Adverse Selection Problem Research Articles

The development of media quality in the Digital Age

AbstractThe Digital Age has revolutionized the media landscape, reshaping how consumers access and interact with content. Consumers now have access to a wide range of media content, from physical copies to digital downloads and streaming. This has led to content creators detaching from traditional publishing and self-publishing their content on platforms like Wattpad, SoundCloud, and YouTube. The Digital Age has also added more remedies to signal quality to consumers, such as online reviews and personalized recommendations. This paper aims to analyze the impact of the Digital Age on the quality of media content in three different media fields (books, music, and films and series) by conducting an online survey among 245 German-speaking internet users in May 2022. Findings reveal a significant increase in access to content creators and content availability for consumers in the Digital Age. Moreover, the Digital Age introduces mechanisms that assist consumers in evaluating content quality, mitigating the adverse selection problem. The study concludes that media content quality in the Digital Age surpasses that of the Pre-Digital Age. For an enhanced consumer experience in the field of books, media providers should reconsider their algorithms, prioritizing content over purchasing patterns. Caution is advised in reinforcing intellectual property rights, emphasizing the need for judicious application to preserve content creation incentives.

Unveiling the adverse selection problem in China's digital lending market: Evidence from CHFS

Using data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) 2019, we reveals a substantial adverse selection issue within China's Internet Credit Loan (ICL) market. Empirical evidence indicates that households with higher Debt-to-Income Ratios (DIR) are more inclined to apply for Internet Credit Loans (ICLs), with an average DIR of 76.9 %, constituting 20 % of ICL applications. While Internet Credit Loans (ICLs) provide alternative financing options, their high fixed interest rates undermine the potential cost advantages associated with digital technology. Adverse selection is especially pronounced in the case of operational loans. Our findings underscore the urgency for regulatory intervention to address these issues effectively.

Green electricity product menu design for retailers without knowing consumer environmental awareness

Adverse selection problem due to asymmetry of consumer environmental awareness (CEA) could reduce electricity retailer's profit and obstructs renewable energy (RE) consumption. This study analyzes mechanism design problem of retailer constricted by RE consumption quota to incentive consumers display true CEA in competitive retail market. Based on principal-agent theory, we develop an extended principal-agent model with the addition of an RE consumption quota constraint to design a green electricity product menu which includes the green level, the price and electric quantity. Influence of information symmetry and quota setting on product attributes, retailer's profit, consumer utility, RE consumption is analyzed, and results show that: (1) Compare to symmetric information, under asymmetric information, green level of product provided to consumers with CEA (denoted as C1) distorts upward, information rent is greater than zero when quota is large, while green level of product provided to consumers without CEA (denoted as C2) distorts downward, with no information rent. (2) Under asymmetric information, unit environmental premium (UEP) of green electricity positively relates to proportion of C1, CEA level, and incremental WTP, and reaches the maximum value at a certain quota. (3) Under asymmetric information, retailer's profit and RE consumption positively relates to proportion of C1, and CEA level. (4) Under asymmetric information, quota difference could contribute to improve retail service quality under competitive retail market, and RE consumption elevation.

When Should a Sharing Platform Adopt the Bilateral Review System?

The increasing popularity of sharing platforms is raising concerns about a lack of information on the demand side: the cost of serving specific buyers is typically unknown to sellers. To mitigate this concern, some platforms, such as Airbnb, have adopted the bilateral review system (BRS), allowing buyers and sellers to rate each other. This differs from the traditional unilateral review system (URS), which allows only buyers to rate sellers. In this study, we examine how these two review systems impact the operation of a peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing platform, where sellers with different qualities are matched with buyers with different serving costs. Our analysis reveals that under URS, even with perfect seller information, high-quality sellers can still be driven out of the market due to unknown information about the buyer and the “coproduction” nature of the serving cost. This differs from the adverse selection problem often observed in the used car market, for example, where sellers of high-quality products withdraw due to generally unknown product quality. Additionally, we highlight the critical role of the expected buyer cost: When this cost is high, BRS can benefit the platform by alleviating the adverse selection problem; however, when this cost is low, BRS becomes detrimental to the platform. Our analysis also shows that BRS helps buyers but can hurt sellers. However, BRS has the potential to generate a favorable outcome for all parties involved, resulting in a win-win-win situation benefiting the platform, buyers, and sellers. Our results not only shed light on review system design but also provide a plausible explanation for the widespread use of BRS by sharing platforms such as Airbnb, Fiverr, and Turo.

