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Critical of some suggestions on the issue raised in the report by the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce (the Dingell report). Argues that the report devotes little attention to the adverse effects of guarantee fund protection on consumers' and insurers' incentives for safety.

From the introduction: Economic and financial research on insurance markets has undergone dramatic growth since its infancy in the early 1960s. Our main objective in compiling this volume was to achieve a wider dissemination of key papers in this literature. Their significance is highlighted in the introduction, which surveys major areas in insurance economics. While it was not possible to provide comprehensive coverage of insurance economics in this book, these readings provide an essential foundation to those who desire to conduct research and teach in the field. In particular, we hope that this compilation and our introduction will be useful to graduate students and to researchers in economics, finance, and insurance. Our criteria for selecting articles included significance, representativeness, pedagogical value, and our desire to include theoretical and empirical work. While the focus of the applied papers is on property-liability insurance, they illustrate issues, concepts, and methods that are applicable in many areas of insurance. The S. S. Huebner Foundation for Insurance Education at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School made this book possible by financing publication costs. We are grateful for this assistance and to J. David Cummins, Executive Director of the Foundation, for his efforts and helpful advice on the contents. We also wish to thank all of the authors and editors who provided permission to reprint articles and our respective institutions for technical and financial support.

Health insurers participating in the new Marketplaces are filing rates for 2015 during the next few months. A few states have already released data on proposed rates. There is substantial economic, policy, and political interest in the magnitude of proposed rate changes. This brief provides background for understanding the economic drivers of proposed rates, state and federal rate review authority, the effects of rate changes on Marketplace enrollees and federal spending on premium credits, and the economic and political dynamics of the rate review and approval process.