Jan Michael Bauer

Heterogeneous Selection in the Market for Private Supplemental Dental Insurance: Evidence from Germany

This paper analyzes the German market for supplemental dental insurance to identify selection behavior based on individuals’ private information. The rather limited underwriting by German private health insurers makes this market especially prone to selection effects. Although the standard positive correlation test does not indicate asymmetric information in this market, we conjecture that this outcome may result from sample heterogeneity when adverse and advantageous selection occur simultaneously and offset each other. Examining a large set of potential sources of selection effects, we find mainly that the holding of other supplemental health insurance policies, which is related to risk preferences, contributes to an advantageous selection in this insurance market. Our results suggest that even in the absence of a positive correlation between risk and insurance coverage, the German market for supplemental dental insurance suffers from information asymmetry, which is caused by multidimensional private information.

The paradox of falling job satisfaction with rising job stickiness in the German nursing workforce between 1990 and 2013

BackgroundLiterature reports a direct relation between nurses’ job satisfaction and their job retention (stickiness). The proper planning and management of the nursing labor market necessitates the understanding of job satisfaction and retention trends. The objectives of the study are to identify trends in, and the interrelation between, the job satisfaction and job stickiness of German nurses in the 1990–2013 period using a flexible specification for job satisfaction that includes different time periods and to also identify the main determinants of nurse job stickiness in Germany and test whether these determinants have changed over the last two decades.MethodsThe development of job stickiness in Germany is depicted by a subset of data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1990–2013), with each survey respondent assigned a unique identifier used to calculate the year-to-year transition probability of remaining in the current position. The changing association between job satisfaction and job stickiness is measured using job satisfaction data and multivariate regressions assessing whether certain job stickiness determinants have changed over the study period.ResultsBetween 1990 and 2013, the job stickiness of German nurses increased from 83 to 91%, while their job satisfaction underwent a steady and gradual decline, dropping by 7.5%. We attribute this paradoxical result to the changing association between job satisfaction and job stickiness; that is, for a given level of job (dis)satisfaction, nurses show a higher stickiness rate in more recent years than in the past, which might be partially explained by the rise in part-time employment during this period. The main determinants of stickiness, whose importance has not changed in the past two decades, are wages, tenure, personal health, and household structure.ConclusionsThe paradoxical relation between job satisfaction and job stickiness in the German nursing context could be explained by historical downsizing trends in hospitals, an East-West German nurse compensation gap, and an increase in the proportion of nurses employed on a part-time basis. A clearer analysis of each of these trends is thus essential for the development of evidence-based policies that enhance the job satisfaction and efficiency of the German nursing workforce.

Effects of drought on child health in Marsabit District, Northern Kenya

HIGHLIGHTSMalnutrition among children is prevalent in Northern Kenya.Boys are more likely to be malnourished than girls.There is a strong negative effect of drought on child health.Remote sensing data deems useful for assessing the effect of weather shocks on child health. ABSTRACT This study uses five years of panel data (2009–2013) for Northern Kenyas Marsabit district to analyze the levels and extent of malnutrition among children aged five and under in that area. We measure drought based on the standardized normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and assess its effect on child health using mid‐upper arm circumference (MUAC). The results show that approximately 20 percent of the children in the study area are malnourished and a one standard deviation increase in NDVI z‐score decreases the probability of child malnourishment by 12–16 percent. These findings suggest that remote sensing data can be usefully applied to develop and evaluate new interventions to reduce drought effects on child malnutrition, including better coping strategies and improved targeting of food aid.

The Merits of Goal Support as a Self-Control Strategy

In the present study, we investigated the influence of the presence of others and goal support on the performance of goal-directed behavior across different levels of self-control. Our analysis included survey data from 3,972 respondents across four countries. The results of the analysis revealed four important findings. First, high goal support increased the performance of goal-directed behavior when in the presence of others during decision-making. Second, self-control had a positive effect on goal-directed behavior only when individuals were by themselves. Third, while the effect of goal support significantly increased goal-directed behavior independent of self-control ability, people with low self-control reaped the most benefits from having goal support. Finally, we observed that although people with low self-control gained the most benefits from goal support, they were also less likely to be positioned in goal-supportive environments.

Selection Behavior in the Market for Private Complementary Long-Term Care Insurance in Germany

Using data from an insurance company, we examine the selection behaviour in the German market for private complementary long-term care insurance (CompLTCI). We provide a detailed analysis of the holding, the uptake and the lapse of CompLTCI policies. The analysis identifies the preference for insurance, the occupation as well as the residential location as unused observables. Our findings suggest that the socioeconomic status is a robust factor in explaining the uptake and lapse behaviour in the German market for CompLTCI. More generally, our findings indicate that the mere identification of unused observables is insufficient to derive robust conclusions about the redistribution between different risk types in insurance markets with long-term policies.

Does unemployment lead to a less healthy lifestyle

ABSTRACT In this article, we use 22 years of data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and information on plant closures to investigate the effects of unemployment on four indicators of unhealthy lifestyles: diet, alcohol consumption, smoking and (a lack of) physical activity. In contrast to much of the existing literature, which unlike our analysis is unable to assess causality, our results provide little evidence that unemployment gives rise to unhealthy lifestyles.