We consider a competitive insurance market with adverse selection. Unlike the standard models, we assume that individuals receive the benefit of some type of potential government assistance that guarantees them a minimum level of wealth. For example, this assistance might be some type of...

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...

When information on longevity (survival functions) is unknown early in life, individuals have an interest to insure themselves against future "risk-class" classification. Accordingly, the First-Best typically involves transfers across states of nature. Competitive equilibrium cannot provide such...

In a perfectly competitive market for annuities with full information, the price of annuities is equal to individuals (discounted) survival probabilities. That is, prices are actuarially fair. In contrast, the pricing implicit in social security systems invariably allows for cross subsidization...

This informal paper explores models of competitive insurance market equilibrium when individuals of initially similar apparent risk experience divergence in risk levels over time. The information structure is modeled in three alternative ways: all insurers and insureds know risk at any point in...

Insurance for natural hazards - earthquakes, hurricanes, or pandemics - is rarely comprehensively adopted without intense government intervention, and even then it is often only a minority of properties or businesses that are insured. Efforts to close this insurance gap include the introduction...

This paper reviews three important issues in the literature on international and intranational risk sharing. First, we establish a comprehensive se t of stylized facts for consumption risk sharing within and across countries. Consistent with the findings in the literature, we find that the...

A large literature has analyzed pricing inefficiencies in health insurance markets due to adverse selection, typically assuming informed, active consumers on the demand side of the market. However, recent evidence suggests that many consumers have information frictions that lead to suboptimal...