Purpose: This paper aims to study differences in risk behavior between holding companies that undertake both banking activity and insurance underwriting (labeled financial holding companies or FHCs) and stand-alone bank holding companies (BHCs). Design/methodology/approach: The paper examines...

We investigate how investor protection, government quality, and contract enforcement affect risk-taking and performance of insurance companies from around the world. We find that better investor protection results in less risk-taking, as do higher quality government and greater contract...