This paper estimates the change in net (of subsidy) financial burden (“the price of responsibility”) and in welfare that would be experienced by a large nationally representative sample of the “non-poor” uninsured if they were to purchase Silver or Bronze plans on the ACA exchanges. The...

This paper provides an overview of research and debate over whether insurance poses systemic risk, with a focus on U.S. life insurance. It considers the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) process for designating nonbank financial institutions as systemically important and subject to...

Kenneth Arrow and Karl Borch published several important articles in the early 1960s that can be viewed as the beginning of modern economic analysis of insurance activity. This chapter reviews the main theoretical and empirical contributions in insurance economics since that time. The review...

This paper provides perspectives on the Restatement of the Law, Liability Insurance (RLLI) project in view of theory and evidence on the economics of liability insurance and the operation and regulation of liability insurance markets. The RLLI project reflects prodigious effort by the Reporters...

This article discusses key issues that policymakers should consider when evaluating potential changes to U.S. insurance regulation in the aftermath of the financial crisis, including implications of both the Dodd-Frank Act and the Solvency II initiative in the European Union. Fundamental...

This paper discusses a number of key issues regarding implementation by the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) and the Federal Insurance Office (FIO) of the Dodd-Frank Act’s provisions affecting insurance. The paper emphasizes the fundamental differences between insurance and...

The combination of risky cash flows, leverage and absolute priority rules in bankruptcy create a well known agency problem; shareholders face incentives to take risky, as opposed to value maximizing, investment projects. Recently, it has been argued that deviation from absolute priority rules in...

The use of captive reinsurance arrangements in life insurance has generated significant debate and led to recent adoption of new regulatory requirements by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). This paper provides an overview of the regulatory reserve requirements that...