chiappori & Bernard Salanié, 2002. "Testing Contract Theory : A Survey of Some Recent Work," Working Papers 2002-11, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    2. Magali Chaudey, 2017. "Why test the theory of incentives in a dynamic framework?," Working Papers 1733, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    3. Michael Hoy & Afrasiab Mirza & Asha Sadanand, 2021. "Guaranteed renewable life insurance under demand uncertainty," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 88(1), pages 131-159, March.
    4. Kifmann, Mathias, 1997. "To commit or not to commit: A health insurance monopoly with variable quality and uncertain types of individuals," Discussion Papers, Series I 288, University of Konstanz, Department of Economics.
    5. Juan Pablo Atal & Hanming Fang & Martin Karlsson & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2020. "Long-Term Health Insurance: Theory Meets Evidence," PIER Working Paper Archive 20-009, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    6. Marco Battaglini, 2005. "Long-Term Contracting with Markovian Consumers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 637-658, June.
    7. Ruo Jia & Zenan Wu, 2019. "Insurer commitment and dynamic pricing pattern," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 44(1), pages 87-135, March.
    8. Annette Hofmann & Mark Browne, 2013. "One-sided commitment in dynamic insurance contracts: Evidence from private health insurance in Germany," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 81-112, February.
    9. Ruo Jia & Zenan Wu, 2019. "Insurer commitment and dynamic pricing pattern," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory, Springer;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 44(1), pages 87-135, March.
    10. van Kippersluis, Hans & Van Ourti, Tom & O'Donnell, Owen & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2009. "Health and income across the life cycle and generations in Europe," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 818-830, July.
    11. Sebastián Fleitas & Gautam Gowrisankaran & Anthony Lo Sasso, 2018. "Reclassification Risk in the Small Group Health Insurance Market," NBER Working Papers 24663, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Soheil Ghili & Ben Handel & Igal Hendel & Michael D. Whinston, 2019. "Optimal Long-Term Health Insurance Contracts: Characterization, Computation, and Welfare Effects," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2218R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jul 2020.
    13. Robert Gibbons & Lawrence F. Katz & Thomas Lemieux & Daniel Parent, 2005. "Comparative Advantage, Learning, and Sectoral Wage Determination," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(4), pages 681-724, October.
    14. Alma Cohen & Peter Siegelman, 2010. "Testing for Adverse Selection in Insurance Markets," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 77(1), pages 39-84, March.
    15. Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Bernard Salanie, 2000. "Testing for Asymmetric Information in Insurance Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(1), pages 56-78, February.
    16. Macera, Rosario, 2018. "Intertemporal incentives under loss aversion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 551-594.
    17. Hanming Fang & Alessandro Gavazza, 2011. "Dynamic Inefficiencies in an Employment-Based Health Insurance System: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3047-3077, December.
    18. Pashchenko, Svetlana & Porapakkarm, Ponpoje, 2015. "Welfare costs of reclassification risk in the health insurance market," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 21-44.
    19. Bradley Herring & Mark Pauly, 2003. "Incentive-Compatible Guaranteed Renewable Health Insurance," NBER Working Papers 9888, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5369 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Wiseman, Thomas, 2018. "Competitive long-term health insurance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 144-150.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L0 - Industrial Organization - - General
    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:118:y:2003:i:1:p:299-328.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/qje .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.