Commercial Banks, Default Insurance and IMF Reforms

This paper discusses, in a very general way, a system of IMF insurance against sovereign default that could be offered to private lenders and banking groups. The system could overcome many of the current issues that plague the international private lending market, such as moral hazard on the part of private lenders, capital flight, and so on. How the insurance could be priced is also discussed in an appendix. Private lender membership in the IMF is also discussed. This would provide the IMF with some of the powers that central banks now have

An Empirical Study on the Lapse Rate: The Cointegration Approach

We use the cointegration technique to reexamine the contending lapse rate hypotheses: the emergency fund hypothesis and the interest rate hypothesis. We find that the unemployment rate affects the lapse rate in both the long and short run, whereas the interest rate causes variations in the lapse rate mainly in the long run. This evidence seems to be in favor of the emergency fund hypothesis. However, according to the impulse response analysis of the estimated error-correction model, the interest rate overwhelms the unemployment rate on the overall impact on the dynamics of lapse rate. In other words, the interest rate hypothesis is favored against the emergency fund hypothesis in the sense that the interest rate is more economically significant than the unemployment rate in explaining the lapse rate dynamics. Copyright The Journal of Risk and Insurance.

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. Copyright The Journal of Risk and Insurance.

Risk margin estimation through the cost of capital approach: some conceptual issues

The Solvency II directive requires that insurance liabilities are valued using a best estimate plus a risk margin. The risk margin should be estimated using the cost of capital approach,that is the cost of the solvency capital requirement\u2014which is computed through a value at risk measure\u2014needed to support the insurance obligation until settlement. The unitary cost of capital applied to the future capital requirement should be fixed. This paper deals with conceptual issues relating to the risk margin estimate through the cost of capital approach. It shows that the Solvency II specification of the methodology is consistent with financial economics. However, the theoretical framework required (a frictionless and normally distributed world) is too far-fetched to be acceptable. Even if these conditions were satisfied, a variable unitary cost of capital must be used

Government Debt Denomination Policies Before and After the EMU Advent

Through a cost-minimizing approach, this paper derives joint indicators to assess the efficiency of the mix of sovereign debt currencies between the countries belonging to the European Monetary Union (EMU). This theoretical insight enables us to explain why and how the introduction of the euro and the adoption of a common monetary policy may have led to significant changes in debt structure among EMU members, notably in favor of further euro-denominated debt. The interplay of intrinsic and strategic variables yields stylized facts that are consistent with country-specific empirical evidence. Following the sovereign debt crisis, we further emphasize the value-added of a coordinated debt issuance policy among EMU countries