This paper analyzes the role of private storage in a market for a commodity (e.g. natural gas) whose supply is subject to the threat of an irreversible disruption. We focus on the medium term in which seasonality of demand and exhaustibility can be neglected. We characterize the price and...

This paper surveys the existing theoretical and empirical research on long term contracts inspired by the American experience. We analyze the role of take-or-pay clauses and price indexation rules, questioning whether regulation distorts optimal contract duration. The models we summarize allows...

We propose a model of seasonal gas markets which is flexible enough to include supply and demand shocks while also considering exhaustibility. The relative performances of alternative policies based on price caps and associated measures or tariffs are discussed. We illustrate with structural...

This paper analyzes the role of private storage in a market for a commodity (e.g. natural gas) whose supply is subject to the threat of an irreversible disruption. We focus on the medium term in which seasonality of demand and exhaustibility can be neglected. We characterize the price and...

We model an economy that alternates randomly between abundance and scarcity episodes. We develop an original method to characterize in detail the structure of the Markovian competitive equilibrium. Accumulation and drainage of stocks are the main focuses. Economically appealing comparative...

The standard literature on the value of life relies on Yaari’s (1965) model, which includes an implicit assumption of risk neutrality with respect to life duration. To overpass this limitation, we extend the theory to a simple variety of nonadditively separable preferences. The enlargement we...

We study imperfect competition between insurers in a multiple-risk environment. In the absence of asymmetric information, equilibria are efficient, and we determine the degrees of specialization under which the specialized insurers are able or unable to capture the surplus. We show in contrast...

We analyze markets where insurers are better informed about risk than consumers. We show that even competitive markets may result in insufficient information revelation and inefficient insurance coverage. This explains why certain risky consumers remain uninsured and why certain market segments...