Insurance Economics (Classroom Companion: Economics)

Insurance Economics brings together the economic analysis of decision making under risk, risk management and demand for insurance among individuals and corporations, objectives pursued and management tools used by insurance companies, the regulation of insurance, and the division of labor between private and social insurance.

Appropriate both for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of economics, management, and finance, this text provides the background required to understand current research. Predictions derived from theoretical arguments are not merely stated, but also related to empirical evidence. Throughout the book, conclusions summarize key results, helping readers to check their knowledge and comprehension. Issues discussed include paradoxes in decision making under risk and attempts at their resolution, moral hazard and adverse selection including the possibility of a “death spiral”, and future challenges to both private and social insurance such as globalization and the availability of genetic information.

This second edition has been extensively revised. Most importantly, substantial content has been added to represent the evolution of risk-related research. A new chapter, Insurance Demand II: Nontraditional Approaches, provides a timely addition in view of recent developments in risk theory and insurance. Previous discussions of Enterprise Risk Management, long-term care insurance, adverse selection, and moral hazard have all been updated. In an effort to expand the global reach of the text, evidence and research from the U.S. and China have also been added.

A Swiss native born in 1946, Peter Zweifel is a Professor Emeritus of the University of Zurich (Switzerland). Together with Friedrich Breyer and Matthias Kifmann, he is the author of “Health Economics” (2nd ed., Springer, 2009) and with Aaron Praktiknjo and Georg Erdmann, of “Energy Economics”, Springer, 2017). His work has been published in the Am. Ec. Rev., Antitrust Bull.,  Health Econ.,  J. Health Ec., J. Ins. Issues, J. Risk & Ins., J. Risk & Unc., and Public Choice, among others. Together with Mark Pauly of the University of Pennsylvania, he is the founding editor of the International Journal of Health Economics and Management. From 1996 to 2005, he also served as a member of the Competition Commission, Switzerland’s antitrust authority.

Roland Eisen, born in Stuttgart (Germany) in 1941, studied Economics at the LMU in Munich (Germany), where he received his doctorate in 1971 with a thesis on “Economic Growth and Technical Progress” and wrotehis second thesis, on “Insurance Equilibrium,” in 1977 (published 1979). He served for 13 years as a research assistant at the Institute of Insurance Economics at Munich’s LMU. After appointments at the University of Bamberg and the Technical University of Munich-Weihenstephan, he was appointed a Full Professor at the Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main (Germany). His research fields include insurance economics, labor economics, economics of social policy, health economics (in particular long-term care), and macroeconomics.

David L. Eckles holds the P. George Benson Professorship in the Terry College at the University of Georgia (USA). Born in Georgia in 1975, he studied insurance and risk management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania receiving his Ph.D. in 2003. Among his numerous publications, his research has appeared in the J. Risk & Ins., J. Risk & Unc., Geneva Risk & Ins. Rev., and Acc. Rev. He is an active member in the Risk Theory Society, the American Risk and Insurance Association, as well as other risk and insurance-based academic societies.