Failure of the national flood insurance partnership

For nearly a decade flood insurance was provided by a unique partnership arrangement involving the federal government and the private insurance industry. This study examines (1) the rationale for establishing subsidized flood insurance in the United States, (2) the government-industry partnership formed to provide flood insurance, (3) the reasons why the partnership failed, and (4) the implications of the failure for future joint ventures between government and industry.     

Dualit?t aus gesetzlicher und privater Krankenversicherung überholt?

The present division between statutory and private health insurance in Germany (GKV and PKV) is hard to justify. If it is the goal to include the whole population in the GKV eventually, one author states that the only legal way is to change its financing from wage-based contributions to a per-capita amount, which would generally reduce incentives to join the PKV. Possible reform alternatives for the financing of health insurance are analysed by another article according to the following principal questions: Are they able to raise sufficient funds and allocate them efficiently? How does that affect employment and distributive justice? These questions can be used to benchmark various insurance models, i.e. citizens insurance, citizens private insurance and premium models. Another article focuses on a non-profit private legal framework, e.g. a co-operative or a limited society.     

税延政策下不同收入层人群养老保险模式选择——基于累进税制和比例税制的综合实证研究

个税递延型商业养老保险政策的实施将对不同收入层次和不同收入来源人群的养老保险模式选择产生重大影响,而我国现行以累进型为主的个人所得税制度在这一影响发生的过程中发挥着根本性作用.基于这一影响机制,本文重点研究EET模式商业养老保险的受益群体范围,以不同收入水平和不同收入来源的杭州市居民为研究对象,以包含社会养老保险和商业养老保险的动态养老金总替代率期望值为调节目标,构建包含个人所得税的累进税率和比例税率变量的保险精算模型,设计和测算了投保期内的下临界点S1和上临界点S2.在此基础上,从居民购买商业养老保险意愿度和社会公平的角度出发,探讨对两个临界点的进一步调整,分析EET模式商业养老保险受益群体范围以外人群的行为决策,并最终提出政策性建议.     

论民营中小企业医疗保障制度的建设

民营中小企业医疗保障制度是我国社会保障制度的重要内容之一。但由于政策与法律监督的缺位、劳动力市场供大于求、民营中小企业的劣势地位、企业主和职工的短期行为等因素的困扰,民营中小企业医疗保障存在着参保率普遍偏低、企业参保状况参差不齐、保障明显不足等问题。民营中小企业医疗保障制度建设的重点应是建立和完善大病医疗保险制度,同时要加快立法步伐,明确政府职责,加强保险资金的科学管理,夯实医疗保障的微观基础,发展和完善医疗救助制度,为民营中小企业医疗保障制度建设扫除障碍。     

试析企业年金税收优惠

随着人口老龄化危机的加重,企业年金计划被确立为社会养老保险体系的第二支柱。由于企业动力不足,当前我国年金计划只在少数企业建立,覆盖面还不够广。税收优惠在促使企业建立年金计划方面的激励功能已在发达国家所证实,我国应借鉴国外的经验,推动企业年金的发展。     

Highway to (Digital) Surveillance: When Are Clients Coerced to Share Their Data with Insurers?

Journal of Business Ethics - Clients may feel trapped into sharing their private digital data with insurance companies to get a desired insurance product or premium. However, private insurance must...     

Energy,Insurance, and Health: Viewpoints of a Microeconomist

Abstract

This contribution reviews developments in the microeconomic analysis applied to three fields that are rarely considered in combination – energy, insurance, and health – focusing on four themes. First, it finds that stocks are crucial not only in energy but also motivate (in the guise of assets) demand for insurance coverage, as well as healthcare services designed to maintain one’s stock of health. Second, however, the three fields strongly diverge in terms of their industry structure. While oil and, until recently, electricity are vertically integrated, healthcare has been the leading example of a cottage industry, with private insurance in between. Third, the structure of innovation also differs. In energy and private insurance, process and organizational innovation prevail; in healthcare, it is product innovation, meaning new characteristics at higher cost, facilitated by health insurance. Finally, government regulation impinges on all three industries.     

