A stronger long-term orientation is considered a competitive advantage of family firms relative to non-family firms. In this study, we use panel data of U.S. firms and analyze this proposition. Our findings are surprising. Only in when the family is involved in the management of the firm is the...

Business groups in emerging markets perform better than unaffiliatedfirms. One explanation is that business groups substitute some functions ofmissing institutions, for example, enforcing contracts. We investigate thisby setting up a model where firms within the business group are connectedto...

In this paper, we first discuss the characteristics and major benefits of the Swissrisk-based capital standards for insurance companies (Swiss Solvency Test), introduced in 2006. As the insurance industry is one of the largest institutional investors in Switzerland, changes to its asset and...

The aim of this paper is to develop an alternative approach for assessing an insurer’s solvency as a proposal for a standard model for Solvency II. Instead ofderiving minimum capital requirements—as it is done in solvency regulation—our model provides company-specific minimum standards for...

The aim of this paper is to study the influence of nonlinear dependencies on a nonlifeinsurers risk and return profile. To achieve this, we integrate several copulamodels in a dynamic financial analysis (DFA) framework and conduct numericaltests within a simulation study. We also test several...

Dynamic financial analysis (DFA) has become an important tool in analyzing thefinancial situation of insurance companies. Constant development and documentationof DFA tools has occurred during the last years. However, several questionsconcerning the implementation of DFA systems have not been...

As early as the 1970s, European Union (EU) member countries implemented rulesto coordinate insurance markets and regulation. However, with the more recentmovement toward a general single EU market, financial services regulation hastaken on new meaning and priority. Solvency I regulations went...

In their 2001 Journal of Risk and Insurance article, Stewart C. Myers and James A.Read, Jr., propose to use a specific capital allocation method for pricing insurancecontracts. We show that in their model framework no capital allocation to lines ofbusiness is needed for pricing insurance...

When comparing investment in an immediate life annuity with a payout-equivalentinvestment fund decumulation plan (self-annuitization), previous research focusedon shortfall probabilities of self-annuitization. Chances of self-annuitization (i.e.,bequests) typically have not been addressed. We...

In this paper we investigate the interaction between a credit portfolio and another risktype, which can be thought of as market risk. Combining Merton-like factor models forcredit risk with linear factor models for market risk, we analytically calculate their interriskcorrelation and show how...