Why do employees keep choosing the high-premium health care plan? An investigation of the financial consequences and logic of employee health care plan selections

In 1991, Dannon employees had the choice to stay with their current health care plan or switch to a new plan which offered a lower premium and less hospital cost coverage that better fit the needs of most employees. Both plans were the same in all other respects. Only 25% of employees chose the new lower-premium plan over the old plan. This article reports a collaborative effort between The Dannon Company and Cornell University's Center for Advanced HR Studies to identify the patterns of employee choices, and the effects of those choices on the actual costs that employees incurred. The actual decisions of 287 Dannon employees were examined, and the out-of-pocket costs that they actually incurred in the two years after the plan was introduced were calculated. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

American Consumption Patterns and the Price of Time: A Time-Series Analysis

National aggregate time series data on the components of Personal Consumption Expenditures from 1955 to 1984 were used to analyze the roles played by male and female wage rates in altering American consumption patterns. Male nonmarket time was found to be a substitute for all goods and services categories except Automobiles and Parts. Female nonmarket time was found to be a net complement of Automobiles and Parts, Furniture and Household Equipment, Other Durables, Gasoline and Oil, Electricity and Natural Gas, Other Household Operations, and Transportation Services and a net substitute for all other goods and services.