This paper examines whether managers impact firm performance when their firms are in distress. We conservatively define managerial ability as the manager's capacity to deploy the firm's resources. We verify the validity of our metric using a manager-firm matched panel data set which allows us to...

There is a conflict between the philosophies of United States (US) style capital regulation and that of the European Union (EU). While the conflict looks like it will not evolve into a real trade issue, there is a potential for misunderstanding of the pros and cons of the two systems. This paper...

This paper looks for evidence of adverse selection in the relationship between primary insurers and reinsurers. We test the implications of a model in which informational asymmetry – and therefore, its negative consequences – decline over time. Our tests involve a data panel consisting of...

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 reserves to...

This paper examines the impact of health insurance expansion on medical liability costs using the case of the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) Medicaid expansion. Medicaid expansion has increased the demand for medical services, but in doing so it may also have increased physicians' liability in...

States levy insurance premium taxes, which are essentially gross receipt taxes on premiums, with insurance companies paying the higher of the tax rate in the state in which the company is domiciled and the state in which the policy is written. Using a state-level panel data set from 1992-2004...

The U.S. insurance industry is primarily regulated by the states. This is in contrast to the regulatory structure for other financial intermediaries which have a federal regulator. Banks, for example, may choose to be regulated by either the federal government or by the states. Recent...

In this report we examine the likely effects of an Optional Federal Charter (OFC) regulatory system on competition in the life insurance and annuities industry and related markets. Increasingly, many US insurers advocate the creation of an OFC and the associated regulatory framework for several...

In this paper we test whether the past or future labor market choices of insurance commissioners provides incentives for regulators in states with price regulation to either favor or oppose the industry by allowing prices that differ significantly from what would otherwise be the competitive...