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 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...

Using data on the annual resources of state insurance departments we investigate several issues regarding the state production of insurance regulation. First, we demonstrate that the majority of insurance transactions are conducted across state lines suggesting there are potential trans-state...

We use two reserve error definitions found in the literature to investigate the joint impact of previously studied incentives on the magnitude of reserve error. We find many prior conclusions are dependent upon the restricted setting in which the hypotheses are tested and on the definition of...

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...

IFRS 17 requires a significant change to insurer accounting, and we look at some of the frictions resulting from its implementation. We make three points. First, since IFRS 17 is a principles-based standard, it will be costly to implement. Audit committees must become sophisticated users of the...

This paper investigates whether elections delay regulatory action against failing financial institutions by exploiting the cross-sectional and time-series heterogeneity in the exogenous electoral cycles of U.S. insurance regulators and governors. We find causal evidence that regulators delay...

Homeowners insurance must be priced in accordance with the insured risk and associated costs. Any legitimate insurance arrangement, public or private, must manage its exposure so that it can satisfy its claims obligations if a disaster occurs. Following the devastating hurricane season that...