The political economy of international private insurance and fiscal policy

Abstract

We consider a two-country model in which international risk-sharing is beneficial. Even though complete contingent markets exist to trade private wealth, the fact that fiscal policy voting decisions have an impact on contingent wealth prices implies that government spending will be inflated in good states and deflated in bad ones, with the following general implications: (i) Prices of contingent wealth are distorted; (ii) Volatility of public spending increases; (iii) Incomplete insurance arises. An example shows that apart from the increase in the volatility of public spending, it is also possible that average spending increases in both countries. These distortions are shown to be stronger the more similar the two countries are in ex ante terms . We compare the decentralized system with a fiscal union contrasting eqUilibrium properties in terms of government spending and allocation of risk.