International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

search-icon

Overall Governance Index for Developed and Emerging European Life Insurance Markets

Open access
The present study evaluates the relationship between governance and the development of the life insurance market in 31 European countries. For this, we considered the six Worldwide Governance Indicators. An overall governance index, which we called WGI, was computed based on them, using the principal component analysis. Afterwards, we employed the dynamic panel methodology in the system-GMM form to analyze the influence of WGI upon the life insurance market, having as proxy life insurance density. Additionally, we employed several socio-economic control variables. To serve our purpose, we have also divided the sample into developed and emerging economies by creating a dummy variable introduced in the analysis. All models were estimated in the robust form. Governance proved to have significant influence upon the life insurance market in the analyzed period: 2002 – 2012. The long-run coefficient is positive and significant. When the dummy is introduced in the analysis, the significance of the governance indicator decreases for the short term coefficient, while it disappears for the long-term one.
Armeanu, D., Lache, L. (2008). Application of the Model of Principal Components Analysis on Romanian Insurance Market. Theoretical and Applied Economics, 6, 11-20.

Billio, M., Getmansky, M., Lo, A.W., Pelizzon, L. (2012). Econometric Measures of Systemic Risk in the Finance and Insurance Sectors. Journal of Financial Economics, 104, 535–559.

Chen, J.-S., Chang, C.-L. , Hou, J.-L., Lin, Y.-T. (2008). Dynamic proportion portfolio insurance using genetic programming with principal component analysis. Expert Systems with Applications, 35, 273–278.

Dedu, V., Armeanu, D., Enciu, A. (2009). Using the Multivariate Data Analysis Techniques. Romanian Journal of Economic Forecasting, 4, 170-179.

Dey, A. (2008). Corporate governance and agency conflicts. Journal of Accounting Research, 46(5), 1143–1181.

Dragos S.L., Mare C., Dragos C.M. (2016). Institutional drivers of life insurance consumption: a dynamic panel approach for European countries. 14th International Workshop on Pensions, Insurance and Savings, 9-10 of May, Paris Dauphine University, available on-line at: http://international-pension-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/papers-14/Dragos.pdf.

Enz, R. (2000). The S-Curve Relation between Per-Capita Income and Insurance Penetration. Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance, 25, 396-406.

Han, X., Khan, H., Zhuang, J. (2014). Do Governance Indicators Explain Development Performance? A Cross-Country Analysis. ADB Economics Working Paper Series, No. 417.

Kaufmann D., Kraay A., Mastruzzi M. (2010). The Worldwide Governance Indicators: Methodology and Analytical Issues. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 5430, available on-line http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1682130.

Larcker, D. F., Richardson, S. A., Tuna, I. A. (2007). Corporate governance, accounting outcomes and organizational performance, The Accounting Review, 82(4), 963–1008.

Lee C.C., Chang C.H., Arouri M, Lee C.C. (2016). Economic growth and insurance development: The role of institutional environments. Economic Modelling, 59, 361–369.

Louizi, A., Kammoun, R. (2016). Evaluation of corporate governance systems by credit rating agencies. Journal of Management & Governance, 20, 363–385.

Pearson, K. (1901). On lines and planes of closest fit to systems of points in space. Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science.

Segovia-Gonzalez, M.M., Guerrero, F.M., P. Herranz, P. (2009). Explaining functional principal component analysis to actuarial science with an example on vehicle insurance. Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, 45, 278-285.

Shan, S., Wang, L., Wang, J., Hao, Y., Hua, F. (2011). Research on e-Government evaluation model based on the principal component analysis. Information Technololgy and Management, 12, 173–185.

Ward, D., Zurbruegg, R. (2002). Law, politics and life insurance in Asia. The Geneva Papers
Laura, D. S., Codruta, M., & Maria, D. A. (2016). Overall Governance Index for Developed and Emerging European Life Insurance Markets. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 6(10), 341-350.