To Insure or Not to Insure?: An Insurance Puzzle

The selection of a deductible level in insurance is governed by the willingness to limit the risk borne by risk-averse agents at an acceptable cost, given the deadweight insurance loading. We examine the demand for insurance in a simple lifecycle model with a liquidity constraint and no serial correlation in the insurable risk. This allows for consumers to follow a time-diversification (self-insurance) strategy by accumulating buffer stock wealth. We conclude that insurance would only be demanded for catastrophic risks, or by people that are currently liquidity constrained. The added value of the insurance sector is thus surprisingly low in such an economy.     

存款保险、银行挤兑与流动性创造——Diamond-Dybvig模型一定有效吗？

在放宽基本假设后,我们通过经典的Diamond-Dybvig模型对存款保险、银行挤兑及流动性创造等问题作了进一步研究.我们得出结论：当假定所有投资者在任何时期都相互独立时,银行是否要创造流动性或者要创造多少流动性,以及银行挤兑最终是否发生,这在很大程度上都受制于投资者的风险偏好类型、相应风险类型的人数、非银行投资项目收益与银行初期利率的关系、某一投资者对其余投资者行为的甑别结果及银行对投资者行为甑别的结果,此时,银行未必能够创造最优量的流动性,原模型失效.     

Aspekte einer Neugestaltung des Rechtes der Versicherungsvermittlung

The current fundamental reform of the German insurance law cannot and will not stop short of the law of insurance mediation. Up to now Sec. 43 to 48 Versicherungsvertragsgesetz (VVG = German Insurance Act) govern only one type of insurance intermediary known as insurance agent. The act only sets up rules to which extent the insurance agent has authority to bind the insurer. In the way the law is construed by the courts it differs in many aspects from the written law. Thus it is suggested to define the generic term ?insurance intermediary“ in the act as well as the subcategories ?insurance broker“ and ?insurance agent“, whereby the term ?insurance agent“ also includes the field staff employed by an insurer. In connection with the diffi-cult distinction between insurance brokers and insurance agents it remains questionable on which type of intermediary the rules regulating the relationship between agents and insurants and thereby protecting the potential customers should be applied accordingly. This controversial and in practice significant question should be explicitly decided by the legislator for reasons of legal certainty. In so far Sec. 43a of the Austrian Insurance Act could act as a model function. Regarding the insurance agents’ authority to receive (Empfangsvertretungsmacht des Versicherungsvertreters) for the insurer propositions exist to explicitly declare Sec. 43 No.l VVG, which grants the agent the authority to receive when accepting a contractual offer for the insurer, as mandatory. This suggestion would be in accordance with the current case law. Furthermore the wording of Sec. 43 No.l VVG should be altered so that the insurants’ pre-contractual risk-notifications, which the prevailing opinion already regards as being included, is explicitly mentioned. In principle Sec. 43 No.2 WG, which grants the agent the authority to receive notifications and representations for the duration of the insurance contract, should be declared as mandatory, too. Exempted should be the authority to receive for dispositions regarding the entitlements to benefits from (life) insurance contracts and the right to receive the insured sum. Sec. 44 WG, which strongly restricts the attribution of the agent’s knowledge to the insurer, is unconvincing, especially from a legal policy point of view. Therefore it is to be cancelled without substitution. Finally the legislator should refrain from codifying the customary liability based on the principles of reliance.     

Income heterogeneity and index insurance demand

Weather index insurance as a tool to insure the income of agriculturally active households has triggered extensive discussions in the literature. Despite the convincing theoretical argumentation, the demand for these products stays behind expectations. Several studies revealed effects impacting the demand for index insurance, such as liquidity constraints, basis risk, lack of understanding and trust in insurers and products alike. This paper takes a different perspective and hypothesizes that low demand is due to heterogeneous risk exposure towards weather variability among potential insured. The paper tests the impact of income heterogeneity as a measure of risk exposure on insurance demand and finds that risk exposure negatively affects insurance demand. In order to increase demand, it is concluded that product design should emphasize more the importance of income risk composition and exposure of potentially insured.     

