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Insurers’ investment behaviour and the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Fay, Constanze
  • Ghiselli, Angelica

Abstract

This research explores two aspects of European insurers’ investment behaviour related to crises. While they are often considered as financial market stabilisers and long-term investors, there is currently a lack of knowledge about insurers’ investment behaviour in crises under the regulatory Solvency II regime implemented in 2016. With assets of nearly €9 trillion and bond holdings of more than €3 trillion in Q2 2022, European insurers are important financial intermediaries and finance European economies. With an empirical study, we investigate their reaction to the asset price shock at the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the first quarter of 2020 and explore cyclical investment behaviour by replicating Timmer’s (2018) study with fixed effects panel regressions. We use a large cross-country dataset, with the novelty of exploiting cross-country heterogeneity for European countries with 458,758 security-level observations from 2017 to 2022. Overall, our findings are very relevant from a policy perspective as they suggest active and heterogeneous cyclical investment behaviour in the European insurance market with differences across issuer and holder countries of domicile. JEL Classification: G01, G11, G15, G22, G28

Suggested Citation

  • Fay, Constanze & Ghiselli, Angelica, 2023. "Insurers’ investment behaviour and the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic," ESRB Occasional Paper Series 22, European Systemic Risk Board.
    • Handle: RePEc:srk:srkops:202322
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timmer, Yannick, 2018. "Cyclical investment behavior across financial institutions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(2), pages 268-286.
    2. Kubitza, Christian, 2021. "Investor-driven corporate finance: Evidence from insurance markets," ICIR Working Paper Series 43/21, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR).
    3. Kraus, Alan & Litzenberger, Robert H, 1976. "Skewness Preference and the Valuation of Risk Assets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1085-1100, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cyclicality; Debt Capital Flows; Financial Stability; Insurance companies; Pandemic; Portfolio Allocation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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