The Demand for Life Insurance in OECD Countries

This article examines the determinants of life insurance consumption in OECD countries. Consistent with previous results, we find a significant positive income elasticity of life insurance demand. Demand also increases with the number of dependents and level of education, and decreases with life expectancy and social security expenditure. The country's level of financial development and its insurance market's degree of competition appear to stimulate life insurance sales, whereas high inflation and real interest rates tend to decrease consumption. Overall, life insurance demand is better explained when the product market and socioeconomic factors are jointly considered. In addition, the use of GMM estimates helps reconcile our findings with previous puzzling results based on inconsistent OLS estimates given heteroscedasticity problems in the data.     

Risk perception and risk management in the Middle East market: theory and practice of multinational enterprises in Saudi Arabia

This exploratory study investigates the risk perception and risk management strategies of Western multinational enterprises in the Middle East. A sample of 49 German companies operating in Saudi Arabia provides the empirical setting for this research. The study reveals that cultural risk is assessed as more important in the business environment than political, financial, and economic risk. The most critical risk factors are not sufficiently included in the methodology of country risk measures, which are often used as a source for country‐specific risk information. In terms of risk management strategies, participating firms use mostly informal approaches rather than structured hedging or insurance products. Furthermore, we find that firm size has implications on the perception of some risk factors and for the level of risk management sophistication.     

金融市场参与、风险异质性与家庭幸福

本文研究了金融市场参与对家庭幸福的影响。理论分析显示,金融市场参与通过风险和收益对家庭幸福产生影响。本文运用2015年中国家庭金融调查数据,实证研究了金融市场参与对家庭幸福的影响。为克服内生性,本文选取工具变量,运用极大似然估计发现,家庭参与金融市场会显著提高家庭幸福的可能性。从投资风险的角度进一步研究发现,金融投资的风险异质性对家庭幸福有显著影响:家庭参与低风险金融投资会显著提高家庭幸福,参与高风险金融投资会显著降低家庭幸福。从民间借贷参与中,本文发现家庭参与民间借出款会显著提高家庭幸福的可能性。民间借贷投资风险对家庭幸福的异质性影响也是存在的,高风险借出款对家庭幸福有显著的负向影响。本文为理解家庭金融投资行为与幸福的关系提供了新的证据,可为构建和谐社会提供有益参考。     

Does Insurance Market Activity Promote Economic Growth? A Cross‐Country Study for Industrialized and Developing Countries

Insurance market activity may contribute to economic growth, both as financial intermediary and provider of risk transfer and indemnification, by allowing different risks to be managed more efficiently and by mobilizing domestic savings. During the last decade, there has been faster growth in insurance market activity, particularly in emerging markets, given the process of financial liberalization and integration, which raises questions about the overall impact on economic growth. This article tests whether there is a causal relationship between insurance market activity (life and nonlife insurance) and economic growth. Using the generalized method of moments (GMM) for dynamic models of panel data for 55 countries between 1976 and 2004, I find robust evidence for this relationship. Both life and nonlife insurance have a positive and significant causal effect on economic growth. For life insurance, high‐income countries drive the results, and for nonlife insurance, both high‐income and developing countries drive the results.     

What are the risks when investing in thin emerging equity markets: Evidence from the Arab world

This study attempts to identify the risks involved when investing in five emerging Arab capital markets. We first find that a constant beta is not a good proxy for risk in these thinly traded emerging markets. However, firms’ fundamentals and country risk rating factors prove significant in explaining the cross-sections of stock returns. The paper provides three important contributions to the literature on asset pricing in emerging capital markets: (i) we show how country risk ratings can be aggregated into a country risk factor; (ii) we add to a growing literature suggesting that, in markets other than the US, it is possible to find large and growth stocks to be riskier than small and value stocks; (iii) we determine that despite economic, financial and political reforms, issues related to financial transparency and political instability are still powerful obstacles to investments in these nascent emerging markets.     

The Effects of Urbanization on Insurance Consumption—The experience of China

Cross‐country studies of insurance find little support for a hypothesized urbanization–insurance consumption link. Unlike the literature, we argue and find that the relationship is positive. Our study refines the literature relating economic development and financial service activities. The empirical evidence in the existing literature is based on cross‐country samples that are criticized as unrepresentative because they are disproportionately composed of highly developed economies and consequently have limited range in the variables considered; this limits confidence in the resulting evidence. The current study overcomes these empirical difficulties by focusing on one large country with a unique recent development pattern. Like the existing studies, we find a positive insurance–economic development link. In contrast to cross‐country studies, we find that insurance consumption is influenced by urbanization and that the country's World Trade Organization entry had a differential impact on its insurance markets.     

