This brief is actually going to have two levels. One level will go with the advertised title, and I’ll tell you my current views on the truth about moral hazard and adverse selection. Adverse selection will serve as somewhat of a handmaid of moral hazard, as you will see. That’s one level....

Resumen: el objetivo de este artículo es presentar una explicación analítica de la crisis en el mercado hipotecario de Estados Unidos, a partir de la hipótesis de la inestabilidad financiera de Minsky. Se sostiene que esta crisis es consecuencia de un proceso especulativo inmobiliario que...

The Home Owners' Loan Corporation purchased more than a million delinquent mortgages from private lenders between 1933 and 1936 and refinanced the loans for the borrowers. Its primary goal was to break the cycle of foreclosure, forced property sales and decreases in home values that was...

Depuis le debut des annees quatre-vingt-dix, l'eclatement de la bulle financiere puis la deflation confrontent les assurances-vie japonaise a un effet de ciseaux : alors que les rendements de leurs actifs diminuent, elles continuent d'offrir aux assures les remunerations elevees de la periode...

This paper analyzes the numerical impact of different surplus distribution mechanisms on the risk exposure of a life insurance company selling with profit life insurance policies with a cliquet-style interest rate guarantee. Three representative companies are considered, each using a different...

We examine the interaction between the legal protection of investors, corporate governance within firms, institutional development between countries, and investable premia in emerging markets. In a multi country setting and using a novel dataset we find that better-governed firms experience...

In Guatemala there are substantial and growing imbalances in the housing market; at the same time, financial markets remain shallow and underdeveloped. The analytical framework applied in this paper starts by identifying the types of market failures responsible for the underdevelopment of the...

While both microcredit and microinsurance products in the developing world have essentially emerged in a regulatory vacuum, the general consensus appears to be that self-regulation may have thus far served the global microcredit industry adequately. The same premise is likely to be false when it...

After negative shocks, investors with short trading horizons are inclined or forced to sell their holdings to a larger extent than investors with longer trading horizons. This may amplify the effects of market-wide shocks on stock prices. We test the relevance of this mechanism by exploiting the...

Amartya Sen has argued that many development and freedom measures such as health, education, political and civil liberties are important constituents of human welfare. We concur with Sen and conjecture that an important reason these measures affect human welfare is because they allow individuals...