Aspects of insurance,intermediation and finance

This paper is concerned with the role of the insurance company as a financial intermediary which offers securities to uninformed retail investors. The search costs of retail investors cause the demand for the securities offered by intermediaries to be inelastic, making possible an intermediary spread, the difference between the returns on primary securities and the rates offered on the secondary securities sold by intermediaries. It is argued that the intermediary spread is economically significant, and a simple model of its determination is offered: the spread is shown to be an increasing function of interest rates. The bonus policy of life insurance companies is analyzed and is shown to be inefficient under simple assumptions about asset returns.     

On the Corporate Demand for Insurance: The Case of Korean Nonfinancial Firms

Several theories have been developed to explain the motives for corporate insurance purchases, but there are few empirical tests of these theories. Furthermore, the empirical results are not consistent across studies, suggesting the need for further research. This study uses accounting data for 433 publicly listed nonfinancial firms in Korea to test the determinants of insurance demand for the period 1990 through 2001. Our results support the theory that firm size, tax considerations, and firm ownership are important determinants of insurance demand. Firms that are members of chaebols demand more insurance than unaffiliated firms, all else equal. Contrary to theory, our results also indicate that firms that have higher debt‐to‐equity ratios demand less insurance than less leveraged firms, and that firms that have greater liquidity demand more insurance. This might be related to the overall high debt levels of firms in the period leading up to the Korean financial crisis in 1997, but that investigation is beyond the scope of this study.     

A model of reserves, bank runs, and deposit insurance

A model is presented in which demand deposits backed by fractional currency reserves and public insurance can be beneficial. The model uses Samuelson's pure consumption-loans model. The case for demand deposits, reserves, and deposit insurance rests on costs of illiquidity and incomplete information. The effect of deposit insurance depends upon how, and at what cost, the government meets its insurer's obligation — something which is not specified in practice. It remains possible that demand deposits and deposit insurance are a distortion, and reserve requirements serve only to limit the size of this distortion.     

A Theory of Bank Capital

Banks can create liquidity precisely because deposits are fragile and prone to runs. Increased uncertainty makes deposits excessively fragile, creating a role for outside bank capital. Greater bank capital reduces the probability of financial distress but also reduces liquidity creation. The quantity of capital influences the amount that banks can induce borrowers to pay. Optimal bank capital structure trades off effects on liquidity creation, costs of bank distress, and the ability to force borrower repayment. The model explains the decline in bank capital over the last two centuries. It identifies overlooked consequences of having regulatory capital requirements and deposit insurance.     

互联网金融影响了商业银行流动性创造吗?

选取2010-2019年中国98家商业银行年度数据就互联网金融对银行流动性创造的影响及其作用机制进行实证分析.研究发现:互联网金融通过分流银行存款及理财资金对银行盈利形成冲击,由此引发的"鲶鱼效应"会倒逼银行加大存贷期限错配来缓解盈利下降压力,从而促进银行流动性创造.相对于国有银行与城农商行,互联网金融对股份制银行流动性创造的促进力度更大.金融脱媒仅在P2P网络借贷对银行流动性创造的影响中承担着中介作用,但"第三方支付-金融脱媒-银行流动性创造"的传导渠道无效.银行业景气度提高会加剧互联网金融对流动性创造的促进作用,银行流动性创造存在顺周期倾向.     

Bank liabilities channel

The financial intermediation sector is important not only for channeling resources from agents in excess of funds to agents in need of funds (lending channel). By issuing liabilities it also creates financial assets held by other sectors of the economy for insurance or liquidity purpose. When the intermediation sector creates less liabilities or their value falls, agents are less willing to engage in activities that are individually risky but desirable in aggregate (bank liabilities channel). The paper shows how financial crises driven by self-fulfilling expectations about the liquidity of the banking sector are transmitted to the real sector of the economy. Since the government could also create financial assets by borrowing, the paper analyzes how public debt affects the issuance of liabilities by the financial intermediation sector.     