Design and study of hybrid BI insurance contracts with interruption compensation, reward, and penalty under adverse selection

AbstractAiming at the adverse selection problem in the BI insurance market under asymmetric information, this paper designs a hybrid BI insurance contract with interruption compensation, reward, and penalty based on the principal‐agent theory. It is found that regardless of the existence of two or more risk types in the BI insurance market, the hybrid BI insurance contract will be a strict Pareto improvement of the traditional partial insurance contract that is replicated twice. Meanwhile, we validate and extend the above conclusions through an arithmetic example, which provides more comprehensive theoretical support for insurance companies to design new BI insurance.

Bad governance in Australia and how to mitigate it

AbstractWe argue that new public management (NPM) and other processes have led to adverse selection and agency rent problems within the political elite in Australia. The politicisation of the public service and the rise of careerist politicians have led to the de‐separation of what was once two distinct career paths within the political elite. This has changed the decision premise of the advisory system for policy formation and implementation, leading to worse public policy, even policy disasters. We recommend that some of the principles of the Westminster form of government be updated and re‐instituted for political elites within the structures of the Australian government. We canvass four reforms: return to merit appointments and promotion for public servants; a return to tenure for senior public servants; an enhanced push for descriptive representation within the career public service; and a formal role for staffers with centralised appointments, inability to instruct public servants, and restrictions on political and policy roles once leaving public service. These are designed to end the distrust, perceived corruption, and poor governance in the Australian government.Points for practitioners Having separate career paths for non‐elected policy elites and elected elites is vital for information transmission and good governance. Each should operate with separate decision premises and work together in creative tension. NPM practices have weakened the separate career paths of public servants and politicians, leading to adverse selection and agency rent for both. The Westminster system has a logic that has been diluted or weakened within the Australian government, leading to poorer policy and policy disasters. The paper presents four areas for reform.

Frailty-based mortality models and reserving for longevity risk

For the life insurance industry and pension schemes, mortality projections are critical for accurately managing exposure to longevity risk in terms of both premium setting and reserving. Frailty has been identified as an important latent factor underpinning the evolution of mortality rates. It represents the comorbidities that drive the deterioration of the human body’s physiological capacity. In this paper, we propose a stochastic mortality model that incorporates the trend in frailty, and we analyse the gap between the actuarial evaluations of premiums and technical provisions calculated under frailty-based and traditional stochastic mortality models. We observe that the frailty-based model leads to higher levels of uncertainty in estimates and projections (compared to a traditional stochastic mortality model), which is attributed to the explicit modelling of the comorbidities. This leads to proposing a potentially important policy-oriented recommendation: the incorporation of frailty in mortality modelling would allow for the profiling of mortality according to the portfolio in force for the insurer (or pension scheme), thereby mitigating the problem of adverse selection.

IMPACT OF CLAIMS SETTLEMENT ON PROFITABILITY OF GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANIES IN NIGERIA: A STUDY OF SELECTED LISTED GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANIES

This study investigates the impact of claims settlement practices on the profitability of general insurance companies in Nigeria. The study employed an ex post facto research design with the use of twenty (20) years’ financial data from 2003 to 2022 from published annual financial reports of five (5) sampled listed non-life insurance companies carrying on insurance business in Nigeria. Hypothesizing the dependent and independent variables with the proxies ROA; and LR, ER; CR. Panel data methods were used with other supporting tests using E-views (version 10) data analysis tool. With a balanced data of 100 observation - five cross-sectional data of 20 years period, the results revealed a negative relationship between the proxies (ER, LR and CR) of the independent variable – Claims settlement practices, as they could only explain to a negligible extent, the changes that occurs in the dependent variable. Premised on the findings, it is recommended that general insurance firms settle genuine claims as prompt as possible while the maintain required underwriting standard to avoid problem of adverse selection engendering possibility of ruin.

Social connections and innovation in diversified conglomerates

AbstractWe study the effect of social connections between divisional managers and CEO on the scale and success of innovation activities in US diversified conglomerates. Divisional managers who previously worked or studied with the CEO file a greater number of patents during their tenure at the segment. These patents receive more citations in the future and represent a greater scientific and economic value. To provide causal support for our findings, we exploit plausibly exogenous variation in connections caused by CEO nonperformance‐related retirements. The difference‐in‐differences estimation shows that after the CEO leaves the office, connected segments experience a drop in the quantity and quality of innovation activities. The effect of connections to the CEO on innovation outcomes is stronger in firms with high internal information asymmetry. These findings can imply that social connections help to mitigate adverse selection problems associated with risky R&D investments.

