The condition for when a price control increases consumer welfare in perfect competition is tighter than often realised.  When demand is linear, a small restriction on price only increases consumer surplus if the eleasticity of demand exceeds the elasticity of supply; with log-linear or...

Proposals are often made to tax goods which are environmentally damaging. Many such goods are consumed both directly by households and industry at large: for example, carbon-intensive fuel, waste water or congested road space. This paper adopts a tax-reform setting to evaluate such a policy. The...

In many economic applications involving comparisons of multivariate distributions, supermodularity of an objective function is a natural property for capturing a preference for greater interdependence.  One multivariate distribution dominates another according to the supermodular stochastic...

Funeral insurance has existed at least since antiguity, and it remains popular in many parts of Africa today.  Yet the study of funeral insurance as a distinct form of insurance has hitherto been neglected.  This paper presents a model in which funeral insurance combines regular life insurance...

This paper analyses collusion-proof multilateral insurance contracts between a risk neutral insurer and multiple risk averse agents in an environment of asymmetric costly state verification.  Optimal contracts involve the group of agents pooling uncertainty and the insurer acting as reinsurer...

A funeral is a costly occasion. This paper studies indigenous insurance institutions developed to cope with the high costs of funerals, based on evidence from rural areas in Tanzania and Ethiopia. These institutions are based on well-defined rules and regulations, often offering premium-based...

This paper proposes a "Flexible Disequilibrium Model" (FDM) which allows for a flexible specification of technology and of firm-level heterogeneity in technical and allocative efficiency levels. FDM is implemented on a G-5 banking dataset covering the period 1989-1996. Significant scale...

We investigate the optimal regulation of financial conglomerates which combine a bank and a non-bank financial institution. The conglomerate`s risk-taking incentives depend upon the level of market discipline it faces, which in turn is determined by the conglomerate`s liability structure. We...

Debating the minutiae of insurance regulation without a clear understanding of why insurance companies are regulated is futile. In this non-technical essay I discuss the economic rationale for insurance business regulation. I conclude that the appropriate role of the regulator in this industry...

How do firms finance large cash flow requirements?  We examine this in the context of firms that are subject to substantial cash flow requirements.  We find that trade credit, inventory and cash stock reductions are all important in the short term for mild requirements.  Larger and longer...