IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/genrir/v37y2012i1p27-56.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risk-sharing Contracts with Asymmetric Information

Author

Listed:
  • Renaud Bourlès

    (Ecole Centrale Marseille and GREQAM – IDEP, Technopôle de Château – Gombert, 38, rue Frédéric Joliot – Curie, 13451 MARSEILLE Cedex 20, France. E-mails: renaud.bourles@centrale-marseille.fr; dominique.henriet@centrale-marseille.fr)

  • Dominique Henriet

    (Ecole Centrale Marseille and GREQAM – IDEP, Technopôle de Château – Gombert, 38, rue Frédéric Joliot – Curie, 13451 MARSEILLE Cedex 20, France. E-mails: renaud.bourles@centrale-marseille.fr; dominique.henriet@centrale-marseille.fr)

Abstract

We examine how risk-sharing is impacted by asymmetric information on the probability distribution of wealth. We define the optimal incentive compatible agreements in a two-agent model with two levels of wealth. When there is complete information on the probability of the different outcomes, the resulting allocation satisfies the mutuality principle (which states that everyone's final wealth depends only upon the aggregate wealth of the economy). This is no longer true when agents have private information regarding their probability distribution of wealth. Asymmetry of information (i) makes ex-post equal sharing unsustainable between two low-risk agents, and (ii) induces exchanges when agents have the same realization of wealth.

Suggested Citation

  • Renaud Bourlès & Dominique Henriet, 2012. "Risk-sharing Contracts with Asymmetric Information," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 37(1), pages 27-56, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:genrir:v:37:y:2012:i:1:p:27-56
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/grir/journal/v37/n1/pdf/grir20112a.pdf
    File Function: Link to full text PDF
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/grir/journal/v37/n1/full/grir20112a.html
    File Function: Link to full text HTML
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ethan Ligon & Jonathan P. Thomas & Tim Worrall, 2002. "Informal Insurance Arrangements with Limited Commitment: Theory and Evidence from Village Economies," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(1), pages 209-244.
    2. Doepke, Matthias & Townsend, Robert M., 2006. "Dynamic mechanism design with hidden income and hidden actions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 235-285, January.
    3. de Aghion, Beatriz Armendariz & Gollier, Christian, 2000. "Peer Group Formation in an Adverse Selection Model," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(465), pages 632-643, July.
    4. Townsend, Robert M, 1994. "Risk and Insurance in Village India," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(3), pages 539-591, May.
    5. Kimball, Miles S, 1988. "Farmers' Cooperatives as Behavior Toward Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(1), pages 224-232, March.
    6. Henriet, Dominique & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 1987. "Some reflections on insurance pricing," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 863-885, June.
    7. Alberto Bisin & Piero Gottardi, 2006. "Efficient Competitive Equilibria with Adverse Selection," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(3), pages 485-516, June.
    8. Merton, Robert C., 1971. "Optimum consumption and portfolio rules in a continuous-time model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 373-413, December.
    9. Prescott, Edward C & Townsend, Robert M, 1984. "Pareto Optima and Competitive Equilibria with Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 21-45, January.
    10. Pierre Dubois & Bruno Jullien & Thierry Magnac, 2008. "Formal and Informal Risk Sharing in LDCs: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(4), pages 679-725, July.
    11. Pierre Picard, 2014. "Participating Insurance Contracts and the Rothschild-Stiglitz Equilibrium Puzzle," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 39(2), pages 153-175, September.
    12. Hirshleifer, Jack, 1971. "The Private and Social Value of Information and the Reward to Inventive Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(4), pages 561-574, September.
    13. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1977. "Monopoly, Non-linear Pricing and Imperfect Information: The Insurance Market," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 44(3), pages 407-430.
    14. Schlee, Edward & Chade, Hector, 2012. "Optimal insurance with adverse selection," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(3), September.
    15. Robert M. Townsend, 2003. "Microcredit And Mechanism Design," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(2-3), pages 468-477, 04/05.
    16. Richard Arnott & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1988. "Randomization with Asymmetric Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(3), pages 344-362, Autumn.
    17. Coate, Stephen & Ravallion, Martin, 1993. "Reciprocity without commitment : Characterization and performance of informal insurance arrangements," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-24, February.
    18. James A. Ligon & Paul D. Thistle, 2005. "The Formation of Mutual Insurers in Markets with Adverse Selection," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(2), pages 529-556, March.
    19. Garance Genicot & Debraj Ray, 2003. "Group Formation in Risk-Sharing Arrangements," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(1), pages 87-113.
    20. Renaud Bourlès & Dominique Henriet, 2008. "Mutual Insurance With Asymmetric Information: The Case Of Adverse Selection," Working Papers halshs-00278178, HAL.
    21. Crocker, Keith J. & Snow, Arthur, 1985. "The efficiency of competitive equilibria in insurance markets with asymmetric information," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 207-219, March.
    22. Donald Meyer & Jack Meyer, 2005. "Relative Risk Aversion: What Do We Know?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 243-262, December.
    23. Narayana R. Kocherlakota, 1996. "Implications of Efficient Risk Sharing without Commitment," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 63(4), pages 595-609.
    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. Francesca Barigozzi & Renaud Bourlès & Dominique Henriet & Giuseppe Pignataro, 2017. "Pool size and the sustainability of optimal risk-sharing agreements," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 82(2), pages 273-303, February.
    2. Louis Lévy-Garboua & Claude Montmarquette & Jonathan Vaksmann & Marie Claire Villeval, 2017. "Voluntary Contributions to a Mutual Insurance Pool," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 19(1), pages 198-218, February.
    3. Mohamed Belhaj & Renaud Bourl?s & Fr?d?ric Dero?an, 2014. "Risk-Taking and Risk-Sharing Incentives under Moral Hazard," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 58-90, February.
    4. Renaud Bourlès & Juliette Rouchier, 2012. "Evolving Informal Risk-Sharing Cooperatives and Other-Regarding Preferences," Working Papers halshs-00793706, HAL.
    5. Victorien Barbet & Renaud Bourlès & Juliette Rouchier, 2017. "Informal Risk-Sharing Cooperatives: The Effect of Learning and Other-Regarding Preferences," AMSE Working Papers 1706, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, Marseille, France.
    6. Jean-François Outreville, 2014. "The Meaning of Risk? Insights from The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 39(4), pages 768-781, October.

    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:pal:genrir:v:37:y:2012:i:1:p:27-56. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Sonal Shukla) or (Rebekah McClure). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.