We use a unique dataset of product warranty offerings by firms to investigate the effect of a firm's warranty reserve levels on its capital structure decisions. Our sample consists of firms that (i) offer explicit warranties, (ii) likely offer implicit product warranties, and (iii) are in...

Prior literature provides support both for the existence of target capital structures and internal capital markets (ICM). The issue of whether firms use internal capital to reduce deviations from target capital structures, however, has yet to be examined. We provide the first empirical evidence...

Many institutional investors depend on the returns they generate to fund their operations and liabilities. How do these investors' financial conditions affect the management of their portfolios? We address this issue using the insurance industry because insurers are large investors for which...

We study the role of insurance companies in propagating liquidity shocks to the real economy. We use natural disasters as our instrument to identify exogenous shifts in capital market liquidity, and study whether capital market liquidity affects regional-level fiscal conditions and drives GDP...

The drivers of financial success of the insurance industry are of interest to several players in any economy including the government; policymakers; policyholders; and investors. In Kenya; there have been relatively few studies on this topic; most of which look at narrow elements that determine...

This study investigates scope economies, organizational form, and insolvency risk for a sample of takaful firms in 19 countries. Firm efficiency is estimated using data envelopment analysis, performance is also gauged using return on equity and return on assets, and insolvency risk is measured...

For insurance firms, underwriting and investment strategies are defined as the dollar weights allocated to underwriting activities (direct premium, net reinsurance, etc.) and the investment of assets respectively. Using a sample of 83 Canadian property-liability insurance companies for 1996 to...

We estimate a probit model of insolvency risk, using a dataset of about 400 Dutch insurance companies during the period 1995-2005. The results suggest that surplus capital, company size, profitability, long-tailed business and being a mutual insurer reduce the risk of insolvency. The model can...

This paper studies the survival outcomes experienced over a 14-year period by a comprehensive sample of group-affiliated U.S. property-casualty insurance companies from 1994. While it is generally assumed that affiliate support enhances the financial strength of a subsidiary within a group, this...

In this paper we discuss the importance of liquidity risk when evaluating the risk of portfolios of financial assets that insurance companies hold. Until very recently and within the scope of Solvency II, liquidity risk was only considered under Pillar II, i.e. the proposal was that insurance...