An Alternative Solution to the Moral Hazard Problem and Some Sufficient Conditions for Its Absence

Abstract

Moral hazard is one of the problems that is believed to plague the insurance industry. A major aspect of the problem deals with the effect of the availability of insurance on the level of care exercised by the insured to reduce the probability of loss. When an insurance policy is not available against, say theft, an economic agent could devote time to watching over his property. At the extreme he could ensure that the probability of loss was zero, but the cost of such a strategy would likely be prohibitive. For such an instance the optimal action is to expend an effort less than that required to reduce the probability of theft to zero and hence to bear some risk. If we assume that economic agents are risk averse they would be willing to pay for a transfer of risk to another economic agent thereby enhancing their welfare. This transfer of risk is obtained through the purchase of an insurance policy. However if all goods are normal, the increase in welfare obtained from the purchase of insurance will be used to increase the consumption of leisure and that of other goods. As a consequence the purchase of insurance will cause the economic agents to expand less effort on the reduction of the probability of loss. That is, the optimal level of effort devoted to guarding against loss will depend on whether insurance is available.