Using the extended Ramsey rule, the socially efficient rate is the difference between a wealth effect and a precautionary effect of economic growth. This second effect is increasing in the degree of uncertainty affecting the future. In the literature, it is usually calibrated by estimating the...

Two models of spot labor markets are presented in which labor suppliers have heterogeneous attitudes towards effort and in which uncertainty prevails on labor productivity and growth. The problem of selecting efficient rules to manage unemployment insurance (UI) systems is considered. We show...

The selection of a deductible level in insurance is governed by the willingness to limit the risk borne by risk-averse agents at an acceptable cost, given the deadweight insurance loading. We examine the demand for insurance in a simple lifecycle model with a liquidity constraint and no serial...

The assumption usually made in the insurance literature that risks are always insurable at the desired level does not hold in the real world: some risks are not—or are only partially—insurable, while others, such as civil liability or health and workers' injuries, must be fully insured or at...

In this paper we propose an answer to the following problem of comparative statics in models with multiple sources of risk: How a risk averse agent will change his coinsurance demand when the distribution of the insurable loss is shifted? To answer the question, we first comment on Jack Meyer's...