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...

In this paper we investigate the extent to which insurance companies utilize financial derivatives contracts in the management of risks. The data set we employ allows us to observe the universe of individual insurer transactions for a class of contracts, namely, those normally thought of as...

This paper develops a financial pricing model to determine prices by line of business in a multiple line insurer subject to default risk. The model implies that it is not appropriate to allocate equity capital by line; rather, the price in a given line depends upon the overall default risk of the...

The insurance futures contracts introduced in December 1992 by the Chicago Board of Trade offer insurers an alternative to reinsurance as a hedging device for underwriting risk. These instruments have the usual features of liquidity, anonymity and low transactions costs that characterize futures...

This paper presents a comparative analysis of frontier cost efficiency methodologies by applying a wide range of econometric and mathematical programming techniques to a data set consisting of 445 life insurers over the period 1988-1992. The primary objective is to provide new information on the...

This paper examines whether global insurance mergers and acquisitions (M&As) create value for shareholders by conducting an event study of M&A transactions for the period 1990-2006. Insurance acquirers realized small positive cumulative average abnormal returns (CAARs), whereas targets realized...

This paper provides evidence of the role that financial market development and institutional quality play in the integration of European Union (EU) life insurance markets. It analyzes ten EU life insurance markets over a seventeen-year sample period. The meta-technology cost/revenue efficiency...

This article reviews the most pertinent literature on the sources and uses of equity capital in the US property-casualty (P-C) insurance industry. P-C insurers serve risk management and risk-bearing functions in the economy. Insurers create diversified risk pools consisting of large numbers of...

This study points out a potential unintended effect of efforts to enhanceaffordability of insurance prices by regulating rates: It may ultimately lead tohigher insurance costs. This is because rate regulation that suppresses insuranceprices below competitive levels, or provides significant...