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...

Empirical research in organizational ecology has mainly focused on analyzing founding and mortality rates using life history data of the organizations. We try to extend this approach in our study in a number of ways. In contrast to most empirical studies in organizational ecology, we chose a...

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...

We characterize how public insurance schemes are constrained by hidden financial transactions. When non-exclusive private insurance entails increasing unit transaction costs, public transfers are only partly offset by hidden private transactions, and can influence consumption allocation. We show...

[...]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...

When countries, and macroeconomic models, open up to international capital markets, the welfare gains available through completion of financial markets for contingencies potentially are much greater than those available from access to noncontingent international borrowing. Intercasual insurance,...