This paper analyzes how insurance companies allow the issue of market incompleteness to be overcome. A general … markets for trading commodities ex-post and hedging price risks ex-ante. I introduce insurance companies supplying individual … insurance contracts against endowment risks and sharing their uncertain profit through stock markets. I show that this restores …

partial and full insurance can obtain, depending on the relative patience of agents and financial intermediaries. Insurance …

Insurance has an intertemporal aspect as insurance premia have to be paid up front. We argue that the financing of … insurance is key to understanding basic insurance patterns and insurers' balance sheets. Limited enforcement implies that … insurance is globally monotone increasing in household net worth and income, incomplete, and precautionary. These results hold …

defining a meaningful role for insurance in managing business interruption (BI) and other risks from future pandemics. The … insurance industry will be part of that solution set, whether through the continued development of ad hoc state …-by-state initiatives, a private-public partnership in which the insurance industry commits its servicing capabilities, or a private …

preferences. Full insurance cannot be rejected. As the risk-sharing as-if-complete-markets theory might predict, estimated risk …

engage in insurance contracts with limited enforceability. Consistent with the conventional view, better private and public …

shocks and insure themselves by participating in a risk-sharing arrangement. Incomplete insurance distorts households … panel data from rural India, we quantify the losses attributable to limited risk-sharing. Completing insurance markets leads … to output and welfare gains of 19% and 29%, respectively. Improving the functioning of consumption insurance markets …