DOI

We study a competitive market for risk-sharing, in which risk-tolerant providers of risk protection, who face frictional costs in holding capital, offer coverage over a range of risk classes to risk-averse agents. We distinguish monoline and multiline industry structures and characterize when each structure is optimal. Markets for which the risks are limited in number, asymmetric or correlated will be served by monoline structures, whereas markets characterized by a large number of essentially independent risks will be served by many multiline firms. Our results are consistent with observed structures within insurance, and also have general implications for the financial services industry.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)595-632
Number of pages38
JournalReview of Finance
Volume22
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Mar 2018

    Scopus subject areas

  • Accounting
  • Finance
  • Economics and Econometrics

    Research areas

  • Diversification, Financial services, Insurance, Risk-sharing

ID: 94066681