In recent years, especially in the aftermath of the global financial meltdown, the performance of South Asia capital markets has attracted the attention of the researchers and investors across the globe. The resilient shown provides the impetus to examine the efficient market hypothesis in these...

Retired households, especially those with high lifetime income, decumulate their wealth very slowly, and many die leaving large estates. The three leading explanations for the 'retirement savings puzzle' are the desire to insure against uncertain lifespans and medical expenses, the desire to...

A new instrument for hedging weather risks has made its appearance in the financial arena. Trade in 'weather derivatives' has taken off in the US, and interest is growing elsewhere. Whilst such contracts may be simply interpreted as a new tool for solving a historical problem, the question...

This paper addresses the role of independent insurance intermediaries in markets where matching is important. A controversial matter in the discussion concerning insurance intermediation is the issue of compensation customs and how the latter affect prices, rents and advice quality in insurance...

We examine insurance markets with two types of customers: those who regret suboptimal decisions and those who don.t. In this setting, we characterize the equilibria under hidden information about the type of customers and hidden action. We show that both pooling and separating equilibria can...

Insurance markets are characterized by profound market imperfections. Insurance intermediaries reduce transaction costs and information asymmetries. From transaction cost economics, agency theory, and law and economics literature the hypothesis is derived that insurance brokers may provide more...

I provide an equilibrium analysis of 'selection markets': where consumers not only vary in how much they are willing to pay, but also in how much they cost to the seller. The model provides a joint explanation for three empirical phenomena: low uptake of existing products, slow demand for new...

We develop a general equilibrium stochastic OLG model with heterogenous households. Households differ with respect to their productivity. Productivity depends stochastically on parents' unobservable investment in their child's human capital and an aggregate productivity shock. We introduce a...