We review and extend the economic analysis of risk and uncertainty as it relates to behavior mitigating health shocks. We summarize some central aspects of the vast positive and normative literature on the role of various forms of insurance that attempt to smooth consumption, which can be uneven...

Many forms of insurance are produced by groups themselves rather than purchased in the market. For example, coverage for workers compensation provided by employers is often produced by the employer, in the sense that the employer bears some or all of the financial risk associated with the...

This paper studies the association between regulation and the organizational form of new life insurers between 1900 and 1949. The mutual form was popular in states with low initial capital requirements for mutual companies and differentially higher requirements for stock companies, but was...

This paper investigates the rationale for government intervention in the market for terrorism insurance, focusing on the externalities associated with self-protection. Self-protection by one target encourages terrorists to substitute towards less fortified targets. Investments in self-...

Catastrophe bonds feature full collateralization of the underlying risk transfer, and thus abandon the insurance principle of economizing on collateral through diversification. We examine the theoretical foundations beneath this paradox, finding that fully collateralized instruments have...

This article starts with primitive assumptions on preferences and risk. It then derives prices consistent with a social optimum within an insurance company and the consumer-level capital allocation implied therein. The allocation "adds up" to the total capital of the firm (a result echoing...

We pursue two interrelated lines of thought. The first is a conceptual arc from (a) consideration of the unique characteristics of insurance risk, to (b) the quantification of this risk through risk measures, to (c) the application of these concepts to problems of allocating capital within an...