INTEGRATION AND CONVERGENCE IN EFFICIENCY AND TECHNOLOGY GAP OF EUROPEAN LIFE INSURANCE MARKETS

This paper applies the meta-frontier Data Envelopment Analysis and the main concepts of convergence from the economic growth literature (β-convergence and σ-convergence) in the first study that analyzes integration and convergence both in efficiency and in technology gap of European Union (EU) insurance markets. We evaluate 10 EU life insurance markets over the period 1998-2014. Results show convergence in cost/revenue efficiency among major EU life insurance markets during the sample period. We also find convergence in cost/revenue technology gap among these markets. However, results indicate that the global financial crisis has led to a slowdown in the progress of integration and convergence in efficiency and technology gap of EU life insurance markets in terms of cost efficiency but not in terms of revenue efficiency