This paper examines the relationship between mergers and acquisitions, efficiency, and scale economies in the U.S. life insurance industry. We estimate cost and revenue efficiency over the period 1988-1995 using data envelopment analysis (DEA). The Malmquist methodology is used to measure...

This paper analyzes the accuracy of the principal models used by U.S. insurance regulators to predict insolvencies in the property-liability insurance industry and compares these models with a relatively new solvency testing approach--cash flow simulation. Specifically, we compare the risk-based...

This paper provides new information on the effects of deregulation and consolidation in financial services markets by analyzing the Spanish insurance industry. The sample period 1989-98 spans the introduction of the European Union's (EU) Third Generation Insurance Directives, which deregulated...

Purchasing reinsurance reduces insurers’ insolvency risk by stabilizing loss experience, increasing capacity, limiting liability on specific risks, and/or protecting against catastrophes. Consequently, reinsurance purchase should reduce capital costs. However, transferring risk to reinsurers...

This paper analyzes the efficiency of stock and mutual organizational forms in the property-liability insurance industry using nonparametric frontier efficiency methods. We test the managerial discretion hypothesis, which predicts that the market will sort organizational forms into market...

We use data on U.S. insurance companies to examine the validity of the conglomeration hypothesis versus the strategic focus hypothesis for financial institutions. We distinguish between the hypotheses using profit scope economies, which measures the relative efficiency of joint versus...