Central bank haircut policy

We present a model of central bank collateralized lending to study the optimal choice of the haircut policy. We show that a lending facility provides a bundle of two types of insurance: insurance against liquidity risk as well as insurance against downside risk of the collateral. Setting a haircut therefore involves balancing the trade-off between relaxing the liquidity constraints of agents on one hand, and increasing potential inflation risk and distorting the portfolio choices of agents on the other. We argue that the optimal haircut is higher when the central bank is unable to lend exclusively to agents who actually need liquidity. Finally, for a temporary surprise drop in the haircut, the central bank can be more aggressive than when setting a permanent level of the haircut.     

Capital markets,financial intermediaries,and liquidity supply

We study a dynamic economy endowed with a sequence of overlapping generations of consumers and production processes, and where productive assets are illiquid and consumption preferences are subject to uninsurable demand for liquidity. We characterize the steady states that can be achieved with alternative financial systems. We show that infinitely lived financial intermediaries offering a liability with age-dependent restrictions may implement a social optimum with full insurance. If, instead, they offer anonymous, unrestricted contracts, then only second-best consumption allocations with partial insurance obtain. We also examine the consumption allocations available when agents can trade shares in competitive stock markets. While allowing for trade across generations may or may not improve upon generational autarky, we show that this competitive equilibrium is not a social optimum, and is dominated by a system of infinitely lived, unrestricted intermediaries.     

Life insurance demand and borrowing constraints

The literature devoted limited attention to exploring the relationship between financial development and life insurance demand. Financial development supports life insurance supply by providing confidence in the financial system, more efficient payment systems, and higher availability of financial instruments. However, financial development reduces households' needs to save by relaxing borrowing constraints, indirectly affecting life insurance demand. We contribute by providing a demand‐driven explanation of the negative consequences of financial development on life insurance development. We find that more credit‐constrained countries have higher life insurance penetration on average. Indirectly, the role of borrowing constraints signifies the importance of life insurance policies as a financing tool in case of the realization of various background risks. This study integrates the knowledge from life insurance theory, life insurance lapse, policy loans demand, and saving under liquidity constraints literature and produces implications for researchers, policymakers, and life insurers.     

Financial Innovations,Money Demand,and the Welfare Cost of Inflation

In the 1990s, the empirical relationship between money demand and interest rates began to fall apart. We analyze to what extent financial innovations can explain this breakdown. For this purpose, we construct a microfounded monetary model with a money market that provides insurance against liquidity shocks by offering short‐term loans and by paying interest on money market deposits. We calibrate the model to U.S. data and find that the introduction of the sweep technology at the beginning of the 1990s, which improved access to money markets, can explain the behavior of money demand very well. Furthermore, by allowing a more efficient allocation of money, the welfare cost of inflation decreased substantially.     

Housing, Health, and Annuities

Annuities, long-term care insurance (LTCI), and reverse mortgages appear to offer important consumption smoothing benefits to the elderly, yet private markets for these products are small. A prominent idea is to combine LTCI and annuities to alleviate both supply (selection) and demand (liquidity) problems in these markets. This article shows that if consumers typically liquidate home equity only in the event of illness or very old age, then LTCI and annuities become less attractive and may become substitutes rather than complements. The reason is that the marginal utility of wealth drops when an otherwise illiquid home is sold, an event correlated with the payouts of both annuities and LTCI. Simulations confirm that demand for LTCI and annuities is highly sensitive to the liquidity and magnitude of home equity.     

Collateral,rehypothecation, and efficiency

This paper studies rehypothecation, a practice in which financial institutions re-pledge collateral pledged to them by their clients. Rehypothecation enhances provision of funding liquidity to the economy, but it also incurs deadweight cost by misallocating the asset among the agents when counterparties fail. We examine the possibility of a conflict between the intermediary and its borrower on rehypothecation arrangements. The direction of this conflict depends on haircuts of the contract between them: if the contract involves over-collateralization, there tends to be an excessive use of rehypothecation, and if the contract involves under-collateralization, there tends to be an insufficient use of rehypothecation. This offers an empirical prediction of a link between the size of haircut in collateralized financial contracts, borrower information, and the likelihood of rehypothecation.     

