Long-term interest rates in Europe fell sharply in 2014 to historically low levels. This
development is often attributed to yield-chasing in anticipation of quantitative easing by the …

Variable annuities, which package mutual funds with minimum return guarantees over long
horizons, accounted for $1.5 trillion or 35% of US life insurer liabilities in 2015. Sales …

This special issue originates from a dual submission conference with the NBER Insurance
Working Group and the Corporate Finance Program in 2020. It brings a broader perspective …

This paper analyzes the scope of the private market for pandemic insurance. We develop a
framework that explains theoretically how the equilibrium price of pandemic insurance …

Life insurance companies, the largest institutional holders of corporate bonds, tilt their
portfolios towards higher-yield bonds when interest rates decline. This tilt seems to be …

The traditional role of insurers is to insure idiosyncratic risk through products such as life
annuities, life insurance, and health insurance. With the decline of private defined benefit …

Life insurers are exposed to interest rate risk as their liability side is typically more sensitive
to interest rate changes than their asset side. This paper explores why insurers assume this …

This paper studies a form of liquidity risk that we call 'Liquidity After Solvency Hedging'or
“LASH” risk. Financial institutions take LASH risk when they hedge against solvency risk …

Rather than taking on more risk, US insurers hit hard by the crisis pulled back from risk
taking, relative to insurers not hit as hard by the crisis. Capital requirements alone do not …

The 2008 financial crisis brought a focus on the potential for a large insurance firm to
contribute to systemic risk. Among the concerns raised was that a negative shock to insurers …