[...]This paper reexamines the debate over the appropriate formof housing assistance. First, we briefly summarize and evaluate arguments in favor of demand-oriented housing subsidies(such as Section 8 vouchers) and supply-oriented housingsubsidies (such as production subsidies). We conclude...

[...]In this paper, we first provide background information onprogram expenditures and a brief review of the literature. Next,we describe the housing provided under each program and ourmethodology for estimating costs. We then present our totalcost estimates along with estimates of the share of...

A survey of organic grain and oilseed producers in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin wasconducted to collect information about their demographic characteristics, production and pricerisk management strategies, yields and losses, and crop insurance decisions. The data areanalyzed using a discrete...

In the literature on optimal indemnity schedules, indemnities are usually restricted to be non-negative. Gollier (1987) shows that this constraint might well bind: insured could get higher expected utility if insurance contracts would allow payments from the insured to the insurer at some...

Under certain conditions the optimal insurance policy will offer full coverage above a deductible, as Arrow and others have shown long time ago. Interestingly, the same design of insurance policies applies in case of a single loss and ex-ante moral hazard. However, many insurance policies...

This paper analyzes dynamic equilibrium risk sharing contracts between profit-maximizing intermediaries and a large pool of ex-ante identical agents that face idiosyncratic income uncertainty that makes them heterogeneous ex-post. In any given period, after having observed her income, the agent...

In jüngster Vergangenheit hat die Versicherungswirtschaft einen grundlegenden Wandel durchlaufen. Deregulierung, Globalisierung sowie Substitutionskonkurrenz führten zu einem verschärften Wettbewerb um Marktanteile bei sinkenden Gewinnmargen. Aufgrund dieser neuen Wettbewerbsdynamik und den...

Expected utility theory holds that the demand for insurance is a demand for certainty, because under the conventional specification of the theory, it appears as if buyers of insurance prefer certain losses to actuarially equivalent uncertain ones. Empirical studies, however, show that...

Why do some U.S. states have higher levels of marital formation than others? This paper introduces an economic model wherein a state's representative individual may choose to marry in order to diversity his or her idiosyncratic income risk. The paper demonstrates that such a diversification...