A case of the tortoise versus the hare? Deregulation process, timing, and firm performance in emerging markets

The objective of this paper is to examine the relationships between the pace of insurance industry deregulation, the time since the process of deregulation began, and insurance firm performance in emerging markets. Also examined are performance differences between foreign and local insurers. These relationships are examined across different country and regional contexts using a time-series cross-section data set including 383 companies in 31 emerging market countries between the years 1998 and 2003. Results of the analysis suggest that regional differences in the pace of deregulation are significantly related to firm performance. Specifically, firms located in countries that took a rapid approach to insurance deregulation had significantly lower performance than firms in countries where the process was slower and more deliberate. Further, the longer the time since insurance sector deregulation began, the lower the financial performance for all firms. Foreign firms did not have significantly higher performance than local insurers indicating that, at least in this sample and time period, foreign firms do not seem to have a competitive advantage over local firms post-deregulation.