Our society faces many risks that affect human life. Cost-benefit analysis is a very popular project-evaluation tool for reducing these social risks. The government has to set projects or regulations whose benefits will outweigh costs. It is quite easy to evaluate costs but how to evaluate the...

In this paper, we present a survey of the two main problems of information in insurance markets: moral hazard and adverse selection. Both arise because the insurers are less informed than the insureds. Moral hazard is explained by the fact that the insurer cannot observe, ex ante, the activities...

In the first part of the article we present an update of Gagné and Dionne (1988) results. We show that trucking industries in Quebec and Ontario had a cost structure, during the period 1981-1988, that corresponds to a competitive industry; this justifies the recent deregulation moves. The...

In this paper, we present an economic analysis of road safety emphasizing market failures due to externalities and moral hazard. We also examine governmental actions such as taxes and subsidies and regulation which may reduce inefficiencies. Dans cet article nous présentons une analyse...

The purpose of this paper is to show that, for the risky situation caracterized by the probability p of losing an amount h, there exists an adequate measure of the risk variations caused by equivalent changes in p and h. This follows from an application of the concept of mean-preserving spread...

The goal of this research was to evaluate the effects of the 1992 change in the automobile insurance pricing by the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ, the public insurer for bodily injuries) on road safety. Our results indicate that the new pricing system reduced infractions...

Road safety regulation has been the object of many studies. Its main motivation is related to externalities between individuals (drivers, pedestrians) that cannot be priced directly in different private markets. The object of this research is to evaluate the effects of the change in the...

In this article, we study the statistical relationships between individual probabilities of accidents and both different infractions to the Quebec Code of Road Safety and some infractions to the Criminal Code which carry a suspension of the driving permit. We propose new tables of demerit points...

We discuss the difficult question of measuring the effects of asymmetrical information problems on resource allocation. Two problems are retained: moral hazard and adverse selection. One conclusion, shared by many authors, is that information problems introduce significant distortions in the...