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Risk Allocation Across The Enterprise: Evidence From The Insurance Industry, Michael K. Mcshane, Tao Zhang, Larry A. Cox
Risk Allocation Across The Enterprise: Evidence From The Insurance Industry, Michael K. Mcshane, Tao Zhang, Larry A. Cox
Finance Faculty Publications
Financial researchers initially regarded hedging activities as a means to reduce total firm risk, which often is defined in terms of cash flow volatility. More recently, researchers have focused on the strategic allocation of risk. Direct tests of risk allocation have been problematic, however, because hedging data are rarely available and, when available, are specific only to a single operation of the firm, such as bank lending. In this study, we exploit unique data from the insurance industry that allows us to observe hedging proxies for both investment and insurance underwriting risks and test the risk allocation hypothesis developed in …
Risky Asset Substitution In The Insurance Industry: An Historical Example, Brenda Wells, Karen Epermanis, Larry A. Cox, Michael Mcshane
Risky Asset Substitution In The Insurance Industry: An Historical Example, Brenda Wells, Karen Epermanis, Larry A. Cox, Michael Mcshane
Finance Faculty Publications
In the 1980s, life insurers sold guaranteed investment contracts (GICs) to pension plan sponsors, then backed these contracts with portfolios heavily weighted with higher risk assets such as common stocks and junk bonds. Ultimately this caused considerable loss, and history has repeated itself in many respects in recent years via holdings of equities and mortgage-backed securities. We evaluate the risky asset substitution in the life insurance industry from an historical perspective to determine if organizational form or other factors might be rationale for managerial decisions to engage in asset substitution. We find evidence that stock insurer managers are more likely …