Organizational Structure and Performance: Evidence From the Nonlife Insurance Industry in Japan

This study examines the impact of organizational structure on firm performance, incentive problems, and financial decisions in the Japanese nonlife (property‐casualty) insurance industry. Stock companies that belong to one of six horizontal keiretsu groups have lower expenses and lower levels of free cash flow than independent stock and mutual insurance companies. Keiretsu insurers also have higher profitability and higher loss ratios than independent insurers. With a limited sample size, there is some evidence that mutual insurers have higher levels of free cash flows, higher investment incomes, and lower financial leverage than their stock counterparts. Overall, empirical evidence suggests that each structure has its own comparative advantage.     

The Demise of the Mutual Organizational Form: An Investigation of the Life Insurance Industry

We investigate the role of organizational structure in financial services markets by examining the U.S. life insurance industry. Traditionally, stock and mutual life insurers were equally represented, but now the industry is mainly composed of stock firms. We find operational efficiency, access to capital, and tax savings are important determinants for this shift. The incentive to demutualize differs by the type of conversion: full demutualization is chosen for efficiency and access to capital reasons and partial conversion, using a mutual holding company, is chosen for tax savings. Firm operational efficiency improves after conversion. We also find the efficiency of the stock organizational form dominates that of the mutual structure during our sample period, 1995 to 2004.     

Performance of the Life Insurance Industry Under Pressure: Efficiency,Competition, and Consolidation

This article investigates efficiency and competition in the Dutch life insurance market by estimating unused scale economies and measuring efficiency‐market share dynamics during 1995–2010. Large unused scale economies exist for small‐ and medium‐sized life insurers, indicating that further consolidation would reduce costs. Over time average scale economies decrease but substantial differences between small and large insurers remain. A direct measure of competition confirms that competitive pressure is lower than in other markets. We do not observe any impact of increased competition from banks, the so‐called investment policy crisis or the credit crisis, apart from lower returns in 2008.     

Ownership Structure, Agency Costs, Specialization, and Efficiency: Analysis of Keiretsu and Independent Insurers in the Japanese Nonlife Insurance Industry

This article uses the nonparametric frontier method to examine differences in efficiency for three unique organizational forms in the Japanese nonlife insurance industry—keiretsu firms, nonspecialized independent firms (NSIFs), and specialized independent firms (SIFs). It is not possible to reject the null hypothesis that efficiencies are equal, with one exception. Keiretsu firms seem to be more cost‐efficient than NSIFs. The results have important implications for the stakeholders of the NSIFs. An examination of the productivity changes across the different organizational forms reveals deteriorating efficiency for all three types of firms throughout the 1985–1994 sample period. Finally, the evidence also suggests that the value‐added approach and the financial intermediary approach provide different but complementary results.     

Conglomeration versus Strategic Focus: Evidence from the Insurance Industry

We provide evidence on the validity of the it conglomeration hypothesis versus the strategic focus hypothesis for financial institutions using data on U.S. insurance companies. We distinguish between the hypotheses using profit scope economies, which measure the relative efficiency of joint versus specialized production, taking both costs and revenues into account. The results suggest that the conglomeration hypothesis dominates for some types of financial service providers and the strategic focus hypothesis dominates for other types. This may explain the empirical puzzle of why joint producers and specialists both appear to be competitively viable in the long run. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: G22, G28, G34, L23, L89.     

Organizational Restructuring, Equity Valuation, and Limited Partnerships

This research investigates common equity price reactions to announcements of limited partnerships (LPs) in which parent firms retain general partnership interests. On average, prices react positively to these announcements, which suggests that creating LPs is a marginally effective method of separately financing investment projects. This study provides evidence that the systematic variation in prediction errors across announcements is positively related to the percent ownership retained in the LP by the parent, which suggests that ownership retention signals information about the value of the LP, the costs of controlling the LP, and the amount of external financing needed for the LP.     

