Do We Drive More Safely When Accidents are More Expensive? Identifying Moral Hazard from Experience Rating Schemes

A major shortcoming of the growing empirical work on asymmetric information is the inability to separately identify moral hazard from adverse selection. Abbring et. al. (2003) point out that dynamic insurance data can help here, by asking whether consumers have fewer claims when they are at a place in the ?experience rating? scheme where additional claims are more expensive. However, in the French setting they study, this test boils down to asking whether there is negative state dependence in claims occurrence, and thus requires them to assume away all other forms of state dependence in claims. This paper overcomes this problem by considering U.S data, where claims fall off consumer records after three years, creating an ?insurance event? that changes a consumer?s position in the experience rating scheme with no simultaneous claim, and thus allowing identification of moral hazard even with fairly general controls for state dependence and unobserved heterogeneity. In addition, the U.S. data follow consumers for 10 years (vs. 1 in Abbring et. al) and contain a much wider range of claim price effects, both of which increase identification power. The paper?s core finding is a small, but statistically significant, moral hazard effect. This is made more convincing by the fact that the effect grows following a 1997 pricing change that increased the cost of additional claims relative to the first one. Finally, without the controls for state dependence in claims, this effect disappears. This suggests that the lack of evidence for moral hazard in previous work may have resulted from confounding the negative state dependence associated with moral hazard with some underlying source of positive state dependence in claims occurrence

Toward a More Comprehensive Explanation of Declining Black Male Youth Employment

By any standard, the employment position of black males has deteriorated dramatically over the last 25 years. The magnitude and duration of this decline have convinced policy makers and economists alike that serious concern is warranted. Between 1968 and 1988, for example, the employment position of black males, 16 to 19, fell nearly ten points, from just over 38 percent to 29 percent. This decline, which is similar to that in the 20 to 24 year old age group, is indicative of a crisis inside our nation\u27s ghettos, where millions of black male youths are without work and not attending school

Working the Nexus: Teaching students to think, read and problem-solve like a lawyer

Despite a clear case for thinking skills in legal education, the approach to teaching these skills often appears to be implied in law curricula rather than identified explicitly. Thinking skills could be taught as part of reading law and legal problem solving. However, learning the full suite of thinking skills requires active teaching strategies which go beyond exposing students to the text of the law, and training them in its application by solving problem scenarios. The challenge for law teachers is to articulate how to learn legal thinking skills, and to do so at each level of the degree. This article outlines how the nexus between three component skills: critical legal thinking, reading law, and legal problem solving, can be put to work to provide a cohesive and scaffolded approach to the teaching of legal thinking. Although the approach in this article arises from the Smart Casual project, producing discipline-specific professional development resources directed at sessional teachers in law, we suggest that its application is relevant to all law teachers

A particle astrophysics magnet facility: ASTROMAG

The primary scientific objectives of ASTROMAG are to: examine cosmological models by searching for antimatter and dark matter candidates; study the origin and evolution of matter in the galaxy by direct sampling of galactic matter; and study the origin and acceleration of the relativistic particle plasma in the galaxy and its effects on the dynamics and evolution of the galaxy. These general scientific objectives will be met by ASTROMAG with particle detection instruments designed to make the following observations: search, for anti-nuclei of helium and heavier element; measure the spectra of anti-protons and positrons; measure the isotopic composition of cosmic ray nuclei at energies of several GeV/amu; and measure the energy spectra of cosmic ray nuclei to very high energies

Conversion of optical path length to frequency by an interferometer using photorefractive oscillation

Frequency detuning effects in photorefractive oscillators are used in a new type of (passive) interferometry which converts optical path length changes to frequency shifts. Such an interferometer is potentially more accurate than conventional interferometers which convert optical path length changes to phase or intensity changes

Critical legal reading: The elements, strategies and dispositions needed to master this essential skill

Alex Steel, Kate Galloway, Mary Heath, Natalie Skead, Mark Israel, Anne Hewit