Despite the importance of insurance in enabling individual and collective social, economic, and financial activities, discussions about the macro-economic role and risks of insurance markets are surprisingly limited. The core motivation for publishing this book is to bring together academics,...

Part I: Fundamentals of insurance business The origins and role of insurance in society -- The notion of risk and probability -- The insurance undertaking -- Regulation of the insurance industry -- Supervision and other Authorities -- The insurance business -- The insurance contract -- Life...

This textbook presents the fundamental economic dimensions of insurance companies and links them to managerial issues. Combining academic rigour and a strongly practice-oriented approach, it addresses both the competitive environment and the management of the insurance business. Further, it...

We study the optimal insurance design problem. This is a risk sharing problem between an insured and an insurer. The main novelty in this paper is that we study this optimization problem under a risk-adjusted premium calculation principle for the insurance cover. This risk-adjusted premium...

Variable rate savings accounts have two main features. The client rate is variable and deposits can be invested and withdrawn at any time. However, customer behaviour is not fully rational and actions are often performed with a delay. This paper focusses on measuring the interest rate risk of...

Do capital markets impose fiscal discipline on governments? We investigate the responses of fiscal variables to a change in the interest rate paid by governments on their debt in a panel of 14 European countries over four decades. This is done in the context of a panel vector autoregressive...

Do capital markets impose fiscal discipline on governments? We investigate the responses of fiscal variables to a change in the interest rate paid by governments on their debt in a panel of 14 European countries over four decades. To this end, we estimate a panel vector autoregressive (PVAR)...