经济政策不确定性、地区文化与保险需求

本文在拓展背景风险理论研究的基础上,揭示了经济政策不确定性对保险需求的影响及其受地区文化制约的理论机制。并利用2007-2017年中国30个地区的月度面板数据,检验了经济政策不确定性、地区文化与保险需求间的内在联系。结果发现:第一,经济政策不确定性会对保险需求产生显著正影响,且这种效应在地区人身险需求上表现更明显;第二,将地区文化指标集纳入经济政策不确定性与保险需求关系的研究框架,发现地区文化差异会对经济政策不确定性影响保险需求产生调节效应。因此政府需在充分重视经济政策波动和文化对经济活动的双重影响基础上,加强国内社会保障体系建设,建立更透明的信息传递渠道,培育人们主动抵抗风险的意识和文化习惯,调整保险供给结构,以减少不确定性对社会经济行为的负面冲击。     

Crisis risk and risk management

We assess the state of knowledge about crisis risk and its implications for risk management. Data that became available after the global financial crisis show that some types of crises are predictable when accounting for interactions between risks. However, other types of crises do not seem predictable. There is no evidence that the frequency of economic and financial crises is increasing. While data show that an economic crisis is more likely following a political crisis, there is no comparable evidence for climate events. Strategies that increase firm operational and financial flexibility reduce the adverse impact of crises on firms.     

On the exposure of insurance companies to sovereign risk—Portfolio investments and market forces

A sovereign debt crisis can have significant knock-on effects in the financial markets and put financial stability at risk. This paper focuses on the transmission of sovereign risk to insurance companies as some of the largest institutional investors in the sovereign bond market. We use a firm level panel dataset that covers large insurance companies, banks and non-financial firms from nine countries over the time period from 1 January 2008–1 May 2013. We find significant and robust transmission effects from sovereign risk to domestic insurers. The impact on insurers is not significantly different from that on banks but larger than for non-financial firms. We find that systemically important insurers are more closely linked to the domestic sovereign. Based on European data, we show that risks in sovereign bond portfolios are an important driver of insurer risk, which is not reflected in current insurance regulation (incl. Solvency II in Europe).     

Household Life Cycle Protection: Life Insurance Holdings, Financial Vulnerability, and Portfolio Implications

Using the Survey of Consumer Finances, we examine the life cycle demand for different types of life insurance. Specifically, we test for the consumer's aversion to income volatility resulting from the death of a household's wage‐earner through the purchase of life insurance. We first develop a financial vulnerability index to control for the risk to the household. We then examine the life cycle demand for life insurance using several definitions of life insurance. We find, in contrast to previous research, that there is a relationship between financial vulnerability and the amount of term life or total life insurance purchased. In addition, we find older consumers use less life insurance to protect a certain level of financial vulnerability than younger consumers. Secondly, our study provides evidence that life insurance demand is jointly determined as part of a household's portfolio. Finally, we consider the impact of family members' nonmonetary contribution on the household's life cycle protection decision. Our results provide some evidence that households take into account the value of nonmonetary contribution in their insurance purchase.     

Unemployment insurance benefits and income smoothing

Labor unemployment insurance reduces unemployment concerns. We argue that these benefits moderate incentives to smooth earnings to reduce employees’ concerns about unemployment risk. Using exogenous variations in unemployment insurance benefits, we find evidence consistent with this argument. We also find that the link between unemployment insurance benefits and income smoothing is stronger when there is higher unemployment risk and when the firm is likely to employ more low-wage workers, who find unemployment insurance benefits especially useful. Our paper contributes to the literature by showing that public policy decisions such as unemployment insurance have significant, albeit probably unintended, externalities on corporate financial reporting.     

Labor Income Risk and Car Insurance in the UK

Microeconomic theory shows that only under certain conditions higher background risk increases the propensity to insure against independent marketable risks. We provide empirical evidence for the case of labor income risk and car insurance in the UK. The main result is that households with higher labor income risk spend more on insurance. This finding is consistent with microeconomic theory if the utility function is of the HARA type. Moreover, we find that households spend more on insurance if they participate in the stock market.     

