Insurance intermediation services are information services which exhibit strong information asymmetries. We empirically analyze whether signaling works in the German market for insurance intermediation services. For this a signal must increase service quality and be easily identifiable by...

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...

Micro data from a dental insurance natural experiment is used to analyze why agents opt out of insurance. The purpose is to relate the dropout decision to new information on risk, acquired by the policy holder and the insurer. The results show that agents tend to leave the insurance when...

The empirical evidence of adverse selection in insurance markets is mixed. The problem in assessing the extent of adverse selection is that private information, on which agents act, is generally unobservable to the researcher, which makes it difficult to distinguish between adverse selection and...

Would you go to the dentist more often if it were free? Observational data is here used to analyze the impact of full-coverage insurance on dental care utilization using different identification strategies. The challenge of assessing the bite of moral hazard without an experimental study design...

We discuss the prevalence of pooling equilibria in a two-period model of an insurance market with asymmetric information. We solve the model numerically. In addition to reporting cases where a pooling equilibrium exists, we pay attention to why, in the case of non-existence of a pooling...

Funeral Aid Associations (FAAs) in Northeast Thailand offer micro funeral insurance at affordable premium levels while they barely risk-rate potential members. Due to the set-up of FAAs, high-risk individuals have a monetary incentive to join the insurance. Compared to many other micro insurance...

Die Arbeit untersucht die Anreize von CDO-Managern hinsichtlich der Auswahl der einem Poolzugrunde liegenden Forderungen und identifiziert Anreizkonflikte zwischen diesen und den Investorender unterschiedlich subordinierten Tranchen. Es wird aufgezeigt, dass CDO-Managerunabh¨angig von ihrer...

In 2003, Swiss Re introduced a mortality-based security designed to hedge excessive mortality changes for its life book of business. The concern was apparently brevity risk, i.e., the risk of premature death. The brevity risk due to a pandemic is similar to the property risk associated with...

Limited liability creates a conict of interests between policyholders and shareholders ofinsurance companies. It provides shareholders with incentives to increase the risk of theinsurer's assets and liabilities which, in turn, might reduce the value policyholders attach toand premiums they are...