MONOPOLY INSURANCE AND ENDOGENOUS INFORMATION

We study a monopoly insurance model with endogenous information acquisition. Through a continuous effort choice, consumers can determine the precision of a privately observed signal that is informative about their accident risk. The equilibrium effort is, depending on parameter values, either zero (implying symmetric information) or positive (implying privately informed consumers). Regardless of the nature of the equilibrium, all offered contracts, also at the top, involve underinsurance, which discourages information gathering. We identify a missorting effect that explains why the insurer wants to discourage information acquisition. Moreover, lower information gathering costs can hurt both consumer and insurer.     

企业风险管理发展历程及其研究趋势的新认识

风险管理本质上是针对各种风险管理活动的总称。风险管理研究历程大致可以分为基于保险与财务层面的风险管理研究和基于整体层面的风险管理研究两个阶段。目前国内外影响力较大的风险管理框架主要有COSO的《企业风险管理——整合框架》等。风险管理研究已经取得了重大突破但也存在不足。整体层面的风险管理在企业中的应用及其实施绩效的研究等将成为风险管理研究的主流发展趋势。     

Multiple Dimensions of Private Information: Evidence from the Long-Term Care Insurance Market

We demonstrate the existence of multiple dimensions of private information in the long-term care insurance market. Two types of people purchase insurance: individuals with private information that they are high risk and individuals with private information that they have strong taste for insurance. Ex post, the former are higher risk than insurance companies expect, while the latter are lower risk. In aggregate, those with more insurance are not higher risk. Our results demonstrate that insurance markets may suffer from asymmetric information even absent a positive correlation between insurance coverage and risk occurrence. The results also suggest a general test for asymmetric information.     

Anti-insurance: Analysing the Health Insurance System in Australia

This paper develops a model to analyse the Australian health insurance system when individuals differ in their health risk and this risk is private information. In Australia private insurance both duplicates and supplements public insurance. We show that, absent any other interventions, this results in implicit transfers of wealth from those most at risk of adverse health to those least at risk. At the social level, these transfers represent a mean preserving spread of income, creating social risk and lowering welfare – what we call anti-insurance. The recently introduced rebate on private health insurance can improve welfare by alleviating anti-insurance.     

巨灾风险下的投保行为 ——基于实验理论的研究

中国尚无巨灾保险市场,研究人们在巨灾风险下的投保行为对巨灾保险市场的建立与发展都具有重要的意义。本文以地震风险为例,运用实验经济学的方法,探讨了个体面对巨灾风险时的投保行为与相关理论问题。研究结果表明,人们的投保决策受其对风险概率认知的影响较小,知道清晰的风险概率甚至会降低投保率;在实验中引入仿真信息,将诱导被试投保;而过往受灾经历影响较大,且这种影响并不一定需要亲身经历才能形成,知晓他人遭受灾难也能唤起人们的投保意识。通过扩展传统的实验理论,实验室实验被应用到了这种因难以控制变量而研究较少的领域,并发现了投保行为的某些特征。     

Public investment criteria,insurance markets,and income taxes

The evaluation of small government investments is studied in a one-commodity, two-period world with risk and income taxation, assuming both complete and incomplete insurance markets. When marginal personal tax rates differ or markets are incomplete, there are at least two interpretations of the assumption that the distribution of income is optimal. The correct discount rate for riskless investment depends on which interpretation is chosen. The correct adjustment for risk generally does not. The use of nonmarket information - relating the returns from the proposed investment to those from ongoing activities - to compute this adjustment is explored.     

Estimating Willingness to Pay for Improved Drinking Water Quality Using Averting Behavior Method with Perception Measure

This paper suggests an application of an averting behaviormethod to reconcile inconsistent public activity with objectiveenvironmental risk. In Korea, an historically polluted watersupply has created citizen resistance to using tap water. Koreansperceive low quality levels for tap water, although objectivelymeasured data show that the pollution levels are lower than theacceptable risk. We hypothesized that the irrational aversion tousing tap water is a consequence of inconsistencies between theobjectively measured and perceived pollution levels. We introducethe perception averting behavior method, in which we add aperception measure unit to the conventional averting behaviormethod. We found that the perception measure provided a validexplanation for citizens' aversion to using tap water in Korea.     

SAVING AND SOCIAL INSURANCE

In a model which is both intertemporal and uncertain, this paper shows that risk averters increase saving in response to increases in the probability of income losses and reduce saving in response to social insurance.     

