About

I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. I have a PhD in economics from the University of Basel, Switzerland.

My research interests lie in public finance, health and labor economics. I examine the functioning of insurance markets and transfer systems.

In recent work, I analyze how dynamic pricing incentives shape demand, benefit claims timing, and plan selection in health and unemployment insurance. I also study how unemployment insurance and tax policy affect labor supply and labor market outcomes.

Email

CV

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Research

Working papers

• Timing Moral Hazard under Deductibles in Health Insurance, submitted.

  Abstract

  This paper studies strategic timing behavior in healthcare consumption under insurance contracts with deductibles. I develop a dynamic model that allows individuals to shift the timing of planned care, and incorporates both moral hazard and deductible choice. I show that timing decisions involve a trade-off between out-of-pocket cost savings below the deductible, and utility gains from additional consumption after exceeding the deductible. The timing of risk realizations within a coverage period affects both when and how much healthcare is consumed. The timing and intensive margins---as well as their interaction---have distinct implications for healthcare costs, premiums, and selection. I derive a sufficient statistic for timing moral hazard that compares individuals who exceed their deductible at different times within the coverage period, facing varying price incentives. In the context of mandatory health insurance in Switzerland, I find evidence of substantial timing moral hazard after a temporary health shock, which varies with the month of the shock. Timing is a key component of price responses under deductibles, with implications for insurance design.

  This paper earned the Young Economist Award from the Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, as well as the Student Paper Prize from the International Health Economics Association in 2023.

• Unemployment Insurance with Policy Differentiation (with Conny Wunsch). Revise and resubmit, Review of Economic Studies.

  Abstract

  This paper studies policy differentiation in unemployment insurance (UI) both theoretically and empirically. We provide a general sufficient statistics framework to assess the insurance-incentive trade-off from differentiating the duration of benefits. We show how differentiating UI redistributes welfare across heterogeneous unemployed workers. Our empirical implementation evaluates how workers’ responses to and the welfare effects of UI vary with age and contribution time—two widely used tags. Exploiting many discontinuities in benefit duration in Germany, we find that duration responses to UI decrease in short-term contribution time, while age is non-significant. The behavioral cost depends on duration and policy levels in addition to these responses. We find that the social value of UI decreases in contribution time. The largest, negative welfare effects occur among workers who have contributed the full base period and value UI the least. Our results support policies where coverage increases in short-term contribution time, but flattens thereafter.

• Income Tax Notches and Working Hours Mismatch: Evidence from Mini Jobs in Germany (with Ulrike Unterhofer). Revise and resubmit, Journal of Human Resources

  Abstract

  Many workers, particularly in low-earning segments, do not work their desired number of hours. This study examines whether income tax notches cause hours mismatch among mini jobbers in Germany--jobs exempt from taxes up to a specified earnings threshold. We find significant underemployment at the threshold, suggesting that it prevents workers from reaching their optimal hours. A reform raising the threshold increased mini jobbers' earnings but did not resolve their hours mismatch, as desired hours increased more than actual hours. Our results suggest that firms' preferences regarding working hours influence the earnings distribution, with implications for estimating labor supply elasticities.

Work in progress

• Choice Rationality and Ex-Post Moral Hazard.

• Unemployment Insurance and Exits from Employment (with Mario Bernasconi, Jeffrey Grogger, and Conny Wunsch).

• The Optimal Time-Profile of Unemployment Insurance Benefits (with Conny Wunsch).

Publications

• Zabrodina, Véra, Mark Dusheiko, and Karine Moschetti (2020). A Moneymaking Scan: Dual Reimbursement Systems and Supplier-Induced Demand for Diagnostic Imaging. Health Economics, 29(12):1566–1585.

  This paper won the iHEA Early Career Researcher Best Paper Prize.

• Moschetti, Karine, Véra Zabrodina, Tenzin Wangmo, Alberto Holly, Jean-Blaise Wasserfallen, Bernice S. Elger, and Bruno Gravier (2018). The determinants of healthcare expenditures of prisoners: Evidence from Switzerland. BMC Health Services Research, 18:160.

• Moschetti, Karine, Véra Zabrodina, Pierre Stadelmann, Tenzin Wangmo, Alberto Holly, Jean-Blaise Wasserfallen, Bernice S. Elger, and Bruno Gravier (2017). Exploring differences in healthcare utilization of prisoners in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland. PLOS ONE, 12(10):e0187255.

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Teaching

• Causal Inference for Policy Evaluation, MSc and PhD, University of Basel (2021-2024)

• Applied Empirical Analysis, MSc and PhD, University of Basel (2020)

• Empirical Research Methods in Labour Economics, MSc and PhD, University of Basel (2018, 2019)

• Advanced Empirical Research Methods, MSc and PhD, University of Basel (2018, 2019)

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