气候风险对中国农业经济发展的影响——异质性及机制分析

科学评估气候风险的经济影响是管理气候风险的第一步。本文利用气象站数据和各地区农业经济数据,实证分析了气候风险对我国农业经济发展的影响,并重点分析了该影响的异质性和相关机制。结果显示,气候风险较高地区的农业经济发展要显著慢于其它地区,且该结果在多种模型设定下以及不同衡量变量下都保持一致。异质性分析表明,气候风险对同一地理区域内人均收入水平较低地区的影响更加显著;对农业保险保障水平较高或农业现代化水平较高地区的影响则较小,说明农业保险的发展和农业现代化水平的提高可以降低气候风险对农业经济的负面影响。机制分析表明,从农业投入和产出关系来看,气候风险直接作用于农业经济产出,而非通过影响投入再作用于产出;从气候风险和自然灾害关系来看,气候风险会通过增加自然灾害严重程度对农业经济发展产生不利影响,同时也会直接对农业经济造成负面影响。本文研究为管理气候风险、促进现代农业经济发展和保障粮食供给安全提供了有益启示。     

Insurance demand in the presence of loss-dependent background risk

We analyze insurance demand when insurable losses come with an uninsurable zero-mean background risk that increases in the loss size. If the individual is risk vulnerable, loss-dependent background risk triggers a precautionary insurance motive and increases optimal insurance demand. Prudence alone is sufficient for insurance demand to increase in two cases: the case of fair insurance and the case where the smallest possible loss exceeds a certain threshold value (referred to as the large loss case). We derive conditions under which insurance demand increases or decreases in initial wealth. In the large loss case, prudence determines whether changes in the background risk lead to more insurance demand. We generalize this result to arbitrary loss distributions and find conditions based on decreasing third-degree Ross risk aversion, Arrow–Pratt risk aversion, and Arrow–Pratt temperance.     

气候变化风险对金融体系的作用机理及对策研究

气候变化及其带来的自然灾害风险已成为影响经济发展和金融安全稳定的重要因素。近年来,气候变化对实体经济的影响及导致的金融风险已成为世界主要国家金融监管部门关注的重点之一。本文在对气候变化与经济增长、气候变化与金融风险及其相关领域研究综述的基础上,分析了气候变化对实体经济的影响机理,并重点围绕气候变化对银行、保险等金融体系风险作用机理进行深入分析,提出做好应对气候变化导致金融风险的防控措施及建议。     

VaR模型及其在寿险公司风险管理中的应用

随着保险产品的创新、竞争的加剧及金融市场的发展,我国寿险公司面临的风险将更为复杂和多样,如何对这些风险进行有效管理是寿险公司面临的重要难题,而VaR模型作为当前国际金融风险管理和金融监管的主流方法,含有丰富的风险管理思想,故对VaR模型进行研究并探讨其在我国寿险公司风险管理中的应用具有一定的现实意义。本文分析了寿险公司应用VaR模型时需注意的问题,并指出我国寿险公司建立基于VaR的风险管理体系需在公司治理结构、风险管理组织架构、风险管理技术、风险数据库等方面加以完善。     

Don't They Care? Or,Are They Just Unaware? Risk Perception and the Demand for Long‐Term Care Insurance

The potential need for long‐term care (LTC) is one of the greatest financial risks faced not only by the elderly but also by their adult children, who often provide care or financial assistance. We investigate adult children's role in the demand for LTC insurance. Similar to flood insurance, we find that demand for LTC insurance is low due to low risk perception. The more aware adult children are of the risk, the more likely LTC insurance is to be purchased, either by the children themselves on behalf of their parents or by the parents under the influence of their children.     

保险企业价值创造——基于风险管理的视角

作为经营风险的特殊组织,保险企业的风险管理在其经营管理中具有重要的地位和作用。随着全球经济金融环境的快速变化,如今保险企业的风险管理已不仅局限于业务风险、金融风险或公司治理风险的某一方面,而是逐渐成为保险企业为实现价值创造这一经营目标的必要手段之一。因此本文通过对保险企业价值和风险管理的角色和作用的分析,提出了保险企业通过实施风险管理实现价值创造的思路、原则、组织框架和实施路径。     

互联网保险公司财务风险研究

互联网保险特殊经营模式使保险公司呈现固定资产占比较小、资产负债率较低、保险产品"场景化、碎片化"、渠道成本低廉等财务特征,也使保险公司面临更为错综复杂的财务风险,如对股东的权益性资金依赖性较强、定价风险加大、盈利空间不定以及骗赔套保和洗钱风险等.鉴此,应拓宽筹资渠道,优化保险产品定价,提高保费收入持续增长能力,降低运营和合作成本,构建第三方保单认证和风险评估体系,加强资金规范化管理,强化外部监管等.     

Financial liberalization,insurance market,and the likelihood of financial crises

This paper provides empirical evidence to investigate the direct impact of financial liberalization on the likelihood of currency/systemic banking crises, and examines the roles of insurance market, country risk, and economic conditional variables on the relationship between financial liberalization and financial crises in 39 countries. Our empirical results support that financial liberalization does have a significantly negative impact on the likelihood of currency/systemic banking crises, and that the indirect effects of insurance development and lower country risk decrease the probability of crises, but the indirect effect of economic conditional proxies is enhanced with the likelihood of a financial crisis. The policy implication is that the government or authority should strengthen the positive role of the insurance sector in order to combat financial crises.