This paper examines the relationship between mergers and acquisitions, efficiency, and scale economies in the U.S. life insurance industry. We estimate cost and revenue efficiency for life insurers representing 80 percent of industry assets over the period 1988-1995 using data envelopment...

This study further substantiates the presence of insurance underwriting cycles and analyzes their causes. A generalized least squares analysis of changes in premium levels is used to test the rational expectations/institutional intervention hypothesis across countries as well as within each...

Property-liability insurance is distributed by independent agents, who represent several insurers, and exclusive agents, who represent only one insurer. The independent agency system is known to have higher costs than the exclusive agency system. The market imperfections hypothesis attributes...