We study the political economy of social insurance in a world where individuals differ in both income and risk. Social insurance is financed through distortionary taxation and redistributes across income and risk. Individuals vote on social insurance which they can complement with insurance...

This paper analyses the political support for social insurance that includes elements of redistribution when there exists an imperfect private insurance alternative. Individuals differ both in their income and risk. The social insurance is compulsory and charges an income-related contribution...

Advantageous (or propitious) selection occurs when an increase in the premium of an insurance contract induces high-cost agents to quit, thereby reducing the average cost among remaining buyers. Hemenway (1990) and many subsequent contributions motivate its advent by differences in risk-aversion...

We examine the different hypotheses which have been put forward to explain the low demand for long-term care insurance using the results from a survey of 2000 Canadians that was conducted in the autumn of 2016. Defining the natural market of long-term care insurance buyers as the one catering to...

This paper studies the determination through majority voting of a pension scheme when society consists of far-sighted and myopic individuals. All individuals have the same basic preferences but myopics tend to adopt a short term view (instant gratification) when dealing with retirement saving....

We build a model of secession crises where voters may wish to accommodate the minority to prevent secession. We show the existence of a majority voting equilibrium with a government's type biased in favor of the minority. We propose a measure of secession risk and perform the comparative static...

We show that a transfer targeting a minority of the population is sustained by majority voting, however small the minority targeted, when the probability to receive the transfer is decreasing and concave in income. We apply our framework to the French social housing program and obtain that...

Marginal utility of financial resources when needing long-term care, and the related incentives for precautionary savings and insurance, may vary significantly by whether one receives care at home or in a nursing home. In this paper, we develop strategic survey questions to estimate those...