Commercial Insurance of Financial Disclosure: Auditors’ Independence, and Investors’ Protection

In this paper the authors propose, for preliminary consideration and discussion, a system of commercial insurance of financial disclosures (CIFD), under which users of financial information (owners and potential owners of business enterprises) and providers of financial information (managers of business enterprises) would be able to purchase insurance policies from private insurers (commercial insurance companies). These insurance policies would be designed to protect users of financial statements from specific, well-defined losses directly attributable to their use of financial disclosures that failed to conform to contractually defined standards. To reduce their own risks insurance companies will likely purchase from assurance experts (certified public accountants, financial analysts, and management consultants) services assuring adherence to standards. The paper discusses the dynamics of the decisions and negotiations within and among groups of investors, managers, insurers, assurors, and government regulators. The advantages of CIFD over current US regulation of financial disclosure are analyzed. Those advantages, which include increases in the independence of external auditors, improvements in the quality of their audits, and better protection for investors, are assessed. It is argued that CIFD may be capable of evolving into a very flexible system that would accommodate alternative regulatory structures.     

OECD Export Credit Agencies: Supplementing Short-Term Export Credit Insurance during the 2008 Financial Crisis

ABSTRACT

The 2008 financial crisis impacted international trade in part due to decreases in trade finance and export credit insurance. This article shows that Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member states used their public Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) to supplement the lack of private short-term export credit insurance as a means to increase trade. All OECD states, except Greece and Estonia, either increased the capacity of their ECAs to provide short-term export credit insurance, or they developed new products for this purpose. More generally, states that changed their short-term export credit insurance programs had major trading partners with defaults.     

Business and Professional Ethics in Transitional Economies and Beyond: Considerations for the Insurance Industries of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary

This paper examines several key aspects of the ethical environment facing the insurance industries of Poland, The Czech Republic and Hungary as they complete the transition from Communist insurance systems built upon state-owned monopolies to viable private domestic insurance markets, and then seek to harmonize their markets with the single insurance market of the European Union. Since many types of ethical problems encountered during the transition are unlikely to diminish significantly as a result of either privatization or regulation of the insurance markets of these countries, measures are identified that should help to improve the ethical environments of these markets.     

Making Health Care More Affordable Through Health Insurance Finance Reform

The way that we finance health insurance today is both unfair and inefficient. The tax code subsidizes the most expensive employment-based policies while penalizing those who buy insurance on their own or choose more basic policies. By reforming this system, we can both make health care more affordable for millions of people and get higher-value care for the money that we spend. These reforms should be coupled with policies to ensure that basic private insurance is affordable for everyone, including those with chronic health conditions or low income, and to ensure that patients and physicians have the tools that they need to make well-informed decisions. JEL Classification I11     

Improving Incentives in Health Care Spending

Although U.S. economic growth is likely to continue to be robust, the growth of private and public spending on health care presents long-run public policy challenges. To meet these challenges health care resources must be used more efficiently. Currently, there are few incentives to put health care dollars to the highest value use. This is true in both public and private spending. An important element of the problem lies in the tax-preferred treatment given to employer-provided insurance but not to out-of-pocket spending. The resulting bias towards first-dollar insurance coverage means that consumers are insulated from the real costs of the health care that they consume and have little reason to evaluate whether the benefits are greater than those costs. Moreover, they seldom have sufficient price and quality information to make informed decisions. Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are a promising way to remove the tax-penalty for enrolling in catastrophic insurance and paying for routine care out of pocket. Given the information that they need, consumers would then have more choices and more control, strengthening their role in reducing waste, improving efficiency, and promoting competition. Coupled with other policies, HSAs can be a critical component in moving toward an efficient and equitable health care system. JEL Classification I11     

Outsourcing, unemployment and welfare policy

The paper investigates the consequences of outsourcing of labor intensive activities to low-wage economies. This trend challenges the two basic functions of the welfare state, redistribution and social insurance when private unemployment insurance markets are missing. The main results are: (i) outsourcing raises unemployment and labor income risk of unskilled workers; (ii) it increases inequality between high- and low-income groups; and (iii) the gains from outsourcing can be made Pareto improving by using a redistributive linear income tax if redistribution is initially not too large. We finally derive the welfare optimal redistribution and unemployment insurance policies.     

董事高管责任保险与企业差异化战略

文章基于风险承担与保险对冲视角，考察董事高管责任保险对企业差异化战略的影响及其作用机理。研究发现：董事高管责任保险的风险对冲效应有助于管理层实施差异化战略，在民企以及诉讼风险较高的企业中，董事高管责任保险发挥更强的风险兜底作用；当采用高管海外经历作为工具变量控制潜在的内生性问题后，结论依然稳健。进一步分析表明，董事高管责任保险主要通过“激励效应”而非“自利效应”影响管理层实施差异化战略，且购买董事高管责任保险的企业风险承担水平较高、战略进攻性较强以及研发创新较多（研发型专利和外观型专利）。文章研究结论不仅丰富了董事高管责任保险和企业差异化战略的相关文献，还有助于全面认知董事高管责任保险的公司治理效应，为董事高管责任的全面推广及企业战略决策的选择提供了经验证据。     

Who's afraid of an open insurance market?

