Understanding the relative significance of adverse selection and moral hazard is important in determining effective policy for insurance markets. Separate identification of these two effects, empirically, is difficult. To overcome this limitation, this paper uses experimental methods to examine how adverse selection and moral hazard separately affect agent performance in a real-effort task. In particular, we explore how agent behavior (effort in the task) changes across a baseline with no insurance option, a treatment where individuals can choose to purchase insurance, and a third treatment where individuals must purchase insurance. We find that our platform can be helpful in studying issues that may arise in different insurance settings (e.g., workers compensation insurance or unemployment insurance).

Aaron Hufford graduated from Wright State University with his M.S. degree in Social and Applied Economics in 2013. He also holds a B.S. degree in Business Economics from WSU, and pursued the Combined undergraduate/graduate program. Aaron received an Outstanding Graduate Student Award in 2012 and a continuing undergraduate student scholarship from the Economics Department in 2011. After his graduation from our M.S. program Aaron went on to work for the City of Hamilton’s Economic Development Department as an Earl Brush Fellow (2013-2014). Aaron continued there as a Business Development Specialist, later as an Assistant to the City Manager until 2016, and as a Senior Analyst until 2018. While in those positions, he developed the City's first Labor Market Analysis in conjunction with the UC Economics Center. He led effort on application for Neighborhood Initiative Program and was awarded $2 million grant for the Butler County Land Bank. He also assisted with an application to the State of Ohio Capital Budget, and was awarded $100,000 for the development of an advanced manufacturing lab in conjunction with universities and the startup ecosystem. Finally, he helped with the envisioning and development of a green advanced manufacturing business incubator, the Hamilton Mill. In his current position as a Chief of Staff, Aaron develops and manages stakeholder relationships, and oversees projects on economic development and blight reduction strategies. He is also involved in budgeting, communications, policy research, and quality of life initiatives.

The presentation will begin with a brief introduction addressing the above, then turning to the work of John Stuart Mill, a classical liberal who modified his position in his unfinished “Chapters on Socialism, establishing something of a basis for the later development of neoliberalism. We then move to the period surrounding WWI and refer to noted economists Ludwig von Mises and Joseph Schumpeter who announced the “death” of liberalism. Events of the 1930’s saw the formal birth of neoliberalism as a response, in particular, to the arguments of John Maynard Keynes. Lionel Robbins and Friedrich von Hayek played instrumental roles in this development. A brief history follows, demonstrating the importance of the American Walter Lippman, and introduces various notables into the discussion. This section concludes with the formation of the Mont Pelerin Society.

The concluding portion of the presentation discusses several variations of the neoliberal program, emphasizing the differences between European and U.S. versions. The point here is that there is no single neoliberal program; rather, different institutional structures and conditions have historically warranted different approaches to the neoliberal end.

This talk examines two cases of changes to the organization of production in order to address environmental concerns during the neoliberal era. The first instance of a purported "greening of capitalism" is climate change, and especially the way that carbon credits and markets have generated profit opportunities for various segments of capital. The second case is the purported overcoming of the ramifications of industrial agriculture through support for organic farming. I trace the development of agricultural policy in support of organic farming in the European Union during the neoliberal era, and the ways in which it has assisted the centralization of agricultural capital at the expense of the small farmers which the policies claim to assist. Both cases share a blatant failure to rectify the underlying environmental problem, while at the same time they result in worsening the lives of the affected populations. Therefore, I offer a preliminary description of environmental resistance (what Joan Martinez-Alier calls "environmentalism of the poor") to simultaneously protect the environment and people's livelihoods.

“In the Archives” is sponsored by the Friends of the Libraries at Wright State University. Wright State's New Media Incubator created the video. Jennifer Ware was the executive producer. Nicolas Green and Amanda Harris served as Producers/Directors/Videographers/Editors.