IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/83195.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the exposure of insurance companies to sovereign risk − portfolio investments and market forces 1

Author

Listed:
  • Düll, Robert
  • König, Felix
  • Ohls, Jana

Abstract

A sovereign debt crisis can have significant knock-on effects in the financial markets and put financial stability at risk. This paper focuses on the transmission of sovereign risk to insurance companies as some of the largest institutional investors in the sovereign bond market. We use a firm level panel dataset that covers large insurance companies, banks and non-financial firms from nine countries over the time period from 1 January 2008 to 1 May 2013. We find significant and robust transmission effects from sovereign risk to domestic insurers. The impact on insurers is not significantly different from that on banks but larger than for non-financial firms. We find that systemically important insurers are more closely linked to the domestic sovereign. Based on European data, we show that risks in sovereign bond portfolios are an important driver of insurer risk, which is not reflected in current insurance regulation (incl. Solvency II in Europe).

Suggested Citation

  • Düll, Robert & König, Felix & Ohls, Jana, 2017. "On the exposure of insurance companies to sovereign risk − portfolio investments and market forces 1," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 83195, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:83195
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/83195/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Faisal Baluch & Stanley Mutenga & Chris Parsons, 2011. "Insurance, Systemic Risk and the Financial Crisis," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 36(1), pages 126-163, January.
    2. Durbin, Erik & Ng, David, 2005. "The sovereign ceiling and emerging market corporate bond spreads," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 631-649, June.
    3. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2010. "The Credibility Revolution in Empirical Economics: How Better Research Design Is Taking the Con out of Econometrics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(2), pages 3-30, Spring.
    4. Alter, Adrian & Schüler, Yves S., 2012. "Credit spread interdependencies of European states and banks during the financial crisis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 3444-3468.
    5. Alter, Adrian & Beyer, Andreas, 2014. "The dynamics of spillover effects during the European sovereign debt turmoil," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 134-153.
    6. Gerlach, Stefan & Schulz, Alexander & Wolff, Guntram B., 2010. "Banking and sovereign risk in the euro area," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2010,09, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    7. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    8. Buch, Claudia M. & Koetter, Michael & Ohls, Jana, 2016. "Banks and sovereign risk: A granular view," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 1-15.
    9. De Bruyckere, Valerie & Gerhardt, Maria & Schepens, Glenn & Vander Vennet, Rudi, 2013. "Bank/sovereign risk spillovers in the European debt crisis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 4793-4809.
    10. Niccolò Battistini & Marco Pagano & Saverio Simonelli, 2014. "Systemic risk, sovereign yields and bank exposures in the euro crisis [Real effects of the sovereign debt crises in Europe: evidence from syndicated loans]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 29(78), pages 203-251.
    11. Noss, Joseph & Sowerbutts, Rhiannon, 2012. "Financial Stability Paper No 15: The implicit subsidy of banks," Bank of England Financial Stability Papers 15, Bank of England.
    12. Francis A. Longstaff & Jun Pan & Lasse H. Pedersen & Kenneth J. Singleton, 2011. "How Sovereign Is Sovereign Credit Risk?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 75-103, April.
    13. Bijlsma, Melle & Vermeulen, Robert, 2016. "Insurance companies’ trading behaviour during the European sovereign debt crisis: Flight home or flight to quality?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 137-154.
    14. Nathan Foley-Fisher & Borghan Narajabad & Stéphane Verani, 2020. "Self-Fulfilling Runs: Evidence from the US Life Insurance Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(9), pages 3520-3569.
    15. Ricardo Correa & Kuan‐Hui Lee & Horacio Sapriza & Gustavo A. Suarez, 2014. "Sovereign Credit Risk, Banks' Government Support, and Bank Stock Returns around the World," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(s1), pages 93-121, February.
    16. Bernoth, Kerstin & Pick, Andreas, 2011. "Forecasting the fragility of the banking and insurance sectors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 807-818, April.
    17. Shawkat Hammoudeh & Mohan Nandha & Yuan Yuan, 2013. "Dynamics of CDS spread indexes of US financial sectors," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(2), pages 213-223, January.
    18. Kablau, Anke & Weiß, Matthias, 2014. "How is the low-interest-rate environment affecting the solvency of German life insurers?," Discussion Papers 27/2014e, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    19. Andrew Ellul & Chotibhak Jotikasthira & Christian T. Lundblad & Yihui Wang, 2014. "Mark-to-market accounting and systemic risk: evidence from the insurance industry [Mark-to-market accounting and cash-in-the-market pricing]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 29(78), pages 297-341.
