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Last Published June 18, 2025 07:14 PM October 09, 2025 04:47 PM
Experimental Design (Public) We will conduct a correspondence study that randomly assigns seniors to call insurance agents for a plan recommendation. We will evaluate whether recommendation quality varies with caller and agent characteristics. Finally, we evaluate whether advice quality is elastic to a randomly assigned “competition” treatment. We will conduct a correspondence study that randomly assigns seniors to call insurance agents for a plan recommendation. We will evaluate whether recommendation quality varies with caller and agent characteristics. Finally, we evaluate whether agent advice is elastic to a randomly assigned “competition” treatment and to different commission/incentive regimes.
Intervention (Hidden) We will conduct a correspondence study that randomly assigns Medicare-eligible seniors to call insurance producers (or insurance agents) for plan recommendations. We will study variation in recommendation quality across consumer and agent characteristics. We will also test whether randomly assigning consumers to signal that they will solicit and compare multiple recommendations improves recommendation quality. We will conduct a correspondence study that randomly assigns Medicare-eligible seniors to call insurance producers (or insurance agents) for plan recommendations. We will study variation in recommendation quality across consumer and agent characteristics (e.g. whether or not the agent works at a large call center). We also test whether perceived competition (i.e. randomly assigning consumers to signal that they will solicit and compare recommendations from multiple agents) improves recommendation quality. Finally, we take advantage of a natural experiment in the Medicare Advantage market where agent commissions change to estimate the extent to which recommendations are driven by incentives.
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