工人离职、失业波动与失业保险文献评述

失业不仅涉及失业波动的影响,还包括在职工人的离队。为减少工人搜寻过程中产生的负外部性,应降低工人的信息成本。失业保险政策的实施又降低了失业工人再就业的激励性,应确立有效的失业保险水平,实现产出与社会福利的最大化。     

中国居民医疗保险购买行为研究-基于商业健康保险的角度

本文通过健康保险市场供需双方行为分析,构建居民医疗保险购买行为模型,利用中国健康与营养调查数据(2000—2006),运用部分观测的二元Probit估计方法(Bivariate Probit with partial observability),从实证的角度分析商业健康保险市场中供需双方各自的风险选择行为,以及城乡地区居民对商业健康保险的潜在需求行为及其宏微观影响因素。本文发现:(1)城乡居民都存在显著的逆向选择行为;(2)城乡社会医疗保障对居民商业健康保险需求行为有显著的促进作用;(3)影响居民商业健康保险行为的其他因素还包括,个人的风险偏好和经济购买力。     

RISK ATTITUDES AND THE DEMAND FOR PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE: THE IMPORTANCE OF 'CAPTIVE PREFERENCES'

ABSTRACT ** :  Captivity to a mainstream public insurer, is hypothesized to constrain the choice of purchasing private health insurance, by influencing risk attitudes. Namely, risk averse individuals are more likely to stay captive to the National Health System (NHS). To empirically test this hypothesis we use a small scale database from Catalonia to explore the determinants of private health insurance (PHI) purchase under different forms of captivity along with a measure of risk attitudes. Our results confirm that the captivity corrections are significant and can potentially bias the estimates of the demand for PHI. Risk aversion increases the probability of an individual being captive to the NHS. The latter suggests a potential behavioural (or cultural) mechanism to isolate the influence of risk attitudes on the demand for PHI in publicly financed health systems.     

IDIOSYNCRATIC RISK,AGGREGATE RISK,AND THE WELFARE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SECURITY

We ask whether a pay‐as‐you‐go financed social security system is welfare improving in an economy with idiosyncratic and aggregate risk. We show that the whole welfare benefit from insurance against both risks is greater than the sum of benefits from insurance against the isolated risks. One reason is the convexity of the welfare gain. The other reason is a direct risk interaction amplifying the utility losses from risk. Our quantitative evaluation shows that introducing a minimum pension leads to sizeable welfare gains, despite substantial crowding out. About 60% of these gains would be missing from summing up the isolated benefits.     

INTEREST GROUPS, INFLUENCE AND WELFARE

This paper examines the social costs and benefits of special interest group political influence activities. It is commonly recognized that, to the extent that such activities induce legislators to choose policies that favor the interest group at the expense of society at large, they can reduce welfare. It may also be the case, however, that lobbying can convey information held by interest groups to policy-makers. When costless announcements would not be credible, interest groups can signal their private information through costly influence activities. To the extent that this information enables governments to choose better policies, lobbying can enhance welfare. A simple game between a special interest group and a policy-maker that captures this tradeoff between the distortionary costs and the informational benefits of political influence activities is developed. Welfare properties of the equilibria are analyzed, and conditions are derived under which social welfare is greater when lobbying occurs than it would be if lobbying were prohibited. In conclusion, the phenomenon analyzed in this paper is related to Bhagwati's taxonomy of DUP activities.     

我国农业保险信息不对称问题研究

农业保险是现代农业发展的有力保障,也是强农惠农的重要政策之一,但信息不对称问题严重阻碍了我国农业保险的发展。研究发现,投保农户与保险公司的逆选择、心里风险和道德风险是农业保险信息不对称的主要表现形式,而农业生产的特殊性、农业风险的多样化,以及农业保险的利益外溢性和我国农民保险知识匮乏、诚信意识较差等等是导致我国农业保险信息不对称问题产生的主要原因。因此,本文提出建立适合我国国情的农业保险经营模式,积极发展由政府支持、商业保险公司参与的农业保险合作社模式经营农业保险;并根据农业保险信息不对称的不同表现形式,建立相应的博弈模型从而优化保单设计、制定合理价格策略;最后,加大科技投入建立信息甄别机制和险情评估系统、宣传农业保险以及建立农业保险监管体系等也是防范信息不对称的重要举措。     

RISK, INFORMATIONAL ASYMMETRY AND PRODUCT LIABILITY: An Enquiry Into Conflicting Objectives

Abstract.  Risky products inflict two costs on society; the accident and the insurance costs. The expansion in the scope of product liability since the late 1970s has increased the cost of third-party liability insurance. However, the economic analysis has, traditionally, focused on only the accident costs. Some recent works suggests a strict trade-off between minimization of the accident costs and the insurance costs. In this paper, we extend the analysis by considering both types of costs. An efficiency characterization of product liability rules is provided by assuming informational asymmetry about the risk. We show that it is possible to achieve efficiency with respect to the insurance costs as well as the care levels.     

