金融创新如何缓解信任品市场失灵?——中国食品安全责任强制保险的自然实验

信任品市场(如食品、医药等)存在的问题一直困扰着中国和世界很多国家。关于产品和服务质量的信息不对称(道德风险和逆向选择)会导致信任品市场失灵。缓解信任品市场失灵,一种常见的解决方案是政府监管;而经济学家认为更加基于市场的解决方案(例如强制责任保险等金融创新)可能更为有效。在理论上,强制责任保险有两种相反的效应:保险公司的监督减少了道德风险 vs. 保险加剧了企业的道德风险,但一直亟待实证检验。幸运的是,中国食品安全责任强制保险的改革实验走在了世界的前列。本文利用了中国在不同地区、不同时间推行的这个自然实验,通过双重差分的方法识别出责任保险对于信任品市场的因果效应。本文的研究发现,强制责任保险能显著降低食品安全事故发生概率。这表明政府强制推行的金融创新可以成为信任品市场失灵的一种有效的替代性解决方案。     

State-contingent regulatory mechanisms and fairly priced deposit insurance

This paper presents a model of incentive compatible bank regulation under moral hazard and adverse selection. We derive a wide range of simple and conceptually implementable mechanisms that can solve each type of incentive problem separately and also achieve the first-best outcome – but only when regulatory instruments involve ex post pricing that is contingent on the bank's performance relative to the market. An important feature of these mechanisms is that they do not involve a subsidy to the bank. When the regulator faces both moral hazard and adverse selection simultaneously, we identify the conditions under which the same mechanism can achieve the first-best solution.     

Moral hazard,adverse selection,and health expenditures: A semiparametric analysis

Theoretical models predict asymmetric information in health insurance markets may generate inefficient outcomes due to adverse selection and moral hazard. However, previous empirical research has found it difficult to disentangle adverse selection from moral hazard in health care consumption. We propose a two‐step semiparametric estimation strategy to identify and estimate a canonical model of asymmetric information in health care markets. With this method, we can estimate a structural model of demand for health care. We illustrate this method using a claims‐level data set with confidential information from a large self‐insured employer. We find significant evidence of moral hazard and adverse selection.     

农业保险中的政府角色:理论诠释与中国的选择

在农业保险的发展过程中,其是否属于(准)公共产品、农民的风险态度、政府是否该介入、如何介入,不仅在一般的理论层面存在争议,而且也涉及政府与市场关系等特殊性问题。在梳理国内外相关文献对上述问题的分析之后,从政府与市场的角度,对政府介入解决我国农业保险三大基本特征(供给和需求的双重不足,市场发育和制度规范的双重缺失,以及逆选择与道德风险严重)的定位及行为路径进行了探讨。     

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.     

基于Agent的保险系统非对称信息博弈研究

本文基于保险系统复杂性特征和复杂性科学在解决系统非线性和复杂性交互行为方面的优势,针对保险系统中非对称信息的特点,运用博弈数学模型系统分析保险系统非对称信息,通过CAS理论构建了基于Agent的保险系统仿真模型并在swarm平台上实现了关于保险系统逆向选择问题的经典模型的动态仿真。结果表明：信息不对称产生了保险逆向选择和道德风险,妨碍了保险机制顺利运行,使保险系统资源配置效率严重降低。     

逆向选择、系统性风险与政策性农业保险可持续发展

本文介绍了政策性农业保险在发达国家的成功经验和我国的发展状况,对政府补贴情境下的农业保险市场均衡模型进行了研究,并得到了市场均衡条件下的免赔率方程。利用上述市场均衡模型,针对农业保险市场普遍存在的系统性风险、逆向选择和道德风险问题,从统一的政策性农业保险公司、多层次再保险体系建设等方面阐述了政策性农业保险体系的可持续发展策略。     

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.     

The Impact of Rate Regulation on Claims: Evidence From Massachusetts Automobile Insurance

The article tests the hypothesis that insurance price subsidies created by rate regulation lead to higher insurance cost growth. The article makes use of data from the Massachusetts private passenger automobile insurance market, where cross‐subsidies were explicitly built into the rate structure through rules that limit rate differentials and differences in rate increases across driver rating categories. Two approaches are taken to study the potential loss cost reaction to the Massachusetts cross‐subsidies. The first approach compares Massachusetts with all other states while controlling for demographic, regulatory, and liability coverage levels. Loss cost levels that were about 29 percent above the expected level are found for Massachusetts during years 1978–1998, when premiums charged were those fixed by the state and included explicit subsidies for high‐risk drivers. A second approach considers changing cost levels across Massachusetts by studying loss cost changes by town and relating those changes to subsidy providers and subsidy receivers. Subsidy data based on accident year data for 1993–2004 show a significant and positive (relative) growth in loss costs and an increasing proportion of high‐risk drivers for towns that were subsidy receivers, in line with the theory of underlying incentives for adverse selection and moral hazard.     

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.     

On the Role of Patience in an Insurance Market With Asymmetric Information

We analyze a two-period competitive insurance market that is characterized by the simultaneous presence of moral hazard and adverse selection with regard to consumer time preferences. It is shown that there exists an equilibrium in which patient consumers use high effort and buy an insurance contract with high coverage, whereas impatient consumers use low effort and buy a contract with low coverage or even remain uninsured. This finding may help to explain why the opposite of adverse selection with regard to risk types can sometimes be observed empirically.     