Organizational Structure,Board Composition,and Risk Taking in the U.S. Property Casualty Insurance Industry

This study examines the impact of organizational structure and board composition on risk taking in the U.S. property casualty insurance industry, addressing different risk‐taking behaviors from different perspectives. The risk‐taking measures include total risk, underwriting risk, investment risk, and leverage risk. The evidence shows that mutual insurers have lower total risk, underwriting risk, and investment risk than stock insurers. In terms of board composition variables, we find that some board composition variables not only have impact on risk‐taking behaviors but also affect different risk measures differently. Thus, using different risk measures is better than using one risk measure to assess risk‐taking behavior. Finally, we conclude that an insurer can control its total risk through management of underwriting, investment, and leverage risks that determine an insurer's risk profile.     

商业银行基层组织架构再造的问题与对策

面对加入WTO以后外资银行挟资本与技术长驱直入的巨大压力,致力推进我国商业银行的制度创新与机构重组尤显重要而紧迫.……     

The Relations among Organizational and Distribution Forms and Capital and Asset Risk Structures in the Life Insurance Industry

This article is the first step toward integrating in a single framework two previously separate lines of research on major structural decisions of life insurers. The literature has previously studied the relation between capital structure and asset risk on the one hand, and the relation between organizational form and distribution system on the other hand, without integrating them. Using life insurer data for 1993–1999, we model the four key insurer decisions of capital structure, asset risk, organizational form, and distribution system as endogenous choices in a single interrelated set of simultaneous equations. The model assesses the nature of the interactions among these decisions. The model also assesses the impact of insurers' fundamental business strategy (treated as predetermined) on these choices. The business‐strategy hypothesis views other key decisions as jointly determined and driven by the fundamental business strategy, once the latter is set in motion. Confirming previous studies, we find a positive relation between capital ratios and asset risk. We also find an association in the simultaneous context between stock ownership and brokerage distribution, which was not found in prior studies. Stock ownership is related to greater financial and asset risk taking, whereas brokerage distribution is associated with lower risk taking. These and other results are interpreted in light of several theories, including transaction‐cost economics (TCE), agency theory, and regulatory and bankruptcy cost avoidance. Deriving from these theories, the finite risk paradigm emerges as the most comprehensive interpretation of the results, as opposed to the risk‐subsidy hypothesis of the impact of guarantee funds. We also find support for the notion that the business strategy drives the capital and distribution decisions, as predicted by TCE.     

Improving Perceptions of the Insurance Industry: The Influence of Insurance Professionals

The “talent crisis” in the insurance industry is well documented. Solutions to this crisis, however, are not plentiful. One of the major challenges faced by the industry is its reputation. We hypothesize that opinions of the industry can be changed through brief but specific education efforts. We test our hypothesis at a major university and find very strong support for our hypothesis.     

Capitalization of the Property-Liability Insurance Industry: Overview

The 1990s witnessed an unprecedented decline in leverage ratios in the United States property-liability insurance industry. The premiums-to-surplus ratio, the most commonly used leverage ratio in the industry, fell from its historical average of 2.0 to less than 1.0 by the end of 2000; and the industry-wide capital-to-asset ratio increased from an historical average of about 25% to 35%. The international reinsurance industry also experienced significant capital increases and leverage declines during the 1990s (Cummins and Weiss, 2000).¹ These unusual trends raised widespread concerns that the property-liability insurance industry had become over-capitalized (The Economist, 1999; Bowers, 2001; Seifert, 2001). To investigate the growth in capitalization and its potential causes, the Conference on Capitalization in the Property-Liability Insurance Industry was held at the Wharton School in September 2000 under the joint sponsorship of the Wharton Financial Institutions Center and AON. Selected papers from the conference comprise this issue of the Journal of Financial Services Research (JFSR).     

商业银行授信业务流程及其组织架构再造

一、我国商业银行目前授信业务的操作流程现状 我国的商业银行一般采用总分行制,自从中国人民银行推行了<客户综合授信管理办法>后,各商业银行纷纷从控制客户总体风险的角度出发,重新整合各自的业务流程,虽然各自具有自己的特点,但授信授权集中是几乎统一的模式.