Although until recently foreign markets were profitable only for insurers dealing with commercial risks, it may be assumed that the development of the free insurance market will have an impact also on the insurance of consumer risks. The insurer may remain passive in the hope that the prospective policy-holder will take the initiative to cross the border, or he may actively involve himself by advertising his services in the foreign country. In these endeavours, the insurer will need the support of the insurance intermediary. It is therefore to be expected that the popularity of the so-called broker's cover will increase vastly. This will not enhance the transparency of the insurance market. The option, open to the EC Member States, to decide whether or not to go for freedom of choice of law rule, does not make it easier to coordinate and harmonize private international insurance law among the Member States.     

A quantitative analysis of employment guarantee programmes with an application to rural India

This paper examines the welfare effects of a workfare programme in an economy where agents face exogenous income shocks and are unable to insure themselves through private markets. A dynamic general equilibrium model is calibrated using data from two ICRISAT villages in the Indian state of Maharashtra, which had a functioning Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS), in the period 1979–84. The optimal wage and the welfare gains of the program depend on how productive the EGS is, relative to the private sector. When agents are paid the optimal wage rate, they do not hold the non-interest-bearing asset for precautionary savings and all insurance is provided by the EGS. There are significant welfare gains from paying the optimal wage rate as opposed to simply paying the marginal product of labour in the EGS.     

Trade‐related Job Loss,Wage Insurance and Externalities: An Ex Ante Efficiency Rationale for Wage Insurance

The extension of adjustment assistance to those who have suffered trade‐related job displacement is widely supported on both sides of the economics of globalisation debate. The form that such assistance should take, namely wage insurance, is also the subject of wide agreement. Nevertheless, the formal economic rationales offered for such a policy are varied, including political economy arguments, equity arguments and market failure/ex post efficiency arguments. This note proposes an ex ante efficiency‐based rationale for the provision of adjustment assistance in the specific form of wage insurance. Job displacement imposes pecuniary externalities on displaced workers, which, in a complete markets setting, induce only shifts along the ex ante Pareto‐efficient frontier. However, when markets are incomplete, pecuniary externalities become welfare‐relevant. Without the possibility of diversifying or hedging the risk of pecuniary external diseconomies of job displacement using contingent claims, welfare is reduced ex ante. Wage insurance – whether publicly underwritten, privately underwritten (as in Shiller's (2003 ) ‘livelihood insurance’), or supplied on a mixed public/private basis – completes the market for contingent claims, allowing workers to diversify or hedge the risk of trade‐related pecuniary external diseconomies. By facilitating risk sharing, wage insurance removes an impediment to ex ante Pareto efficiency. Moreover, wage insurance affects not only post‐displacement behaviour by increasing the incentive to reacquire employment quickly, but it also affects pre‐displacement consumption and investment behaviour, in particular, lowering the threshold at which workers will be willing to undertake irreversible investment in industry‐specific skills.     

The Distributional Impact of Health Financing in Europe: A Review

This article summarises, extends and updates previous empirical work on the distributional implications of alternative health care financing arrangements in a selection of European countries and the US. On the one hand, total health care payments are almost proportional to ability to pay in most countries. This is predominantly driven by a high reliance on public financing. On the other hand, private payments – out‐of‐pocket payments as well as private insurance premiums – are highly regressive. More extended reliance on private financing may therefore endanger the equitable nature of financing systems. In addition, private payments put a heavy burden on unfortunate households.     

Strike Pay and Employers' Strike Insurance

The consequences of strike pay for employees and of an employers' strike insurance fund are analysed in a two‐period screening model of labour disputes with private information of the firm. It is shown that the employers' strike fund reduces uncertainty and hence lowers strike activity. If the union's strike pay fund can incur a deficit during disputes, strike pay will raise strike activity. If strike pay and an employers' insurance are combined, strikes may become less probable.     

Socially Responsible Institutional Investment in Private Equity

This article studies institutional investor allocations to the socially responsible asset class. We propose two elements influence socially responsible institutional investment in private equity: internal organizational structure, and internationalization. We study socially responsible investments from Dutch institutional investments into private equity funds, and compare socially responsible investment across different asset classes and different types of institutional investors (banks, insurance companies, and pension funds). The data indicate socially responsible investment in private equity is 40–50% more common when the decision to implement such an investment plan is centralised with a single chief investment officer. Socially responsible investment in private equity is also more common among institutional investors with a greater international investment focus, and less common among fund-of-fund private equity investments.