Efficient investment and financial intermediation

Insider trading causes uninformed agents to reduce their investments in assets that are most susceptible to it. This problem may be mitigated by forming a financial intermediary that issues securities with different sensitivity to inside information. In particular, the uninformed agents desire the intermediary's demand debt while the informed agents choose its equity. By separating the uninformed agents' financial payoffs from the intermediary's investment decisions, the intermediary can pursue more efficient investments and achieve allocations that are superior to those of the market.     

WHY BANKS HAVE A FUTURE: TOWARD A NEW THEORY OF COMMERCIAL BANKING

According to some observers, the commercial bank–an institution that conducts the twin activities of accepting deposits payable on demand and originating loans–has outlived its usefulness and is in a state of terminal decline. The broad statistical evidence for this contention, however, is somewhat mixed. While some studies suggest that the role of banks in the United States is declining, others suggest that banks are simply using new vehicles to offer their services and that their role has not diminished at all. This article takes a different approach to analyzing the future of banks by examining the economic rationale for their past existence and exploring the extent to which this rationale can be expected to hold up in the future. The author begins by explaining why the two core banking activities–taking in deposits payable on demand and originating non-marketable loans–are performed by the same institutions. The explanation turns on the recognition that both activities essentially require the institution to come up with cash on short notice–that is, to provide liquidity. Scale economies in providing liquidity explain why both activities are provided by the same entity. Deregulation and innovation have increased competition in the financial services industry, which has forced banks to concentrate on the essentials of liquidity provision. This is why the outward nature of banks' activities has changed (for example, banks today often sell instead of holding loans, and provide back-up lines for commercial paper instead of originating loans), though not their underlying economic rationale (particularly the credit evaluation and monitoring involved in “relationship” banking). Beneath the surface reality of dramatic changes in financial products and services, the fundamental banking business of liquidity provision is alive and well. Moreover, in the course of performing their traditional activities, banks have acquired competencies that enable them to perform a variety of other financial and nonfinancial activities that deregulation and innovation have opened up to them. As part of their evaluation of these nontraditional activities, bankers must ensure that their organizational structures, controls, and compensation policies are appropriate for the new environment of deregulation and technological change.     

Why do banks promise to pay par on demand?

We survey the theories on why banks promise to pay par on demand and examine evidence on the conditions under which banks have promised to pay the par value of deposits and banknotes on demand when holding only fractional reserves. The theoretical literature is divided into four strands: liquidity provision; asymmetric information; legal restrictions; and a medium of exchange. We assume that it is not zero cost to make a promise to redeem a liability at par value on demand. If so, then the conditions in the theories that result in par redemption are possible explanations why banks promise to pay par on demand. If the explanation based on customers’ demand for liquidity is correct, payment of deposits at par will be promised when banks hold assets that are illiquid in the short run. If the asymmetric-information explanation based on the difficulty of valuing assets is correct, the marketability of banks’ assets determines whether banks promise to pay par. If the legal restrictions explanation of par redemption is correct, banks will not promise to pay par if they are not required to do so. If the transaction explanation is correct, banks will promise to pay par if the deposits are used in transactions. We examine the history of banking in several countries in different eras: fourth century Athens, medieval Italy, Tokugawa Japan, and free banking and money market mutual funds in the United States. Each of the theories explains some of the observed banking arrangements and none explains all of them.     

Liquidity Provision and Financial Stability

When financial intermediaries' key characteristic is provision of liquidity through their liabilities, with financial frictions, the financial sector in the aggregate is likely to overaccumulate equity, thus decreasing liquidity provision and household welfare. Aggregate household welfare is therefore decreasing in the level of aggregate intermediary equity even though the individual value of intermediaries is increasing in equity, which is why intermediaries overaccumulate equity. Subsidizing intermediary dividends can improve welfare by encouraging earlier payout and decreasing aggregate equity in the financial sector. This policy increases the likelihood that intermediaries provide more liquidity and improves the stability of the economy, even though asset prices fall.