This paper analyzes the efficiency of stock and mutual organizational forms in the property-liability insurance industry using nonparametric frontier efficiency methods. We test the managerial discretion hypothesis, which predicts that the market will sort organizational forms into market...

We provide evidence on the validity of the conglomeration hypothesis versus the strategic focus hypothesis for financial institutions using data on U.S. insurance companies. We distinguish between the hypotheses using profit scope economies, which measures the relative efficiency of joint versus...

This paper investigates economies of scope in the US insurance industry over the period 1993-2006. We test the conglomeration hypothesis, which holds that firms can optimize by diversifying across businesses, versus the strategic focus hypothesis, which holds that firms optimize by focusing on...

This article introduces a new approach, cross-frontier analysis, for estimating the relative efficiency of alternative organizational forms in an industry. The technique is illustrated by analyzing a sample of stock and mutual property-liability insurers using nonparametric frontier efficiency...