Effects of business diversification on asset risk-taking: Evidence from the U.S. property-liability insurance industry

Xin Che and Andre P. Liebenberg

Journal of Banking & Finance, 2017, vol. 77, issue C, 122-136

Abstract: We investigate the effect of line-of-business diversification on asset risk-taking in the U.S. property-liability industry. The coordinated risk management hypothesis (Schrand and Unal, 1998) implies a negative relation between underwriting risk and investment risk. Consistent with this hypothesis we find that diversified insurers take more asset risk than non-diversified insurers, and that the degree of asset risk-taking is positively related to diversification extent. Our results are robust to corrections for potential endogeneity bias, selectivity bias, and alternative diversification and asset risk measures. We also provide event study evidence that further supports the coordinated risk management hypothesis. Specifically, we find that when a focused firm diversifies, it increases its asset risk relative to firms that remain focused, and when a diversified firm refocuses, it reduces its asset risk relative to firms that remain diversified.

Keywords: Insurance; Diversification; Asset risk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G22 G32 G39 M49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426617300080
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:77:y:2017:i:c:p:122-136

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2017.01.004

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Banking & Finance is currently edited by Ike Mathur

More articles in Journal of Banking & Finance from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().