Longevity risk has become a major challenge for governments, individuals, and annuity providers in most countries, and especially its aggregate form, i.e. the risk of unsystematic changes to general mortality patterns, bears a large potential for accumulative losses for insurers. As obvious risk...

This paper reports on a two-task principal-agent experiment in which only one task is contractible. The principal can either offer a piece-rate contract or a (voluntary) bonus to the agent. Bonus contracts strongly outperform piece rate contracts. Many principals reward high efforts on both...

This paper studies the effect of technology spillovers on the entry decision of a multinational enterprise into a foreign market. Two alternative entry modes for a foreign direct investment are considered: Greenfield investment versus acquisition. We find that with quantity competition a...

In recent decades, many firms offered more discretion to their employees, often increasing the productivity of effort but also leaving more opportunities for shirking. These “high-performance work systems” are difficult to understand in terms of standard moral hazard models. We show...

This thesis analyzes the strategic market entry decisions of multinational enterprises. The dissertation is organized in four chapters. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction and describes the recent trends and relevant literature as regards this form of international capital flows. Chapter 2 and...

This paper analyzes the numerical impact of different surplus distribution mechanisms on the risk exposure of a life insurance company selling with profit life insurance policies with a cliquet-style interest rate guarantee. Three representative companies are considered, each using a different...

Recent events involving major insurance companies and insurance brokerage firms highlight substantial incentive problems in commercial and reinsurance markets where intermediation takes place. We show that in markets with informed as well as uninformed consumers and heterogeneous risk profiles...

This paper looks at markets characterized by the fact that the demand side is insured. In these markets a consumer purchases a good to compensate consequen¬ces of unfavorable events, such as an accident or an illness. Insurance policies in most lines of insurance base indemnity on the...

This paper studies the entry decision of a multinational enterprise into a foreign market. Two alternative entry modes for a foreign direct investment are considered: Greenfield investment versus acquisition. In contrast to existing approaches, the acquisition price and the profits under both...

Most economic models are based on the self-interest hypothesis that assumes that all people are exclusively motivated by their material self-interest. In recent years experimental economists have gathered overwhelming evidence that systematically refutes the self-interest hypothesis and suggests...