The purpose of this paper is to compare the cost efficiency of private and public property insurance providers in … measurement errors and apply the model to a data set on 19 firms in housing insurance markets in Switzerland. We show that the … public insurance providers are about 20 per cent more cost efficient than their private counterparts. …

Whole life insurance plays an important role in household saving. However, empirical evidence on its determinants is … scarce. This paper studies two natural experiments to identify the effects of tax incentives and bequest motives on life-insurance … the demand for life insurance reacted strongly to this change. With regard to bequest motives, we analyze the demand for …

We examine how long-term life insurance contracts can be designed to incorporate uncertain future bequest needs. An … individual who buys a life insurance contract early in life is often uncertain about the future financial needs of his or her …. We derive two equivalent long-term life insurance contracts that are incentive compatible and achieve a higher welfare …

predict the development of bank profitability due to demographic shifts up to 2025. One of the main findings is that the …, populations are shrinking and ageing at the same time. This paper explores the impact of demographic change on the banking …, allows us estimating the socio-demographic determinants of retail profitability. Using a simulation model, we are able to …

. Softer budgets reduce cost efficiency, while the effect on quality is ambiguous. For given cost efficiency, softer budgets …

This study considers the efficiency of banking in Australia during the post-deregulation period 1988-2001. Since 1986 … banks have used size as a barrier to entry to the new entrants in the post-deregulation period. Furthermore, bank efficiency … restrictions upon foreign bank entry and foreign ownership have been affectively abolished. Using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA …

workers forgo profits by submitting to their tastes. In a competitive market their firms lack efficiency and are therefore …

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency of the East German economy at the firm level using an … efficiency in eastern and western Germany. The results indicate that firms in eastern Germany are significantly less efficient …-level efficiency. …

This paper analyses technical efficiency of European banks over the period 1996-2003 with unbalanced panel data … banking policy can be effective for all the banks included in the sample, and that banking policies by segments are required …