Vasectomy bonuses and completed family size in India

This paper discusses the consequences in rural India of a certain rational household decision function on the number of children born in the family when birth control opportunities are available. Households are assumed to choose whether or not to practice birth control after each child is born on the basis of maximising expected utility as a function of the consumption per head and the number of members in the family. Uncertainty arises on account of the different evaluation of children of different sexes. The model is then used to predict how completed family size would change if a government agency paid bonuses for smaller families.     

Recommended play and performance bonuses in the minimum effort coordination game

We use experiments to investigate the efficacy of recommended play and performance bonuses in resolving coordination failures in a stag-hunt type coordination game with multiple Pareto-ranked equilibria, often referred to as a “weak link” game. Participants routinely find it difficult to coordinate to the payoff-dominant outcome in such games. We look at performance in both fixed and randomly re-matched groups. A recommendation to the payoff-dominant outcome is successful in resolving coordination failures with fixed groups but only when this recommendation is “common knowledge” in the sense that all members of the group receive the same message and it is read out loud for everyone to hear. Resolving coordination failures is harder with randomly re-matched groups and the greatest success is achieved only upon payment of a performance bonus.     

Financial opening, deposit insurance, and risk in a model of banking competition

We study the impact of competition on banks’ risk-taking behavior under different assumptions about deposit insurance and the dissemination of information. While financial opening increases banks’ riskiness, a risk-based deposit insurance or, alternatively, the public disclosure of financial information, are likely to mitigate this effect. Moreover, the limiting cases of uninsured but fully informed depositors, and risk-based full deposit insurance, yield the same equilibrium risk level. Although the welfare consequences of increased competition depend on its impact on risk, financial opening unambiguously improves welfare as we approach the limiting cases.     

Direct evidence of risk aversion as a source of advantageous selection in health insurance

Using the self-stated degree of risk aversion regarding health from the GSOEP we find some evidence for risk aversion being a source of advantageous selection. Risk averse men more often procure supplementary insurance for hospital visits despite needing the additional coverage less.     

Disability insurance and unemployment insurance as substitute pathways

In this article, we estimate the degree of substitution between enrolment into Disability Insurance (DI) and Unemployment Insurance (UI) in the Netherlands. Starting in the 1990s many policy measures aimed at reducing DI enrolment, and increase labour force participation. We quantify whether these policy measures have led to a reduction in hidden unemployment in DI. A side effect of the reforms may be increased pressure on UI. Therefore, we simultaneously estimate reverse substitution, that is, hidden disability in UI. To this end, we employ a sample of firms in the Dutch AVO database from the period 1993 to 2002. Using instrumental variables in a bivariate Tobit specification, we identify the hidden components in both respective schemes. The estimation results indicate that about 3% of all dismissals took place through DI, which implies that about one quarter of the DI enrolments observed in our sample in fact consists of hidden unemployment. We find no evidence for reverse substitution of disabled persons ending up in UI.     

试论我国寿险资金投资股票市场的风险防范

1 寿险资金投资股市的必要性1.1 急速增长的保费收入要求寿险公司扩大投资范围从2000年以来我国保费收入一直保持着高速的增长,其中寿险保费收人也增长迅猛,其平均增长率保持在28%左右.     

On the optimal design of insurance contracts with the restriction of equity risk

This paper focuses on the optimal design of insurance contracts with the restriction of equity risk by Arrow's optimal insurance model [2] and Zhou's optimal insurance model [4]. The insured aims to maximize his/her expected utility of terminal wealth, under the constraint that the insurer wishes to control his/her risk. We establish an optimal insurance model that restrains underwriting risk and investment risk simultaneously. We solve this problem and obtain the results which improve and extend the results given by Arrow [2] and Zhou [4].     

Performance of European insurance firms in the single insurance market

The deregulation and liberalization process towards establishing a single European financial market has some important implications for the insurance industries. Due to the increased competition, insurance firms have to adjust their costs and operate efficiently to survive in this new environment. This paper attempts to analyze the cost efficiency and scale economies in the single European insurance market. Considering the ongoing enlargement process of the EU, our sample includes the insurance industries of the major EU‐15, four new members and a candidate country, Turkey, over the period 1995–2005. We use the firm‐level financial data and estimate a stochastic cost frontier that controls for differences in environmental conditions. All insurance systems display significant levels of cost inefficiency. The results further indicate that there are significant economies of scale, particularly for small‐ and medium‐size insurance firms. Finally, the analyses suggest similar results for major EU countries, new members and the candidate.     

Liquidity risk and bank portfolio management in a financial system without deposit insurance: Empirical evidence from prewar Japan

Using data from prewar Japan, this paper investigates the impact of a liquidity shock induced by depositors' behavior on bank portfolio management during financial crises in a system lacking deposit insurance. It is found that banks reacted to the liquidity shock sensitively through an increase in their cash holdings not by liquidating bank loans but by selling securities in the financial market. Moreover, banks exposed to local financial contagion adjusted the liquidity of their portfolio mainly by actively selling and buying their securities in the financial market. Finally, there is no evidence to conclude that the existence of the lender of last resort mitigated the liquidity constraints in bank portfolio adjustments.     