    20. Levin, Andrew & Lin, Chien-Fu & James Chu, Chia-Shang, 2002. "Unit root tests in panel data: asymptotic and finite-sample properties," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-24, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Grochola, Nicolaus & Browne, Mark Joseph & Gründl, Helmut & Schlütter, Sebastian, 2021. "Exploring the market risk profiles of U.S. and European life insurers," ICIR Working Paper Series 39/21, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR).
    2. Meier, Samira & Rodriguez Gonzalez, Miguel & Kunze, Frederik, 2021. "The global financial crisis, the EMU sovereign debt crisis and international financial regulation: lessons from a systematic literature review," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Düll, Robert & König, Felix & Ohls, Jana, 2017. "On the exposure of insurance companies to sovereign risk—Portfolio investments and market forces," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 93-106.
    2. María Cantero Sáiz & Sergio Sanfilippo Azofra & Begoña Torre Olmo, 2019. "The single supervision mechanism and contagion between bank and sovereign risk," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 55(1), pages 67-106, February.
    3. Böhm, Hannes & Eichler, Stefan, 2020. "Avoiding the fall into the loop: Isolating the transmission of bank-to-sovereign distress in the Euro Area," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    4. Arnold, Ivo J.M. & Soederhuizen, Beau, 2018. "Sovereign bond holdings and monetary policy operations in the euro area," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1243-1254.
    5. Marcel Fratzscher & Malte Rieth, 2019. "Monetary Policy, Bank Bailouts and the Sovereign-Bank Risk Nexus in the Euro Area," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 23(4), pages 745-775.
    6. Brůha, Jan & Kočenda, Evžen, 2018. "Financial stability in Europe: Banking and sovereign risk," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 305-321.
    7. Lidija Lovreta & Joaquín López Pascual, 2020. "Structural breaks in the interaction between bank and sovereign default risk," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 531-559, December.
    8. Papafilis, Michalis-Panayiotis & Psillaki, Maria & Margaritis, Dimitris, 2015. "Interdependence between Sovereign and Bank CDS Spreads in Eurozone during the European Debt Crisis - The PSI Effect," MPRA Paper 68037, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Keddad, Benjamin & Schalck, Christophe, 2020. "Evaluating sovereign risk spillovers on domestic banks during the European debt crisis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 356-375.
    10. Jean-Pierre Allegret & Hélène Raymond & Houda Rharrabti, 2014. "The impact of the global and eurozone crises on European banks stocks Some evidence of shift contagion," Working Papers hal-04141339, HAL.
    11. Reboredo, Juan C. & Ugolini, Andrea, 2015. "A vine-copula conditional value-at-risk approach to systemic sovereign debt risk for the financial sector," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 98-123.
    12. Böhm, Hannes & Eichler, Stefan, 2018. "Avoiding the fall into the loop: Isolating the transmission of bank-to-sovereign distress in the euro area and its drivers," IWH Discussion Papers 19/2018, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    13. Buch, Claudia M. & Koetter, Michael & Ohls, Jana, 2016. "Banks and sovereign risk: A granular view," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 1-15.
    14. Kräussl, Roman & Lehnert, Thorsten & Stefanova, Denitsa, 2016. "The European sovereign debt crisis: What have we learned?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(PA), pages 363-373.
    15. Betz, Frank & Hautsch, Nikolaus & Peltonen, Tuomas A. & Schienle, Melanie, 2016. "Systemic risk spillovers in the European banking and sovereign network," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 206-224.
    16. Georgoutsos, Dimitris & Moratis, George, 2017. "Bank-sovereign contagion in the Eurozone: A panel VAR Approach," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 146-159.
    17. Meier, Samira & Rodriguez Gonzalez, Miguel & Kunze, Frederik, 2021. "The global financial crisis, the EMU sovereign debt crisis and international financial regulation: lessons from a systematic literature review," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    18. Pagano, Michael S. & Sedunov, John, 2016. "A comprehensive approach to measuring the relation between systemic risk exposure and sovereign debt," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 62-78.
    19. Alsakka, Rasha & ap Gwilym, Owain & Vu, Tuyet Nhung, 2014. "The sovereign-bank rating channel and rating agencies' downgrades during the European debt crisis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(PB), pages 235-257.
    20. Augustin, Patrick & Subrahmanyam, Marti G. & Tang, Dragon Yongjun & Wang, Sarah Qian, 2014. "Credit Default Swaps: A Survey," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 9(1-2), pages 1-196, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    insurance; sovereign risk; sovereign bond portfolio;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:83195. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.