This paper shows that preferences alone cannot explain the patterns reported in the literature.

This paper establishes the result that the seller prefers posted-price selling when the cost of information acquisition is high, and auctions when it is low. We view corporate bonds as an instance of the former case, and government bonds as an instance of the latter.

Most items are sold to consumers by retail stores. Stores have two features that distinguish them from auctions. First, the price is posted and a consumer who values the good at more than the posted price is sold the good. Second, the sale takes place as soon as the consumer decides to buy. In...

We explore the pricing of variance risk by decomposing stocks' total variance into systematic and idiosyncratic return variances. While systematic variance risk exhibits a negative price of risk, common shocks to the variances of idiosyncratic returns carry a large positive risk premium. This...

We investigate the suitability of securitization as an alternative to reinsurance for the purpose of transferring natural catastrophe risk. We characterize the conditions under which one or the other form of risk transfer dominates using a setting in which reinsurers and traders in financial...

In spite of the fact that they can draw on a larger, more liquid and more diversifiedpool of capital than the equity of reinsurance companies, financial markets have failed to displace reinsurance as the primary risk-sharing vehicle for natural catastrophe risk. We show that this failure can be...