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Over the past few decades, matching models, which use mathematical frameworks to analyze allocation mechanisms for heterogeneous products and individuals, have attracted renewed attention in both theoretical and applied economics. These models have been used in many contexts, from labor markets to organ donations, but recent work has tended to focus on "nontransferable" cases rather than matching models with transfers. In this important book, Pierre-André Chiappori fills a gap in the literature by presenting a clear and elegant overview of matching with transfers and provides a set of tools that enable the analysis of matching patterns in equilibrium, as well as a series of extensions. He then applies these tools to the field of family economics and shows how analysis of matching patterns and of the incentives thus generated can contribute to our understanding of long-term economic trends, including inequality and the demand for higher education.--

Stable matchings may fail to exist in the roommate matching problem, both when utility is transferable and when it is not. We show that when utility is transferable, the existence of a stable matching is restored when there is an even number of individuals of indistinguishable characteristics and tastes (types). As a consequence, when the number of individuals of any given type is large enough there always exist "quasi-stable" matchings: a stable matching can be restored with minimal policy intervention. Our results build on an analogy with an associated bipartite problem; it follows that the tools crafted in empirical studies of the marriage problem can easily be adapted to the roommate problem.

Résumé Si les modèles d'appariement sont utilisés en économie depuis plus d'un demi-siècle, ils suscitent depuis quelques années un renouveau d'intérêt. Cet article se propose tout d'abord de présenter quelques-uns de ces développements récents, en restreignant notre attention aux modèles à utilité transférable. En second lieu, nous montrons que la principale limitation de ces modèles – l'indépendance entre la décision collective et les rapports de force internes aux groupes considérés – peut être dépassée par une généralisation du modèle. Nous présentons une telle généralisation et discutons ses propriétés.

CESifo Seminar Series "Competitive Failures in Insurance Markets Theory and Policy Implications" edited by Pierre-André Chiappori and Christian Gollier Risk sharing is a cornerstone of modern economies. It is valuable to risk-averse consumers and essential for investment and entrepreneurs. The standard economic model of risk exchange predicts that competition in insurance markets will result in all individual risks being insured--that all diversifiable risks in the economy will be covered through mutual risk-sharing arrangements--but in practice this is not the case. Many diversifiable risks are still borne by individuals; many environmental, catastrophic, and technological risks are not covered by insurance contracts. In this CESifo volume, leading international economists provide new insights on recent developments in the economic analysis of the limits of insurability. They find that asymmetric information is a central reason why competition in insurance markets may fail to guarantee that mutually advantageous risk exchanges are realized in today's economies. In particular, adverse selection and moral hazard help explain why competitive insurance markets fail to provide an efficient level of insurance and hence why public intervention is required to solve the problem. The contributors offer theoretical models of insurance markets involving adverse selection as well as empirical analyses of health insurance and non-health insurance markets in countries including Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.