This paper tests for asymmetric information in the U.K. annuity market of the 1990s by trying to identify 'unused observables,' attributes of individual insurance buyers that are correlated both with subsequent claims experience and with insurance demand but that insurance companies did not use...

This paper presents new evidence on the importance of adverse selection in insurance markets. We use a unique data set, consisting of all annuity policies sold by a large U.K. insurance company since the early 1980s, to analyze mortality differences across groups of individuals who purchased...

type="main" xml:lang="en" <title type="main">Abstract</title> <p>This article tests for asymmetric information in the U.K. annuity market of the 1990s by trying to identify “unused observables,” attributes of individual insurance buyers that are correlated both with subsequent claims experience and with insurance demand...</p>

We illustrate how equilibrium screening models can be used to evaluate the economic consequences of insurance market regulation. We calibrate and solve a model of the United Kingdom's compulsory annuity market and examine the impact of gender-based pricing restrictions. We find that the...

This paper presents new evidence on the importance of adverse selection in individual annuity markets. It focuses on the individual annuity market in the United Kingdom, which provides an excellent empirical setting for studying selection effects. In addition to a voluntary annuity market, the...

This paper explores adverse selection in the voluntary and compulsory individual annuity markets in the United Kingdom. Two empirical regularities support standard models of adverse selection. First, annuitants are longer-lived than non-annuitants. These mortality differences are more pronounced...

This paper shows how models of insurance markets with asymmetric information can be calibrated and solved to yield quantitative estimates of the consequences of government regulation. We estimate the impact of restricting gender-based pricing in the United Kingdom retirement annuity market, a...

We use a unique data set of annuities in the United Kingdom to test for adverse selection. We find systematic relationships between ex post mortality and annuity characteristics, such as the timing of payments and the possibility of payments to the annuitant's estate. These patterns are...