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...

We consider general asset market environments in which agents with quasilinear payoffs are endowed with objects and have demands for other agents' objects. We show that if all agents have a maximum demand of one object and are endowed with at most one object, the VCG transfer of each agent is...

The choice of instruments for mitigating economic volatility is a serious consideration for policymakers and important question in government and economics. Using a DSGE model with endogenous technology creation, we show that efficient financial markets are more effective than conventional...