The Incidence of Adverse Selection: Theory and Evidence from Health Insurance Choices

Michael Geruso, Timothy Layton, Adam Leive, April 4, 2024. Existing research on selection in insurance markets focuses on how adverse selection distorts prices and misallocates products across people. This ignores the distributional consequences of who pays the higher prices. In this talk, the authors show that the distributional incidence depends on the correlations between income, expected costs, and insurance demand. They discuss the general implications for the design of subsidies and mandates when policymakers value both equity and efficiency. Then, in an empirical case study of a large employer, they show that the incidence of selection falls on higher-income employees, who are more likely to choose generous health insurance plans.