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Pure risk, agency conflict, and hedging

Lu Chen, Bingqing Li and Wenyuan Zheng

Journal of Banking & Finance, 2024, vol. 168, issue C

Abstract: This study develops a theoretical model to analyze the asset substitution problem over insurance decisions. We find that agency conflict is related to a firm’s risk level and capital structure. In particular, at the optimal leverage, agency conflict occurs only when the risk level is relatively high, which explains why insurance covenants are typically for significant pure risks. Moreover, when the risk level is specified, agency conflict over insurance decisions occurs within a specific leverage range. This is consistent with the findings of some research on the asset substitution problem over speculative risk choices. In addition, we consider premium loadings and conclude that full hedging is not a firm’s optimal risk management strategy, contributing to the literature on optimal hedging decisions with transaction frictions. Our framework with premium loadings can also explain many insurance phenomena, such as risk retention for small losses and subsidies for catastrophe insurance.

Keywords: Asset substitution problem; Asset risk choice; Hedging decision; Structural model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G22 G32 G34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:168:y:2024:i:c:s0378426624002085

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2024.107294

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