In a two-stage model insurance companies first decide upon risk classification and then compete in prices. I show that the observed heterogeneous behavior of similar firms is compatible with rational behavior. On the deregulated German insurance market individual application of classification...

Empirical research in organizational ecology has mainly focused on analyzing founding and mortality rates using life history data of the organizations. We try to extend this approach in our study in a number of ways. In contrast to most empirical studies in organizational ecology, we chose a...