This paper analyzes the role of private storage in a market for a commodity (e.g. natural gas) whose supply is subject to the threat of an irreversible disruption. We focus on the medium term in which seasonality of demand and exhaustibility can be neglected. We characterize the price and...

We model an economy that alternates randomly between abundance and scarcity episodes. We develop an original method to characterize in detail the structure of the Markovian competitive equilibrium. Accumulation and drainage of stocks are the main focuses. Economically appealing comparative...

We analyze markets where insurers are better informed about risk than consumers. We show that even competitive markets may result in insufficient information revelation and inefficient insurance coverage. This explains why certain risky consumers remain uninsured and why certain market segments...

Urbanization in exposed areas increases the cost of disasters. For industrial risks, potential victims raise firms’ liabilities. For natural risks, overexposure by some undermines mutualization. Land use policy (particularly exclusion zones) and insurance shape urbanization, but their...

I examine competition in the sector of mortgage life insurance, in particular the periodic switching right (PSR), by which the borrower can change his insurer once every period (say, every year). The PSR is likely to have pro competitive effects (lower premium), but by the same move, to lead to...

We analyze the trade-off faced by authorities envisaging a one-shot structural re-form in a capitalistic industry. A structure is modeled as (1) a sharing of productive capital at some time and (2) a sharing of scarce sites or any other non-reproducible assets. These two distinct dimensions of...

The paper models a program of high‐activity nuclear‐waste management. The physics of cooling incites to store hot waste for a while to spare scarce disposal volume: indeed, colder parcels may be put in tighter conditions. The optimal unconstrained duration of storage is characterized....

This survey reviews the micro-economic foundations of the analysis of life insurance markets. The first part outlines a simple theory of insurance needs based on the life-cycle hypothesis. The second part builds on contract theory to expose the main issues in life insurance design within a...

Informed insurance monopoly and risk discrimination We model a situation where a monopolistic insurer is better at evaluating riski­ness than the policyholders. We characterize the equilibria of the corresponding multidimensional signaling game. We compare the predictions with those of adverse...