Genetic tests can be expected to produce a large amount of economically important information in the future. What are the effects on a life insurance market if more information becomes available over time, for individuals and possibly also for insurers? Should people buy insurance before or...

We analyse the effects of regulations prohibiting the use of information to risk-rate premiums in a life insurance market. New information derived from genetic tests is likely to become increasingly relevant in the future. Many governments prohibit the use of this information, thereby generating...

How should we evaluate the welfare implications of improvements to safety technologies in the presence of offsetting behavior? We model this problem as a symmetric game in which each player’s payoff depends on his own action and the average action of the other players, and analyze under which...

This paper develops a theoretical model of informative campaigning, both positive and negative. We argue that some information on a candidate can be transmitted more efficiently by his opponents and that negative campaigning, on average, facilitates a more informed choice by the electorate. In...

Economists have been concerned with price dispersion for apparently homogeneous goods for a long time. Many models have been developed which explain price dispersion by imperfect consumer information about prices in the market. There are few empirical tests of these models. Moreover, these tests...

We analyse an overlapping generations model of voting on "reform projects". These resemble investments in that they first require some investment expenditure and later payoff. Since the time during which old people get the benefit is shorter, or because older people are more wealthy and hence...

This paper analyzes the welfare properties of equilibrium when insurers use observable actions to classify consumers into different risk categories, and consumers' choice is influenced by the insurance market consequences of their actions. Specifically, we analyze this problem at the example of...