From the introduction: Economic and financial research on insurance markets has undergone dramatic growth since its infancy in the early 1960s. Our main objective in compiling this volume was to achieve a wider dissemination of key papers in this literature. Their significance is highlighted in...

Despite the importance of insurance in enabling individual and collective social, economic, and financial activities, discussions about the macro-economic role and risks of insurance markets are surprisingly limited. The core motivation for publishing this book is to bring together academics,...

"Standard theories of insurance, dating from Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976), stress the role of adverse selection in explaining the decision to purchase insurance. In these models, higher risk people buy full or near-full insurance, while lower risk people buy less complete coverage, if they buy...