中文摘要
许多社会保障残障保险（SSDI）申请人聘请法律代理人协助完成审批程序。社会保障管理局对代理人报酬实行严格规定。代理人仅在申请人获批残障福利后才能获得报酬，报酬金额为申请人补发福利的25%与预先规定的最高费用二者中的较低者（自2022年以来为7,200美元）。由于补发福利取决于申请人从提出申请到获批所等待的月数，代理人有动机拖延案件结案，直至补发福利使代理费用达到费用上限。我们采用双重差分法评估这些激励如何影响SSDI申请人的等待时间。2002年费用上限提高后，对于费用门槛约束更强的申请人，平均等待时间增加了0.85个月；这意味着有代理人的申请人的等待时间增加了2.6—5.6个月。这表明，代理人报酬结构确实会影响案件结果，并凸显了在现代社会项目中普遍存在的与辅助代理人互动这一问题的重要性。
Abstract
Many claimants of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) retain legal representation to help with the approval process. The Social Security Administration imposes strict rules on representative compensation. Representatives are only paid if claimants are awarded disability, and they are paid the lesser of 25 percent of the claimant’s past due benefits or a pre-specified maximum fee ($7,200 since 2022). Because past due benefits are a function of the number of months claimants wait to be awarded, representatives face incentives to delay case resolution until past due benefits push the representative fees past the fee ceiling. We use difference-in-differences to evaluate how these incentives impact SSDI claimant wait times. After the fee ceiling increased in 2002, average wait times increased by 0.85 months among claimants for whom the fee threshold is more binding, implying a 2.6–5.6 month increase for claimants with representatives. This indicates that the structure of representative compensation does matter for case outcomes, and highlights the importance of interactions with auxiliary agents so common in modern social programs.