Two-sided asymmetric information and convertible securities in venture financing

This paper presents a new explanation for the prevalence of convertible securities in venture capital finance. Modeling two-sided asymmetric information between an entrepreneur and a venture capitalist, we demonstrate that convertible securities can result in the optimal contract. Our theoretical findings also provide some testable predictions. Specifically, the optimal conversion ratio rises when the information asymmetry problem worsens. We also reveal that the conversion ratio becomes smaller during economic booms since the adverse selection problem is less relevant.

Evaluation and screening of technology start-ups based on PCA and GA-BPNN.

Due to the existence of information opacity, there is a common problem of adverse selection in the process of screening alternative technology start-ups (TSs) and determining investment targets by venture capital institutions, which does not reveal the true value of enterprises and makes the market inefficient. The aim of this paper is to design an evaluation and screening system help venture capital institutions to select the qualified TSs as their investment objective. A research framework of four dimensions that include conception, technical innovation, business model and team structure, was built based on previous studies. Based on the research framework, 15 second-level indicators and 33 third-level indicators were extracted with literature research method. This paper proposes an evaluation model with back propagation neural network (BPNN) optimized by genetic algorithm (GA) to improve the rate of selecting and investing in qualified start-ups. The results show that the evaluation accuracy of the evaluation model for qualified and unqualified enterprises can reach 80.33% and 93.67% respectively, which has verified the effectiveness of the model and algorithm. This paper established an effective evaluation system based on PCA and GA-BPNN to help venture capital institutions preliminarily screen potential technology start-ups, which provides the possibility for venture capital institutions to greatly reduce the screening time and cost, improve the screening efficiency of TSs, and scientifically assess the risk of investee projects or investee enterprises to obtain sustainable and stable excess profits.

Excess cash and equity option liquidity

AbstractWe examine the relation between excess corporate cash holdings and equity option market liquidity from January 3, 2005 to December 31, 2019. We show that the level of cash reserve in excess of what can be captured by firm characteristics significantly explains stock option liquidity. Trading volume and option open interest increase in companies with a higher magnitude of excess cash, whereas the bid–ask spreads of stock options decline in excess cash. Our findings confirm the theoretical prediction that excess cash improves option market liquidity as it reduces adverse selection problems caused by uncertainty in firm valuations. This relation remains more pronounced with put options, out‐of‐the‐money contracts, and short‐maturity contracts. In addition, excess cash has a stronger impact on option liquidity within firms that have a greater degree of informed trading and during high‐volatility periods in financial markets. Our results show that when uncertainty about firm prospects rises, excess cash becomes more valuable and affects option market liquidity.

Endogenous bank regulation and supervision: Long term implications

The role of bank regulation and supervision (RS) on financial stability and welfare has been subject to ongoing research, especially since the Great Recession. RS is expected to help eliminate the adverse selection and moral hazard problems that are abundant in financial transactions. In this paper, we present a general equilibrium model that is augmented by either a bank regulatory and supervisory agent who chooses the level of RS by maximizing bank profits, or by a macroprudential agent who minimizes non-performing loans (NPL). We compare the long-term outcomes of these scenarios and show that minimizing NPL is feasible for a larger and economically more viable range of parameter values than the alternatives. Moreover, for a comparable set of parameter combinations, the optimal choice of RS that minimizes NPL leads to both higher levels of steady state income and lower interest spreads as compared to RS that maximizes bank profits.

The CBA Operating Model and Its Flaws

The operation of the CBA league determines the development of the CBA league, and is also the focus of external attention. This paper takes the operation of the CBA league as the theoretical base, and summarises the current operation of the CBA through literature analysis and SWOT analysis. The aim is to grasp the current operation mode of the CBA, describe and sort out its advantages, disadvantages, opportunities and threats, and put forward countermeasures for the development of CBA operation by combining expert opinions and logical analysis, so as to ultimately optimise the operation mode of the CBA, make the CBA more professional, help the league and the clubs to develop better, and make the CBA a more valuable brand event. The main findings of the study are as follows; the CBA league operation model is plagued by three major dilemmas: the property rights problem, the principal-agent problem and the adverse selection problem. The legacy of the original system, the gradual reform process, the use of international models, the immaturity of the domestic model and the lack of effective demand (supply) are the causes of the dilemma and create real obstacles such as the operational governance dilemma and the lack of professional sportsmanship.