在国际工程市场如何选择保险经纪

工程保险的险种、投保程序、保单内容等十分复杂,不仅需要耗费承包商大量的精力,而且不易得到优惠的保险条件和价格。虽然现在很多中国承包商已经意识到保险在工程风险管理中的重要地位,但在保险索赔中仍然会遇到很多困难。本文作者建议承包商采用国际通行的办法,即聘请保险经纪或保险咨询公司做顾问来解决上述问题。     

Life insurance and consumption

Life insurance is a very efficient form of saving for contingencies. This letter argues that under certain conditions it may be even more efficient than intended and desirable, by virtually severing the connection between income and consumption.     

Dilution/incentive effects associating with employee bonuses in Taiwan: Empirical findings under two regimes

Taiwan's regulation used to treat employee bonuses as one of after-tax-earnings distributing items. In response to the anti-dumping charges launched by American manufacturers against Taiwanese SRAM firms, Taiwan Securities and Futures Commission issues a new directive on January 30, 2003 which requires the listed companies to disclose pro forma EPS after deducting employee bonuses and director/supervisor compensations, that is, implicitly recognizing employee bonus as an expense item in annual reports. This study examines the valuation implication of mandatory disclosure of employee bonus related information after the issuance of the new directive by examining whether stock price movements can reflect such institutional changes. The empirical findings are in conformity with the expectation: Before the issuance of Directive No. 457, the market tends to overestimate the incentive effect arising from the employee bonuses; after the issuance of Directive No. 457, the market reacts negatively once employee bonuses are recognized implicitly as operating expenses. This study implements several diagnostic checks and demonstrates that our empirical results are robust to various specifications.     

Taxation and national insurance contributions in Britain

It has often been suggested that National Insurance contributions and income taxation should be integrated in Britain, although the implications for the appropriate tax rates have not usually been examined in any detail. The complexity of the British National Insurance system means that the implications are not immediately clear. This paper examines the changes in tax rates which would be required to maintain total revenue at a constant level, and the tax rates required to support a minimum level of post-transfer income.     

Money and insurance in a turnpike environment

Summary We study the effects of introducing a feasible insurance market into the spatial separation model of money described in Mitsui and Watanabe (1989). We show that the insurance contract may or may not drive out money. We also show that, depending on the degree of risk aversion, the additional market can reduce welfare for all agents, increase welfare for all agents, or increase welfare for some agents and reduce it for others.The authors would like to thank Ed Green, Preston Miller, Ed Prescott and Neil Wallace for valuable comments.     

Regulation and efficiency in European insurance markets

With a series of directives completed in 1994 the European Commission tried to open and harmonize national European insurance markets. This has led to considerable deregulation in several countries. This paper surveys pre-1994 regulation in Germany and the UK and the Commission's policy. It argues that it is unlikely that the policy will have a significant impact on direct international competition between European insurance markets, until there is standardization of insurance law. However, the tightly regulated markets will become more like the loosely regulated UK market. The paper evaluates this outcome and concludes that the European Commission's policy may thereby have improved the welfare of insurance buyers in the previously highly regulated countries such as Germany. The paper also uses efficiency-frontier estimation to compare the dispersion of firm efficiencies in the German and British life insurance market. The results support the hypothesis that tighter solvency regulation allows the survival of a larger proportion of higher-cost firms.     

Uncertainty and insurance in strategic market games

Summary. For perfectly competitive economies under uncertainty, there is a well-known equivalence between a formulation with contingent goods and one with state-specific securities followed by spot markets for goods. In this paper, I examine whether this equivalence carries over to a particular form of imperfect competition. Specifically, I look at three Shapley-Shubik strategic market games: one with contingent commodities, one with Arrow securities traded under imperfect competition and one with Arrow securities traded under perfect competition. First I compare the feasibility constraints of these three games. Then I compare their equilibrium sets. As in Peck and Shell (1989), the only common equilibria between the first and the second game are those which involve no transfer of income across states. However, if the securities markets are competitive, then the set of equilibria of the contingent commodities game and the securities game coincide. Received: June 16, 1997; revised version: April 30, 1998     

保函与保险

保函是在符合支付条件的情况下,由银行或保险公司出具的对付款的一种绝对保障。保函实际上是一种第三方的经济担保,是为确保债权人能够得到清偿而提供的一种特别保证,构成的法律关系就是接受担保的债务。但是,如果对保函问题处理不当,就会把承包商暴露在相对较大的风险条件之下。保函的内容很多,FIDIC合同涉及到投标保函、履约保函、预付款保函、材料设备免税抵押保函、保留金保函、清税保函,还有应业主要求为某种目的而开出的特殊保函等。保函的开出都是一环扣一环,以确保业主利益不受损失。例如,投标时承包商必须呈交投标保函…     

Unemployment,insurance and smoking

Using recent state-level data from the United States, this article examines new influences on cigarette demand. In particular, we uniquely focus on the effects of unemployment and health insurance coverage on smoking. Results show that higher cigarette prices, a lack of health insurance and restrictions on smoking at home, all lead to reduced smoking. On the other hand, literacy, income, unemployment, workplace smoking restrictions, smokeless tobacco taxes and tobacco-producing states do not seem to have an appreciable impact. The magnitude of the price elasticity of demand is greater than that found in the pre-MSA era. Policy implications are discussed.