Automobile Insurance Contracts and Risk of Accident: An Empirical Test Using French Individual Data

Insurance has for a long time been perceived as a way of transferring responsibility from insured agents to insurers and thus as potentially influencing insured agents' behavior. Two particular opportunistic behaviors have been analyzed. First, the theory of adverse selection predicts that high-risk agents are likely to demand more insurance than are low-risk agents. Second, the theory of moral hazard predicts that the wider the insurance coverage, the less agents will try to prevent accidents. Both theories thus conclude that agents who are totally insured should have a higher probability of accident than those with only partial insurance, ceteris paribus. Nevertheless, one of the aims of insurance rating systems is to control for these opportunistic behaviors. In this article, we use individual data to see if the French automobile insurance rating system has achieved this aim. We do this using a two-step maximum-likelihood method. First, we compute a probit model to estimate the probability of taking out comprehensive versus third-party insurance. We then calculate the generalized residual, which is included as an independent variable in a negative binomial model estimating the probability of having an accident. The coefficient of this variable is argued to represent adverse selection and ex-ante moral-hazard behavior.     

指数保险有效性实证分析

运用Miranda模型研究发现,农户个体产量波动与所在区域产量波动存在高度正相关性,基于区域产量保险的保费率低于传统农业保险的保费率,这有利于刺激指数保险的需求。由于指数保险克服了传统农业保险市场中的逆向选择与道德风险问题,降低了交易成本,从而指数保险能够降低农户的保费支出并有效管理农业生产风险。     

Deposit insurance and subsidized recapitalizations

The 2007–2009 financial crisis saw a vast expansion in deposit insurance guarantees around the world and yet our understanding of the design and consequences of deposit insurance schemes is in its infancy. We provide a new rationale for the provision of deposit insurance. In our model the banking sector exhibits both adverse selection and moral hazard, which implies that the social benefits of bank monitoring must for incentive reasons be shared between depositors and banks. Consequently, socially too few deposits are made in equilibrium. Deposit insurance – or, equivalently, bank recapitalization – corrects this market failure. We find that deposit insurance should be funded not by banks or depositors but out of general taxation. The optimal level of deposit insurance varies inversely with the quality of the banking system. Hence, when the soundness of the financial sector is uncertain, governments should consider supporting deposit insurance schemes and undertaking subsidized recapitalizations.     

Asymmetric information in insurance: general testable implications

Several recent articles on empirical contract theory and insurance have tested for a positive correlation between coverage and ex post risk, as predicted by standard models of pure adverse selection or pure moral hazard. We show here that the positive correlationproperty can be extended to general setups: competitive insurance markets and cases where risk aversion is public. We test our results on a French dataset. Our tests confirm that the estimated correlation is positive; they also suggest the presence of market power.     

基于风险区划下的玉米区域产量保险差别费率厘定——以吉林省九个地级市为例

农业保险发展过程中难以避免逆向选择的发生,区域产量保险的提出可以为减少逆向选择和道德风险提供基础,是农业保险未来的发展方面。通过以玉米种植为例,利用产量指标为基础,将吉林省各地区分为三个风险区域,并在此基础上进行区域产量保险的费率厘定,得到区域级别的费率,为吉林省玉米保险的发展提供意见建议。     

Adverse selection and moral hazard: Quantitative implications for unemployment insurance

A model of optimal unemployment insurance with adverse selection and moral hazard is constructed. The model generates both qualitative and quantitative implications for the optimal provision of unemployment insurance. Qualitatively, for some agents, incentives in the optimal contract imply consumption increases over the duration of non-employment. Calibrating the model to a stylized version of the U.S. economy quantitatively illustrates these theoretical predictions. The optimal contract achieves a welfare gain of 1.94% relative to the current U.S. system, an additional 0.87% of gains relative to a planner who ignores adverse selection and focuses only on moral hazard.     

Testing for Adverse Selection in Insurance Markets

This article reviews and evaluates the empirical literature on adverse selection in insurance markets. We focus on empirical work that seeks to test the basic coverage–risk prediction of adverse selection theory—that is, that policyholders who purchase more insurance coverage tend to be riskier. The analysis of this body of work, we argue, indicates that whether such a correlation exists varies across insurance markets and pools of insurance policies. We discuss various reasons why a coverage–risk correlation may not be found in some pools of insurance policies. The presence of a coverage–risk correlation can be explained either by moral hazard or adverse selection, and we discuss methods for distinguishing between them. Finally, we review the evidence on learning by policyholders and insurers.     

A Model of the Demand for Investment Banking Advising and Distribution Services for New Issues

This paper presents a theory of the demand for investment banking advising and distribution services for the case in which the investment banker is better informed about the capital market than is the issuer, and the issuer cannot observe the distribution effort expended by the banker. The optimal contract under which the offer price decision is delegated to the better-informed banker in order to deal with the adverse selection and moral hazard problems resulting from the informational asymmetry and the observability problem is characterized. The model demonstrates a positive demand for investment banking advising and distribution services and provides an explanation of the underpricing of new issues.     

Hidden Overconfidence and Advantageous Selection

Theories of adverse selection and moral hazard predict the occurrence of the risk and the coverage of the insurance should be positively correlated, whereas empirical researches find little support of it. This paper provides a theoretical model of hidden overconfidence and demonstrates that a competitive insurance market may settle on separating equilibrium with advantageous selection predicting a negative relationship between risk and coverage. By assuming heterogeneity in risk perception and hidden action on self-protection, we find that, in equilibrium, the rational type of individual takes precautions to reduce the loss probability, whereas the overconfident type of individual will not make any effort. In the separating equilibrium, the insurer provides a product with high coverage to attract rational type of individual (low risk), and a product with low coverage for overconfident type of individual (high risk). In addition, other types of equilibrium such as adverse selection or linear premium rate are also found.