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Insurance companies’ trading behaviour during the European sovereign debt crisis: Flight home or flight to quality?

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  • Bijlsma, Melle
  • Vermeulen, Robert

Abstract

This paper empirically investigates if insurers exhibited a flight home or flight to quality during the European sovereign debt crisis and other stages of the financial crisis. Our dataset consists of over sixty insurance companies, for which we separately observe trading behaviour and portfolio revaluations at a quarterly frequency during 2006–2013. When explaining insurers’ trading behaviour we explicitly control for country risk and momentum strategies. The results show that insurers exhibited a flight to quality during the European sovereign debt crisis, while we find no evidence of a flight home. The flight to quality was not present before the European sovereign debt crisis and disappeared after ECB chairman Draghi's speech mid-2012. Interestingly, supervisory data suggests that the observed flight to quality was not driven by regulatory solvency constraints.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:finsta:v:27:y:2016:i:c:p:137-154
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfs.2016.11.001
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    6. van der Veer, Koen & Levels, Anouk & Lambert, Claudia & Weistroffer, Christian & Chaudron, Raymond & van Stralen, René de Sousa & Molestina Vivar, Luis, 2017. "Developing macroprudential policy for alternative investment funds," Occasional Paper Series 202, European Central Bank.
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    8. Giofré, Maela, 2022. "Foreign investment in times of COVID-19: How strong is the flight to advanced economies?," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    9. 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).
    10. 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.
    11. David Aikman & Daniel Beale & Adam Brinley-Codd & Anne-Caroline Hüser & Giovanni Covi & Caterina Lepore, 2023. "Macro-Prudential Stress Test Models: A Survey," IMF Working Papers 2023/173, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Martijn A. Boermans & Robert Vermeulen, 2020. "International investment positions revisited: Investor heterogeneity and individual security characteristics," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 466-496, May.
    13. I. Koetsier & J.A. Bikker, 2017. "Herding behaviour of Dutch pension funds in sovereign bond investments," Working Papers 17-15, Utrecht School of Economics.
    14. Paola De Vincentiis & Eleonora Isaia & Paola Zocchi, 2018. "Italian Pension Funds Struggling with Domestic Sovereign Risk," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(2), pages 1-1, January.
    15. Elisa Luciano & Jean Charles Rochet, 2021. "Risk Appetite Fluctuations in the Insurance Industry," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 666 JEL Classification: G, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    International portfolio choice; Insurance companies; Sovereign debt crisis; Flight to quality; Flight home;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies

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