Efficiency and Equilibria in Centralized and Decentralized Insurance Markets

Abstract

This thesis studies Pareto efficiency and market equilibrium in the context of insurance markets. Given a specific model of insurance markets, it is of great practical interest in identifying those risk allocations that are deemed desirable to each agent in the market. Equally as important are market equilibria, the allocations and prices that result from agents’ decisions given the structure of the market. The research presented in this thesis studies the relationship between these two concepts in both centralized and decentralized markets of insurance. Throughout, we provide various characterization results for Pareto-efficient contracts and market equilibria in a variety of settings. These results are illustrated with numerical examples, including an in-depth application to markets of flood risk insurance.