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 how long-term life insurance contracts can be designed to incorporate uncertain future bequest needs. An individual who buys a life insurance contract early in life is often uncertain about the future financial needs of his or her family, in the event of an untimely death. Ideally,...

Whole life insurance plays an important role in household saving. However, empirical evidence on its determinants is scarce. This paper studies two natural experiments to identify the effects of tax incentives and bequest motives on life-insurance demand. An unanticipated tax reform in 2000...

In this paper we explore the implication of a morbidity risk for the relationship between longevity and annuitization. We divide old-age life into two periods with uncertain survival from the end of the first to the end of the second. We show that a rise in the survival rate causes different...

We construct a tractable discrete-time overlapping generations model of a closed economy and use it to study government redistribution of accidental bequests and private annuities in general equilibrium. Individuals face longevity risk as there is a positive probability of passing away before...

Empirical evidence that migrants send home more remittances after disasters raises the question of whether remittances can be used to self-insure, substituting for both formal and informal insurance. We investigate this question using a unique data set on the usage patterns of financial services...

We study risk attitudes, ambiguity attitudes, and time preferences of 661 children and adolescents, aged ten to eighteen years, in an incentivized experiment and relate experimental choices to field behavior. Experimental measures of impatience are found to be significant predictors of...

This article explores the use of workfare as part of an optimal tax mix when labor supply responses are along the extensive margin. Particular attention is paid to the interaction between workfare and an earned income tax credit, two policies that are designed to provide additional incentives...

Epidemiological models assume gravity-like interactions of individuals across space without microfoundations. We combine a simple epidemiological frame-work with a dynamic model of individual location choice. The model predicts that flows of people across space obey a structural gravity...