About

Welcome! I am a postdoc in economics at the University of Basel, where I got my PhD in October 2022.

My research lies in health, labour, and public economics. I study the optimal design of social insurance and taxation systems. To this end, I develop theoretical models that motivate new causal identification designs, and implement them using large administrative or survey data.

I visited the Center for Labor Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, in spring 2022.

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I was awarded the second place for the iHEA Student Paper Prize in 2023.

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Research

Working papers

• Timing Moral Hazard under Deductibles in Health Insurance.

  Abstract

  This paper develops a new approach to identifying to what extent individuals strategically time their healthcare consumption under deductibles in health insurance. I set up a dynamic model of healthcare consumption where individuals exceed a high deductible after a large health shock, and have an incentive to prepone care planned for the next year. The model elicits the links between timing and classical moral hazard responses, as well as deductible choice, and highlights trade-offs for insurance policy. It also serves to show that pure timing moral hazard can be identified using random variation in the timing of the health shock within the calendar year. Empirically, I find quantitatively large timing moral hazard in the context of mandatory health insurance in Switzerland. This response can create important distortions in insurance markets by shifting out-of-pocket healthcare costs onto the risk pool. Its extent decreases with the time available until the deductible reset. The insured do re-optimise on-the-go after the shock, but face substantial frictions in retiming.

• Unemployment Insurance with Response Heterogeneity (with Conny Wunsch). — draft available upon request

  Abstract

  This paper examines the heterogeneity in responses to unemployment insurance (UI) depending on workers' age and duration of contribution to social security. It then explores implications for differentiating UI generosity. In many public UI systems, the potential benefit duration increases with age subject to contribution time requirements. We estimate the responses and implied fiscal externality using many discontinuities in benefit duration in the German context. Our findings reveal that age and contribution time carry information on job search behavior that is relevant for targeting benefits. The negative fiscal externality rises with age due to higher transfer costs. It diminishes with longer contribution time as workers with stable employment exhibit a reduced moral hazard response. By balancing these gradients with an approximated insurance value, our analysis suggests that reducing benefit duration for older workers and increasing it for prime-age workers with stable employment could enhance welfare.

• Hours Mismatch and Income Tax Incentives for Low-Earning Workers (with Ulrike Unterhofer). — draft available upon request

  Abstract

  Many workers do not work their desired number of hours, particularly in the low-earning segment. We study whether income tax notches generate hours mismatch in the context of mini jobs in Germany. These jobs are exempt from income and social security taxes up until a salient earnings threshold. We find substantial underemployment at the threshold, suggesting that it constrains many workers to work less than their optimum. A reform shifting the threshold upwards raised underemployment among mini jobbers. Workers increased their desired hours, but contracts adjusted through small increases in actual hours and wages. These findings are consistent with firms' hours constraints shaping job offers in the low-earning segment. They suggest that firms cater to workers' incentives to bunch, but overprovide mini jobs. While workers are able to achieve higher earnings in the adjustment, the aggravation in underemployment points to ambiguous effects on worker welfare.

Work in progress

• 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. Check out the follow-up interview by the iHEA Early Career Researcher Special Interest Group (ECR-SIG).

• 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, 2022)

• 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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Contact

Véra Zabrodina

University of Basel

Faculty of Business and Economics

Peter-Merian Weg 6, 4002 Basel, Switzerland

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