The lemon market of insolvency proceedings in Spain in the new normal: Information, asymmetry, and adverse selection problems

The lemon market of insolvency proceedings in Spain in the new normal: Information, asymmetry, and adverse selection problems

Analisis Perilaku Moral Hazard dan Adverse Selection pada Agency Problem di Pembiayaan Musyarakah PT. Bank Sumut KCPSY Binjai

This study aims to determine the form of behavior and how to handle agency problems caused by moral hazard behavior and adverse selection in musyarakah financing at PT. Bank Sumut KCPSY Binjai. The agency problem is the agency problem in the musyarakah product scheme. This type of research is field research with qualitative methods. Sources of data in this study include two categories, namely primary data and secondary data. The subjects in this study were employees of PT. Bank Sumut KCPSY Binjai in the management section that is competent in the field of musyarakah financing. The research results show that the form of moral hazard and adverse selection behavior at PT. Bank Sumut KCPSY Binjai namely the difficulty of banks assessing the true character of customers, errors in analysis, ethical deviations and lack of supervision (monitoring) carried out by banks. PT. Bank Sumut KCPSY Binjai Office made various efforts from screening, verification to monitoring. Furthermore, if the problem of moral hazard and adverse selection has occurred, the bank will handle it in two ways, namely saving financing in the form of first rescheduling, reconditioning, restructuring and solving problem financing by means of billing. lawsuits, execution of mortgage auctions, and WO

Macroprudential Policy, Mortgage Cycles, and Distributional Effects: Evidence from the United Kingdom

Abstract We analyze the distributional effects of macroprudential policy on mortgage cycles by exploiting the U.K. mortgage register and a 2014 15% limit imposed on lenders’ high loan-to-income (LTI) mortgages. Constrained lenders issue fewer and more expensive high-LTI mortgages, with stronger effects on low-income borrowers. Unconstrained lenders strongly substitute high-LTI loans in local areas with higher constrained lender presence, but not high-LTI loans to low-income borrowers—consistent with adverse selection problems—implying lower overall credit to low-income borrowers. Consistently, policy-affected areas experience lower house price growth postregulation and, following the Brexit referendum (negative aggregate shock), better house price growth and lower mortgage defaults for low-income borrowers.

The Role of Accounting Quality During Mutual Fund Fire Sales

We study the ex ante role of accounting quality in mitigating the undervaluation generated by mutual fund fire sales. Asymmetric information between distressed mutual funds and the potential buyers of the securities being fire sold leads to an adverse selection problem resulting in an equilibrium in which buyers trade only at prices below the intrinsic value. Sellers accept these lower prices only because they have severe liquidity needs. To the extent that accounting quality helps market participants better estimate the intrinsic value of the securities being fire sold, we expect the adverse selection problem to be less severe for firms with better accounting quality. Consistently, we find that high accounting quality is associated with smaller fire-sale discounts. This result is explained by two complementary mechanisms. Analysts are more likely to provide price-correcting recommendations, and arbitrageurs trade more heavily on high-accounting-quality firms during mutual fund fire sales. Overall, our results show that accounting quality mitigates stock undervaluation caused by nonfundamental factors.

Wealth Inequality and the Exploration of Novel Technologies

Abstract I investigate whether wealth inequality hinders the discovery of novel technologies in a competitive screening model. Agents can engage in exploration, which may lead to the discovery of superior technologies, but it is likely to waste time with inferior ones. Talented agents are better at weeding out inferior technologies, but talent is unobservable by lenders. When agents are poor, this causes an adverse selection problem whereby exploration is pursued by untalented agents rather than by talented ones. As economies become wealthier, the misallocation problem of talented agents weakens. Higher inequality worsens this misallocation problem when the economy is wealthy, but can increase efficiency in poor economies.

Optimal contracts with moral hazard and adverse selection in a live streaming commerce market

Live streaming commerce, as a new online selling channel, is increasingly gaining popularity and creating a vast market worth. Many brand suppliers are entrusting streamers to recommend their products via this channel. However, the cooperation between brand suppliers and streamers may not always achieve a win-win situation due to moral hazard and adverse selection problems, which has largely been ignored in previous studies. To address this gap, we develop two game models based on the Principal-agent theory to design incentive contracts under the streamer's influence and recommendation effort information asymmetry and investigate the price discount decisions in a live streaming commerce supply chain. The findings revealed that the equilibrium contracts depend on the prior beliefs that the brand suppliers hold on the streamers' influence. The information rent held by the high-influence streamers is unavoidable because of the information gap between the brand suppliers and streamers. Under double information asymmetry, brand suppliers maintain the unit commission and price discount for high-influence streamers unchanged while decreasing the unit commission and increasing the price discount for low-influence streamers. An important implication for brand suppliers is that they can obtain more benefits by cooperating with high-influence streamers who require low-price discounts.