IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5229.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

External Financing and Insurance Cycles

Author

Listed:
  • Anne Gron
  • Deborah Lucas

Abstract

In this paper we explore the conjecture that the periodic episodes of high prices and constrained supply in the property- casualty industry are the result of temporary capital shortages. We do this by looking for increases in activities aimed at increasing capital at these times: dividend cuts, repurchase cuts, equity issues, and debt issues. We also look for evidence that the costs of raising external capital are unusually high relative to other industries by examining the market price response to security issues. We find that there is some evidence of payout policy changes in the expected direction, and also of an increased volume of debt and equity issues following low capacity periods. However, the total amount of capital obtained by security issues or reduced payouts appears to be small relative to the observed drops in net worth, suggesting that insurers rely primarily on future retained earnings to rebuild their capital position. When property-casualty insurers do go to the capital markets, we find no evidence that they receive an unusually poor reception. In fact, the market price reaction to equity issues appears to be considerably less negative than for industrial issuers but similar to that for banks and utilities.

Suggested Citation

  • Anne Gron & Deborah Lucas, 1995. "External Financing and Insurance Cycles," NBER Working Papers 5229, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5229
    Note: CF
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5229.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert A. Korajczyk & Deborah Lucas & Robert L. McDonald, 1990. "Understanding Stock Price Behavior around the Time of Equity Issues," NBER Chapters, in: Asymmetric Information, Corporate Finance, and Investment, pages 257-278, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Masulis, Ronald W. & Korwar, Ashok N., 1986. "Seasoned equity offerings : An empirical investigation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1-2), pages 91-118.
    3. Chevalier, Judith A & Scharfstein, David S, 1996. "Capital-Market Imperfections and Countercyclical Markups: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 703-725, September.
    4. Mikkelson, Wayne H. & Partch, M. Megan, 1986. "Valuation effects of security offerings and the issuance process," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1-2), pages 31-60.
    5. Raymond D. Hill, 1979. "Profit Regulation in Property-Liability Insurance," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 172-191, Spring.
    6. Lucas, Deborah J & McDonald, Robert L, 1990. "Equity Issues and Stock Price Dynamics," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1019-1043, September.
    7. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    8. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 1988. "Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 141-206.
    9. William B. Fairley, 1979. "Investment Income and Profit Margins in Property-Liability Insurance: Theory and Empirical Results," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 192-210, Spring.
    10. Anne Gron, 1994. "Capacity Constraints and Cycles in Property-Casualty Insurance Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(1), pages 110-127, Spring.
    11. Asquith, Paul & Mullins, David Jr., 1986. "Equity issues and offering dilution," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1-2), pages 61-89.
    12. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. David D. Hale, 1986. "Analysis," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(5), pages 52-56, November.
    14. Collins, Dw & Dent, Wt, 1984. "A Comparison Of Alternative Testing Methodologies Used In Capital-Market Research," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 48-84.
    15. Loughran, Tim & Ritter, Jay R, 1996. "Long-Term Market Overreaction: The Effect of Low-Priced Stocks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(5), pages 1959-1970, December.
    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. Kenneth A. Froot & Paul G. J. O'Connell, 1999. "The Pricing of U.S. Catastrophe Reinsurance," NBER Chapters, in: The Financing of Catastrophe Risk, pages 195-232, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Luigi Guiso & Tullio Jappelli, 1998. "Background Uncertainty and the Demand for Insurance Against Insurable Risks," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 23(1), pages 7-27, June.
    3. Yu, Chih-Ping, 2015. "Financial policies on firm performance: The U.S. insurance industry before and after the global financial crisis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 391-402.

    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. Thakor, Anjan V., 1993. "Information, Investment Horizon, and Price Reactions," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 459-482, December.
    2. Robert A. Korajczyk & Deborah Lucas & Robert L. McDonald, 1990. "Understanding Stock Price Behavior around the Time of Equity Issues," NBER Chapters, in: Asymmetric Information, Corporate Finance, and Investment, pages 257-278, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Stein, Jeremy C., 2003. "Agency, information and corporate investment," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 111-165, Elsevier.
    4. Lan, Yueqin & Huang, Yong & Yan, Chao, 2021. "Investor sentiment and stock price: Empirical evidence from Chinese SEOs," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 703-714.
    5. Bayless, Mark & Jay, Nancy R., 2001. "An examination of the performance of SEOs using a comparison period approach6," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 359-386.
    6. Prasad, Mason & Bakry, Walid & Varua, Maria Estela, 2021. "Abnormal volatility in seasoned equity offerings during economic disruptions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C).
    7. Loncarski, I. & Ter Horst, J.R. & Veld, C.H., 2006. "Why do Companies issue Convertible Bond Loans? An Empirical Analysis for the Canadian Market," Discussion Paper 2006-65, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    8. Kooyul Jung & Yong-Cheol Kim & Rene M. Stulz, 1994. "Investment Opportunities, Managerial Decisions, and the Security Issue Decision," NBER Working Papers 4907, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Yang Ni & Shasha Guo & David Giles, 2010. "Capital structures in an emerging market: a duration analysis of the time interval between IPO and SEO in China," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(19), pages 1531-1545.
    10. Jung, Kooyul & Yong-Cheol, Kim & Stulz, Rene M., 1996. "Timing, investment opportunities, managerial discretion, and the security issue decision," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 159-185, October.
    11. Dong, Qi & Slovin, Myron B. & Sushka, Marie E., 2020. "Private equity exits after IPOs," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    12. Autore, Don M. & Kumar, Raman & Shome, Dilip K., 2008. "The revival of shelf-registered corporate equity offerings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 32-50, February.
    13. He Xiao & Jianqun Xi, 2021. "The impact of COVID‐19 on seasoned equity offering: Evidence from China," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 539-572, October.
    14. Ruben Arrondo & Silvia Gomez-Anson, 2003. "A study of Spanish firms' security issue decision under asymmetric information and agency costs," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(10), pages 771-782.
    15. Konan Chan & Nandkumar Nayar & Ajai K. Singh & Wen Yu, 2018. "Information Content of Offer Date Revelations: A Fresh Look at Seasoned Equity Offerings," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 47(3), pages 519-552, September.
    16. Hasan, M. Emrul & Klein, Peter, 2022. "The capital gain lock-in effect and seasoned equity offerings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    17. Scott Besley & Ninon Kohers & Tanja Steigner, 2007. "Private placements of common equity and the industry rival response," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(7), pages 559-568.
    18. Marsden, Alastair, 2000. "Shareholder wealth effects of rights issues: Evidence from the New Zealand capital market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 8(3-4), pages 419-442, July.
    19. Stein, Jeremy C., 1992. "Convertible bonds as backdoor equity financing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 3-21, August.
    20. (Grace) Qing Hao, 2014. "Institutional Shareholder Investment Horizons and Seasoned Equity Offerings," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 43(1), pages 87-111, March.

    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:nbr:nberwo:5229. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.