This brief is actually going to have two levels. One level will go with the advertised title, and I’ll tell you my current views on the truth about moral hazard and adverse selection. Adverse selection will serve as somewhat of a handmaid of moral hazard, as you will see. That’s one level....

The paper surveys the characteristics of explicit systems of deposit insurance in 68 countries. It compares these actual practices with a set of best practices that has been adopted by IMF staff for their advice to member countries. These best practices seek to establish a system of deposit...

Risk classification refers to the use of observable characteristics by insurers to group individuals with similar expected claims, to compute the corresponding premiums, and thereby to reduce asymmetric information. Permitting risk classification may reduce informational asymmetry-induced...

Kaplow (1992) shows in a complete-information environment that allowing income tax deductions for losses as partial insurance is undesirable in the presence of private insurance markets. This paper elaborates on Kaplow's finding by studying two extreme types of asymmetric information structures...

We analyze markets where insurers are better informed about risk than consumers. We show that even competitive markets may result in insufficient information revelation and inefficient insurance coverage. This explains why certain risky consumers remain uninsured and why certain market segments...

There is a general presumption that competition is a good thing. In this paper we show that competition in the insurance markets can be bad and that adverse selection is in general worse under competition than under monopoly. The reason is that monopoly can exploit its market power to relax...

Risk classification refers to the use of observable characteristics by insurers to group individuals with similar expected claims, compute the corresponding premiums, and thereby reduce asymmetric information. An efficient risk classification system generates premiums that fully reflect the...

We provide a novel benefit of "Alternative Risk Transfer" (ART) products with parametric or index triggers. When a reinsurer has private information about his client’s risk, outside reinsurers will price their reinsurance offer less aggressively. Outsiders are subject to adverse selection as...

This paper studies a principal-agent relationship in a contractual crime setting. Suppose an agent and a principal sign a contract stipulating some transfer of funds from one player (say the agent) to the next (the principal) contingent on the state of the world announced by the first player. In...

We study imperfect competition between insurers in a multiple-risk environment. In the absence of asymmetric information, equilibria are efficient, and we determine the degrees of specialization under which the specialized insurers are able or unable to capture the surplus. We show in contrast...