IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jpbect/v12y2010i3p501-532.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Asymmetric Information and Annuities

Author

Listed:
  • SILVIA PLATONI

Abstract

The standard Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976) and Wilson (1977) analysis of adverse selection economies is extended to a particular model of annuity market which features both elements of moral hazard and adverse selection. Individuals are heterogeneous with respect to time preferences and they make investments in health care that affect their survival probabilities. The main case considered is that where both preferences and investments (and hence the endogenous survival probabilities) are unobserved. Thus, the model captures a further source of inefficiency that is particular to annuity market: an endogenous correlation between the desire for annuities and the survival probabilities. The basic insights of Wilson (1977)—as worked out by Eckstein, Eichenbaum and Peled (1985)—are worth also in this new setting. When the equilibrium is separating, the government intervention may yield Pareto improvements. If the equilibrium is pooling, the government intervention may improve the well‐being of individuals affected by the inefficiencies and the negative externalities caused by the asymmetric information.

Suggested Citation

  • Silvia Platoni, 2010. "Asymmetric Information and Annuities," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(3), pages 501-532, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jpbect:v:12:y:2010:i:3:p:501-532
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9779.2010.01462.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9779.2010.01462.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9779.2010.01462.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tomas J. Philipson & Gary S. Becker, 1998. "Old-Age Longevity and Mortality-Contingent Claims," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(3), pages 551-573, June.
    2. Eckstein, Zvi & Eichenbaum, Martin & Peled, Dan, 1985. "Uncertain lifetimes and the welfare enhancing properties of annuity markets and social security," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 303-326, April.
    3. Diamond, P. A., 1977. "A framework for social security analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 275-298, December.
    4. Steven Shavell, 1979. "On Moral Hazard and Insurance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(4), pages 541-562.
    5. Gouveia, Miguel, 1997. "Majority Rule and the Public Provision of a Private Good," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 93(3-4), pages 221-244, December.
    6. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard E, 1996. "Public Provision of Private Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 57-84, February.
    7. Anderberg, Dan, 1999. "Determining the mix of public and private provision of insurance by majority rule," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 417-440, September.
    8. Michael Rothschild & Joseph Stiglitz, 1976. "Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets: An Essay on the Economics of Imperfect Information," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(4), pages 629-649.
    9. Wilson, Charles, 1977. "A model of insurance markets with incomplete information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 167-207, December.
    10. Riley, John G, 1979. "Noncooperative Equilibrium and Market Signalling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(2), pages 303-307, May.
    11. Eytan Sheshinski, 2010. "Refundable Annuities (Annuity Options)," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(1), pages 7-21, February.
    12. Davies, James B. & Kuhn, Peter, 1992. "Social security, longevity, and moral hazard," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 91-106, October.
    13. Amy Finkelstein, 2002. "When Can Partial Public Insurance Produce Pareto Improvements?," NBER Working Papers 9035, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Mark V. Pauly, 1974. "Overinsurance and Public Provision of Insurance: The Roles of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 88(1), pages 44-62.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Silvia Platoni & Francesco Timpano, 2013. "Redistribution and Tax Evasion: an Asymmetric Information Approach," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali dises1394, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Raj Chetty & Amy Finkelstein, 2012. "Social Insurance: Connecting Theory to Data," NBER Working Papers 18433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Hindriks, Jean & De Donder, Philippe, 2003. "The politics of redistributive social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(12), pages 2639-2660, December.
    3. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1987. "Uncertain Lifetimes, Pensions, and Individual Saving," NBER Chapters, in: Issues in Pension Economics, pages 175-210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Hindriks, Jean & De Donder, Philippe, 2003. "The politics of redistributive social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(12), pages 2639-2660, December.
    5. Stewart, Jay, 1994. "The Welfare Implications of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection in Competitive Insurance Markets," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 32(2), pages 193-208, April.
    6. Daniel McFadden & Carlos Noton & Pau Olivella, "undated". "Remedies for Sick Insurance," Working Papers 620, Barcelona School of Economics.
    7. Wojciech Kopczuk, 2003. "The Trick Is to Live: Is the Estate Tax Social Security for the Rich?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1318-1341, December.
    8. Georges Dionne & Casey G. Rothschild, 2011. "Risk Classification in Insurance Contracting," Cahiers de recherche 1137, CIRPEE.
    9. Dionne, Georges & Michaud, Pierre-Carl & Pinquet, Jean, 2013. "A review of recent theoretical and empirical analyses of asymmetric information in road safety and automobile insurance," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 85-97.
    10. repec:ipf:psejou:v:42:y:2018:i:42:p:45-65 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1984. "'Precautionary' Saving Revisited: Social Security, Individual Welfare, and the Capital Stock," NBER Working Papers 1430, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Catarina Goulão, 2015. "Voluntary public health insurance," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 135-157, January.
    13. Dionne, Georges, 2012. "The empirical measure of information problems with emphasis on insurance fraud and dynamic data," Working Papers 12-10, HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management.
    14. Dionne, Georges & Harrington, Scott, 2017. "Insurance and Insurance Markets," Working Papers 17-2, HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management.
    15. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5369 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Sophia Delipalla & Owen O'Donnell, 1999. "The Political Economy of a Publicly Provided Private Good with Adverse Selection," Studies in Economics 9911, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    17. Friedrich Breyer, 2001. "Income Redistribution and the Political Economy of Social Health Insurance: Comparing Germany and Switzerland," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 253, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    18. Finkelstein, Amy, 2004. "The interaction of partial public insurance programs and residual private insurance markets: evidence from the US Medicare program," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 1-24, January.
    19. Karolin Becker & Peter Zweifel, 2005. "Cost Sharing in Health Insurance: An Instrument for Risk Selection?," SOI - Working Papers 0513, Socioeconomic Institute - University of Zurich.
    20. Goulão, Catarina, 2014. "Voluntary Public Health Insurance," TSE Working Papers 14-488, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    21. Joshua S. Gans & Stephen P. King, 2003. "Anti‐insurance: Analysing the Health Insurance System in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 79(247), pages 473-486, December.
    22. Susanne Pech, 2002. "Tax incentives for private life annuities and the social security reform: Effects on consumption and on adverse selection," Economics working papers 2002-09, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jpbect:v:12:y:2010:i:3:p:501-532. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/apettea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.