Publicação
Contribution-floor mandates: a welfare framework and evidence from Chile
| dc.contributor.author | Dias, Mateus | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-30T15:46:57Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-30T15:46:57Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2026-05-31 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Many health insurance systems link premiums to income through contribution floors: enrollees must spend at least a fixed share of their income on health insurance. These income-based mandates are economically distinct from the penalty-based mandates studied in the U.S. context, because they create a wedge between the premium paid and the plan’s actuarial price. I develop a framework that decomposes the welfare effect of a contribution-floor mandate change into a fiscal channel, the mechanical transfer arising from the price floor, and an equilibrium channel, the behavioral response through plan switching and risk pool recomposition coupled with supply-side responses. I implement the framework using administrative data from Chile’s private health insurance market (ISAPREs), where enrollees must pay at least 7% of their income in premiums. Raising the mandate from 7% to 8% of income redistributes approximately $38.9 million annually from enrollees to insurers while generating essentially no net welfare: about 12 thousand USD, three orders of magnitude smaller than the gross transfer. The equilibrium channel is negligible. Because the mandate operates as a near-pure transfer, it is dominated as a redistributive instrument by a revenue-equivalent direct cash transfer, which delivers roughly three times the distributionally weighted welfare. | eng |
| dc.identifier.other | 81416fbb-3b4b-4fb9-9556-9e4d93090014 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/58959 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | |
| dc.rights.uri | N/A | |
| dc.title | Contribution-floor mandates: a welfare framework and evidence from Chile | |
| dc.type | preprint | |
| dspace.entity.type | Publication | |
| oaire.version | http://purl.org/coar/version/c_970fb48d4fbd8a85 |
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