Corporate insurance with optimal financial contracting

Summary. This paper attemps to rationalize the use of insurance covenants in financial contracts, and shows how external financing generates a demand for insurance by risk-neutral entrepreneurs. In our model, the entrepreneur needs external financing for a risky project that can be affected by an accident during its realization. Accident losses and final returns are private information to the firm, but they can be evaluated by two costly auditing technologies. We derive the optimal financial contract: it is a bundle of a standard debt contract and an insurance contract with franchise, trading off bankruptcy costs vs auditing costs. We then analyze how this optimal contract can be achieved by decentralized trading on competitive markets when insurance and credit activities are exogenously separated. With additive risks, the insurance contract involves full coverage above a straight deductible. We interpret this result by showing how our results imply induced risk aversion for risk-neutral firms. Received: December 14, 1998; revised version: August 11, 1999     

Insurance activity,real output,and geopolitical risk: Fresh evidence from BRICS

This paper fills some empirical gaps by evaluating the causal associations among insurance premiums, real output, and geopolitical risk in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) from 1985 to 2017. We utilize a newly-developed Granger-causality quantile analysis to assess the causal relationships among the series under consideration in each distribution quantile. Our empirical results reveal unidirectional causality that runs from real output and geopolitical risk to insurance activities in Brazil and South Africa. We also observe bi-directional lower-tail causality among real output, insurance premiums, and geopolitical risk in Russia. Findings also present bi-directional causality among real output, insurance premiums, and geopolitical risk at different quantiles. Knowledge of these causal relationships can prevent governments from conducting a ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy.     

论全面风险管理对保险公司价值的影响

全面风险管理(Enterprise Risk Management,ERM)是一种最新的风险管理框架.它鼓励企业将风险进行整合,利用高度统一的方法来管理企业面临的所有风险.随着各个保险公司的风险意识的增强和监管部门对全面风险管理规定的出台,全面风险管理已经逐渐被保险公司的高层接受,并在公司内部开展不同形式的全面风险管理活动.本文针对目前保险公司开展全面风险管理活动的情况,分析了全面风险管理活动对保险公司价值的潜在影响,发现在全面风险管理选择模型中,企业规模与全面风险管理的使用成正相关.本文使用全面风险管理指示变量和其他一系列变量来考察全面风险管理使用与企业价值之间的内在关联,结果发现两者在统计和经济意义上存在着显著的正向关系     

保险资金持股与股价崩盘风险——市场“稳定器”还是崩盘“加速器”?

现阶段,有关保险资金持股与资本市场稳定相互关系的讨论多止于推测,少有学者以大样本数据进行实证考察。在理论上,保险资金持股上市公司,一方面可以抑制经理人负面信息隐藏,作为市场“稳定器”降低股价暴跌风险;另一方面,也能引发投资者跟风炒作,导致市场情绪高涨和股价高估,成为股价崩盘风险的“加速器”。本文基于2007—2016年中国沪深两市A股上市公司的数据,实证分析保险资金持股上市公司是否加剧市场暴跌及其作用机制。结果显示:保险资金持股加剧了股价崩盘风险,是公司股价崩盘的“加速器”。这一结论在经过DID模型、工具变量回归、PSM+OLS等内生性分析,以及稳健性检验之后依然成立。进一步研究表明,相比于民营、小型和财产保险公司,在股市投资规模更大的国有、大型和人寿保险公司更能引发市场跟风炒作,加剧股价崩盘风险;不过,当保险资金作为前十大股东参与公司治理时则能够降低股价崩盘风险。本文不仅为保险资金持股与资本市场稳定相互关系的讨论提供了经验证据,也为规范保险资金股权投资,维护资本市场稳定提供有益借鉴。     

Genetic adverse selection: Evidence from long-term care insurance and Huntington disease

Individual, personalized genetic information is increasingly available, leading to the possibility of greater adverse selection over time, particularly in individual-payer insurance markets. We use data on individuals at risk for Huntington disease (HD), a degenerative neurological disorder with significant effects on morbidity, to estimate adverse selection in long-term care insurance. We find strong evidence of adverse selection: individuals who carry the HD genetic mutation are up to 5 times as likely as the general population to own long-term care insurance. This finding is supported both by comparing individuals at risk for HD to those in the general population and by comparing across tested individuals in the HD-risk population with and without the HD mutation.