The role of life insurance in an emerging economy: Human capital protection,assets allocation and social interaction

In this paper, we provide micro-econometric evidence on the determinants of life insurance demand in China, the largest emerging market in the world. We employ the China Household Income Project (CHIP) dataset for the year 2002 in the analysis. The timing is ideal, because of the nature of the less well developed capital markets and social security systems in China in 2002, which sets a suitable stage to study the insurance demand behavior of emerging markets. The results indicate that both the human capital protection motive and the asset allocation motive are important in explaining the purchase of life insurance in China. In addition, we present three empirical regularities: (1) the positive correlation between the returns to human capital and the returns to market portfolio decrease the demand for life insurance; (2) both the current wealth and future income of a household exert curvilinear impacts on life insurance demand; (3) the breadth of a households social connections has substantial impacts on life insurance demand.     

"助推器"还是"稳定器":保险业对经济产出作用的经验证据

现存理论与已有实证结论就"我国保险业对经济产出发挥的作用及程度"问题尚未达成统一共识.本文运用1999年～2009年保险市场以及GDP的相关季度数据,使用向量误差修正模型(VECM)论证我国保险业对经济产出的现实作用.研究结果表明,近十年来,中国保险业主要发挥的是抑制经济波动的"稳定器"作用,而对经济增长的"助推器"作...     

保险周期存在性的协整模型检验：基于中国市场的分析

本文对宏观经济波动可能引致保险周期的内在机理作了理论分析,然后利用协整模型并辅以误差修正模型验证了中国的现实情况,发现保险行业运行在长期来看与经济体系的发展较为一致,其周期特性得到间接证明,但经济的短期扰动对保险行业影响不大,同时,保险经营业绩与利率变动负相关,产险业的发展与宏观经济的联系不太紧密。