IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/rmgtin/v11y2008i1p157-178.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Intangible Assets and Firm Asset Risk Taking: An Analysis of Property and Liability Insurance Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Tong Yu
  • Bingxuan Lin
  • Henry R. Oppenheimer
  • Xuanjuan Chen

Abstract

Intangible assets facilitate insurers' capacity to retain existing business and attract new clients. In this study we analyze how the incentives to protect intangible assets affect asset risk‐taking behavior of property and liability insurers. The result supports the view that insurers' incentives to protect their intangible assets lead to an inverse relation between intangible assets and asset risk. Consistent with the view that highly levered firms may go for broke, asset risk of highly levered insurers is less elastic to intangible assets than that of lower‐levered insurers. An additional notable finding of our article is that tangible factors like firm size and capitalization increase insurers' appetites for asset risk taking.

Suggested Citation

  • Tong Yu & Bingxuan Lin & Henry R. Oppenheimer & Xuanjuan Chen, 2008. "Intangible Assets and Firm Asset Risk Taking: An Analysis of Property and Liability Insurance Firms," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 11(1), pages 157-178, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:rmgtin:v:11:y:2008:i:1:p:157-178
    DOI: j.1540-6296.2008.00136.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6296.2008.00136.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/j.1540-6296.2008.00136.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lamm-Tennant, Joan & Starks, Laura T, 1993. "Stock versus Mutual Ownership Structures: The Risk Implications," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(1), pages 29-46, January.
    2. Jennifer J. Gaver & Steven W. Pottier, 2005. "The Role of Holding Company Financial Information in the Insurer‐Rating Process: Evidence From the Property‐Liability Industry," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 72(1), pages 77-103, March.
    3. David F. Babbel & Craig Merrill, 2005. "Real and Illusory Value Creation by Insurance Companies," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 72(1), pages 1-22, March.
    4. Anthony Saunders & Berry Wilson, 2001. "An Analysis of Bank Charter Value and Its Risk-Constraining Incentives," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 19(2), pages 185-195, April.
    5. Lily Hua Fang, 2005. "Investment Bank Reputation and the Price and Quality of Underwriting Services," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2729-2761, December.
    6. Owen A. Lamont & Christopher Polk, 2001. "The Diversification Discount: Cash Flows Versus Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(5), pages 1693-1721, October.
    7. Epermanis, Karen & Harrington, Scott E., 2006. "Market Discipline in Property/Casualty Insurance: Evidence from Premium Growth Surrounding Changes in Financial Strength Ratings," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(6), pages 1515-1544, September.
    8. Harrington, Scott E & Danzon, Patricia M, 1994. "Price Cutting in Liability Insurance Markets," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(4), pages 511-538, October.
    9. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    10. Chemmanur, Thomas J & Fulghieri, Paolo, 1994. "Investment Bank Reputation, Information Production, and Financial Intermediation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(1), pages 57-79, March.
    11. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    12. Merton, Robert C., 1977. "An analytic derivation of the cost of deposit insurance and loan guarantees An application of modern option pricing theory," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 3-11, June.
    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. Sunghan Bae & Andre P. Liebenberg & Ivonne A. Liebenberg, 2023. "Equity Investment Decisions of Operating Firms: Evidence from Property and Liability Insurers," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-24, April.

    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. Delgado, J. & Salas, V. & Saurina, J., 2007. "Joint size and ownership specialization in bank lending," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(12), pages 3563-3583, December.
    2. Rosenberg, Matts, 2003. "Stock Option Compensation in Finland: An Analysis of Economic Determinants, Contracting Frequency, and Design," Working Papers 496, Hanken School of Economics.
    3. Braun, Alexander & Schmeiser, Hato & Rymaszewski, Przemysław, 2015. "Stock vs. mutual insurers: Who should and who does charge more?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 242(3), pages 875-889.
    4. Pathan, Shams & Haq, Mamiza & Faff, Robert & Seymour, Trent, 2021. "Institutional investor horizon and bank risk-taking," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    5. Belkhir, Mohamed & Boubaker, Sabri, 2013. "CEO inside debt and hedging decisions: Lessons from the U.S. banking industry," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 223-246.
    6. Heller, Yuval & Peleg Lazar, Sharon & Raviv, Alon, 2022. "Banks’ risk taking and creditors’ bargaining power," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    7. Ashraf, Badar Nadeem & Zheng, Changjun & Jiang, Chonghui & Qian, Ningyu, 2020. "Capital regulation, deposit insurance and bank risk: International evidence from normal and crisis periods," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    8. Thomas R. Berry-Stölzle & Jianren Xu, 2022. "Local religious beliefs and insurance companies’ risk-taking behaviour," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 47(2), pages 242-278, April.
    9. Suarez, Javier & Mendicino, Caterina & Nikolov, Kalin, 2017. "Equity versus Bail-in Debt in Banking: An Agency Perspective," CEPR Discussion Papers 12104, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Martin Eling, 2012. "What Do We Know About Market Discipline in Insurance?," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 15(2), pages 185-223, September.
    11. Javier Suárez, 1998. "Risk-taking and the prudential regulation of banks," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 22(3), pages 307-336, September.
    12. Mendicino, Caterina & Nikolov, Kalin & Suarez, Javier, 2017. "Equity versus Bail-in Debt in Banking: An Agency Perspective," CEPR Discussion Papers 12104, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Robert A. Jarrow, 1999. "In Honor of the Nobel Laureates Robert C. Merton and Myron S. Scholes: A Partial Differential Equation That Changed the World," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 229-248, Fall.
    14. Dionne, Georges & Harrington, Scott, 2017. "Insurance and Insurance Markets," Working Papers 17-2, HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management.
    15. Liljeblom, Eva & Pasternack, Daniel & Rosenberg, Matts, 2011. "What determines stock option contract design?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 293-316.
    16. Altuntas, Muhammed & Berry-Stölzle, Thomas R. & Wende, Sabine, 2015. "Does one size fit all? Determinants of insurer capital structure around the globe," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 251-271.
    17. Fegatelli, Paolo, 2010. "The misconception of the option value of deposit insurance and the efficacy of non-risk-based capital requirements in the literature on bank capital regulation," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 79-84, June.
    18. Sharon Peleg†Lazar & Alon Raviv, 2017. "Bank Risk Dynamics Where Assets are Risky Debt Claims," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 23(1), pages 3-31, January.
    19. Bhagat, Sanjai & Bolton, Brian & Lu, Jun, 2015. "Size, leverage, and risk-taking of financial institutions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 520-537.
    20. David Barker & Kiat Ying Seah & James D. Shilling, 2019. "How Big of a Lemons Market is the Secondary Market for Private Equity Real Estate Limited Partnerships?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 391-418, October.

    More about this item

    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:bla:rmgtin:v:11:y:2008:i:1:p:157-178. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1098-1616 .

    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.