We empirically examine two methods for measuring output in property-liability insurer efficiency studies: the value-added approach and the "flow" (or financial intermediation) approach. The approaches are not mutually consistent. The value-added approach is closely related to traditional...

The insurance industry is underdeveloped in most developing countries because of low levels of income and wealth and because restrictive regulations inhibit the supply of insurance services. But several countries have begun to reform their insurance industries. To help those countries, the...

In this paper we examine the insurance decision of a firm with private information regarding its cash flows and insurable losses. We show that, even in the absence of bankruptcy costs and information production by insurers, the firm's attempts to hedge its information risk can induce it to...

Using the Survey of Consumer Finances, we examine the life cycle demand for different types of life insurance. Specifically, we test for the consumer's aversion to income volatility resulting from the death of a household's wage-earner through the purchase of life insurance. We first develop a...

We estimate the demand for homeowners insurance in Florida and New York with indicated loss costs as our proxy for the quantity of real insurance services demanded. We decompose the demand into the demand for coverage of catastrophe perils and the demand for noncatastrophe coverage and estimate...

The Optional Federal Chartering (OFC) proposal introduced in the last session of Congress may have been the right bill for the introduction of federal regulation of the insurance industry at the turn of the 20th century. However, the current OFC proposal shows its 19th century roots as it merely...

<heading id="h1" level="1" implicit="yes" format="display">ABSTRACT</heading>This paper examines the effect of rate regulation on the management of the property-liability insurer loss reserve. The political cost hypothesis predicts that managers make accounting choices to reduce wealth transfers resulting from the regulatory process. Managers may under-state...

Nonprofit organizations are arguably the fastest growing and most dynamic part of modern market economies in democratic countries. This Handbook explores the frontiers of knowledge at the intersection of economics and the management of these entities. The authors review the role, structure and...