[...]The final force of change is the continual evolution of thedelivery channels through which financial services are offered.This has occurred in many ways and in several stages. First, theuse of postal services substituted for physical market presence;this was followed by increased use of...

The United States government enacted the Banking Act of 1933, commonly known as the Glass-Steagall Act, at least partially in an effort to calm fears stemming from bank failures during the Great Depression. While there has been a recent debate concerning the historic realism of characterizing...

We exploit the transparency of internal capital markets (ICMs) within insurance groups to investigate the activity and efficiency of ICMs within insurance groups. Specifically, we compare the relationship between internal capital transfers and investment to that between capital from other...

This article investigates incentives of insurance firm managers to manipulate loss reserves in order to maximize their compensation. We find that managers who receive bonuses that are likely capped or no bonuses tend to over-reserve for current-year incurred losses. However, managers who receive...

We examine the information value contained in insurer rating changes. Using a contemporary event study approach, we document an asymmetric reaction of stock prices to rating changes: downgrades cut share prices by approximately 7 percent but upgrades have little significant effect. This result...

Given the use of premium growth as a risk measure in regulatory and private risk assessment models, the impact of growth on underwriting profitability is an important question. Our results show a negative relationship between premium growth and changes in loss ratios, suggesting that premium...

This paper investigates the possibility that managers of insurance firms have an incentive to manipulate accounting results in order to maximize their total compensation. Insurance company executives are in a relatively unique position in that they may be able to manipulate their total...