The Asymmetric Information Problem in Taiwan's Cancer Insurance Market

This paper investigates the problem of asymmetric information in Taiwan’s cancer insurance market. Through the survey data, we find evidence of adverse selection existing in this market. Furthermore, we collect additional information on the individual, and find that the individual’s family cancer history contains additional valuable information. It can not only more accurately predict the probability of contracting cancer, as well as predict the willingness to purchase extended cancer insurance, but it can also help to mitigate the severity of adverse selection in the insurance market.     

Testing for Asymmetric Information in the Automobile Insurance Market Under Rate Regulation

This article examines whether adverse selection or moral hazard could be induced by rate regulation, which prohibits insurance companies from considering some attributes of drivers in setting premiums. Using an individual data set from a heavily regulated automobile insurance market, we arrived at several conclusions, as follows. First, no evidence of adverse selection or moral hazard is found in general: conditional on all the variables observed by insurer, the null hypothesis of independence between risk and coverage is not rejected at reasonable levels of statistical significance. Second, this result is robust in the sense that it holds under several empirical procedures and different definitions of risk and coverage. Third, we find that unobserved variables do not induce adverse selection: the null hypothesis that consumers in risky regions are more likely to purchase insurance is tested against the alternative and rejected. Our study supports the view that the adverse selection phenomenon exists only to a very limited extent in this market.     

Evidence of Asymmetric Information in the Automobile Insurance Market: Dichotomous Versus Multinomial Measurement of Insurance Coverage

In the empirical analysis of information asymmetry in automobile insurance markets, prior research used a dichotomous measurement approach that induces excessive bundling in coverage measurements and sample selection biases. To improve on the conditional correlation method for testing information asymmetry, we propose a multinomial measurement approach that constructs coverage categories at ordered multinomial levels. With this approach, we find robust evidence of information asymmetry in both coverage area and coverage amount choices, which we could not find with the dichotomous measurement approach. It thus demonstrates the sensitivity of the empirical findings to the method used to measure insurance coverage.     

博弈论视角下我国商业医疗保险市场的信息不对称分析

本文首先建立单阶段静态博弈模型,分析保险公司与医院合作的可能性,说明只有作为委托人的保险公司向医院支付一定补偿金额,医院才有动机控制患者的医疗费用,从而间接实现保险公司的利润目标;其次建立多阶段动态博弈模型进一步分析,指出双方足够的耐心与理性是长期稳定合作的条件。在我国,医疗卫生体制制约了保险公司与医院的耐心与理性,理顺医疗服务体系有助于商业医疗保险健康发展。保险公司尽管可以分别采取措施控制医方和患方的风险,但控制医患合谋的道德风险更加困难。保险公司必须加强自身的诚信建设。     

Adverse Selection in an Insurance Market With Government-Guaranteed Subsistence Levels

We consider a competitive insurance market with adverse selection. Unlike the standard models, we assume that individuals receive the benefit of some type of potential government assistance that guarantees them a minimum level of wealth. For example, this assistance might be some type of government‐sponsored relief program, or it might simply be some type of limited liability afforded via bankruptcy laws. Government assistance is calculated ex post of any insurance benefits. This alters the individuals' demand for insurance coverage. In turn, this affects the equilibria in various insurance models of markets with adverse selection.     

Asymmetric Information in the Subprime Mortgage Market

Because of impersonal securitization in the secondary market, the ultimate investors in a mortgage have only a limited amount of information about the borrower??s characteristics. This creates an asymmetric information problem because of hidden knowledge on the part of the primary lenders, who naturally have much better access to this information. This is aggravated by the free rider problem when there are multiple investors. We discuss to what extent the secondary market then seeks to sort the loans to ameliorate this problem and what role reputations play. More importantly, however, the actions of the primary lender in terms of which kinds of loans they choose to approve are partly hidden, and this typical principal-agent situation importantly aggravates the incentive problem. To judge the nature and magnitude of this moral hazard dilemma, we use data to compare how well investors in the secondary mortgage market can predict default given the information they typically have access to as compared to the ability of primary lenders to similarly predict default given the larger set of information they typically will have access to. Finally, the implications of these results are indicated, particularly in light of the recent mortgage crisis.     

Insurance Markets With Differential Information

This article attempts to understand the outcomes when each party of an insurance contract simultaneously has superior information. I assume that policyholders have superior information about specific risks while insurers have superior information about general risks. I find that low-general-risk policyholders purchase insurance, while high-general-risk policyholders are self-insured. Among the low-general-risk policyholders, high-specific-risk policyholders purchase full insurance, while low-specific-risk policyholders purchase partial insurance. When insurers can strategically publicize their information, efficiency is improved because high-general-risk policyholders purchase actuarially fair insurance. The market segmentation is also found based on the general-risk type and the publicizing of information.     

