IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finsta/v31y2017icp93-106.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the exposure of insurance companies to sovereign risk—Portfolio investments and market forces

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 2008–1 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," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 93-106.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finsta:v:31:y:2017:i:c:p:93-106
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfs.2017.06.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S157230891730445X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfs.2017.06.008?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Ian Tower & Gregorio Impavido, 2009. "How the Financial Crisis Affects Pensions and Insurance and Why the Impacts Matter," IMF Working Papers 2009/151, International Monetary Fund.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Jennie Bai & Shang-Jin Wei, 2012. "When Is There a Strong Transfer Risk from the Sovereigns to the Corporates? Property Rights Gaps and CDS Spreads," NBER Working Papers 18600, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Viral Acharya & Itamar Drechsler & Philipp Schnabl, 2014. "A Pyrrhic Victory? Bank Bailouts and Sovereign Credit Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(6), pages 2689-2739, December.
    17. 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.
    18. Hua Chen & J. David Cummins & Krupa S. Viswanathan & Mary A. Weiss, 2014. "Systemic Risk and the Interconnectedness Between Banks and Insurers: An Econometric Analysis," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 81(3), pages 623-652, September.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.
    21. 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.
    22. 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.
    23. 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.
    24. 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. Alexander Braun & Hato Schmeiser & Florian Schreiber, 2018. "Return on Risk-Adjusted Capital Under Solvency II: Implications for the Asset Management of Insurance Companies," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 43(3), pages 456-472, July.
    2. van Riet, Ad, 2016. "Government Funding Privileges in European Financial Law : Making Public Debt Everybody's Favourite?," Discussion Paper 2016-045, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    3. Alberto Dreassi & Stefano Miani & Andrea Paltrinieri & Alex Sclip, 2018. "Bank-Insurance Risk Spillovers: Evidence from Europe," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 43(1), pages 72-96, January.
    4. 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).
    5. Grochola, Nicolaus & Schlütter, Sebastian, 2023. "Discretionary decisions in capital requirements under Solvency II," ICIR Working Paper Series 50/23, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR).
    6. 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).
    7. Fueki, Takuji & Hürtgen, Patrick & Walker, Todd B., 2024. "Zero-risk weights and capital misallocation," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 72(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 1," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 83195, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    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. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Brůha, Jan & Kočenda, Evžen, 2018. "Financial stability in Europe: Banking and sovereign risk," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 305-321.
    9. Yu, Sherry, 2017. "Sovereign and bank Interdependencies—Evidence from the CDS market," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 68-84.
    10. 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.
    11. Janbaz, M. & Hassan, M.K. & Floreani, J. & Dreassi, A., 2024. "Liquidity pressure and the sovereign-bank diabolic loop," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 1039-1057.
    12. 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.
    13. Dungey, Mardi & Harvey, John & Volkov, Vladimir, 2019. "The changing international network of sovereign debt and financial institutions," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 149-168.
    14. 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.
    15. Boeckelmann Lukas & Stalla-Bourdillon Arthur, 2021. "Structural Estimation of Time-Varying Spillovers: An Application to International Credit Risk Transmission," Working papers 798, Banque de France.
    16. Allegret, Jean-Pierre & Raymond, Hélène & Rharrabti, Houda, 2017. "The impact of the European sovereign debt crisis on banks stocks. Some evidence of shift contagion in Europe," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 24-37.
    17. Drago, Danilo & Gallo, Raffaele, 2017. "The impact of sovereign rating changes on the activity of European banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 99-112.
    18. Avino, Davide & Cotter, John, 2014. "Sovereign and bank CDS spreads: Two sides of the same coin?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 72-85.
    19. 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).
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Insurance; Sovereign risk; Sovereign bond portfolio;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    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:eee:finsta:v:31:y:2017:i:c:p:93-106. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jfstabil .

    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.