Asymmetric Information Problems in Taiwan's Automobile Insurance Market: The Effect of Policy Design on Loss Characteristics

This article investigates asymmetric information problems for the automobile insurance market in Taiwan. Using panel data for the comprehensive automobile insurance coverage from 1995 to 1999, this article analyzes how types of coverage, deductible amounts, and experience ratings have affected the adverse selection and moral hazard problems in Taiwan's automobile insurance market. The empirical results provide partial evidence to demonstrate that the loss frequency and loss ratio were reduced by the addition of self-selection mechanisms in policies with different levels of coverage. In addition, the deductible amounts, experience ratings, and better control of underwriting and claims processing were shown possibly to have decreased potential losses from adverse selection and moral hazard problems.     

Interbank Market Integration under Asymmetric Information

Cross-country bank lending appears to be subject to market imperfectionsleading to persistent interest rate differentials. In a modelwhere banks need to cope with liquidity shocks by borrowingor by liquidating assets, we study the scope for internationalinterbank market integration with unsecured lending when cross-countryinformation is noisy. We find that an equilibrium with integratedmarkets need not always exist, and that it may coexist withone characterized by segmentation. A repo market reduces interestrate spreads and improves upon the segmentation equilibrium.However, it may destroy the unsecured integrated equilibrium.     

The Role of Tax Subsidies in the Market for Health Insurance

This paper investigates the role of tax subsidies in linking the market for health insurance to the employment relationship. Using both American and Canadian data, it investigates how these subsidies influence whether health insurance coverage is offered in different sized firms and whether it is offered through an employer versus the individual private market. The findings indicate that tax subsidies encourage the provision of insurance in smaller firms. Removal of the subsidies would cause the level of insurance in small firms to decline significantly, but would not cause a large change in the level of insurance in larger firms. Part of this decline would be offset by increases in the market for individually purchased insurance.     

A Model of an Oligopoly in an Insurance Market

This article analyzes the behavior of an oligopoly of risk-averse insurers that insure many consumers facing identical independent risks; however, the probability of a loss is ex ante not known with certainty. It is shown that there is a continuum of equilibria in the Bertrand game. The most plausible equilibrium can be obtained by requiring that all insurers are content with the number of policies they sell given the equilibrium premium.     

关于我国保险中介市场发展的评价

作为保险营销主要渠道的保险中介在我国发展迅速,银保"井喷"、营销员市场份额下跌等问题引起了社会广泛关注,笔者认为我国保险中介发展过程中既有成绩也有败笔.本文首先简要介绍保险中介市场总体状况;接着笔者从保险专业中介、保险兼业代理以及保险营销员三大板块进行分析,指出其发展中存在的问题及其根源;最后针对性的给出相关建议,以促...     

保险人与保险中介人之间的信息不对称问题研究

保险人与保险中介人之间由于期望效用不一致、信息资源不充分等原因导致了信息不对称,对保险人造成负面影响的是代理人隐瞒行为型信息不对称。要解决保险人与保险中介人之间的信息不对称,一方面应加强保险人与保险中介人自身的内部约束,另一方面应建立利益趋同机制和保险信用评级制度。     

Deposit Insurance and the Discount Window: Pricing under Asymmetric Information

The risk-sensitive pricing of deposit insurance and the discount window is determined in an environment where banks have private information concerning their financial conditions. The two facilities are managed jointly; an incentive-compatible policy is designed such that banks' choice of terms at which they can obtain insurance and access to discount window credit will reveal their asset quality. The function of the discount window is to be a risk-neutral “lender of last resort” to banks in a market dominated by risk-averse depositors.     

Testing Adverse Selection With Two‐Dimensional Information: Evidence From the Singapore Auto Insurance Market

This article examines adverse selection in insurance markets with two‐dimensional information: policyholders’ riskiness and degree of risk aversion. We build a theoretical model to make equilibrium predictions on competitive insurance screening. We study several variations on the pattern of information asymmetry. The outcomes range from full separation to partial separation, and complete pooling of risk types. Next, we propose a copula approach to jointly examine policyholders’ coverage choice and accident occurrence in the Singapore automobile insurance market. Furthermore, we invoke the theory to identify subgroups of policyholders for whom one may expect the risk–coverage correlation and adverse selection to arise.