Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Moore School of Business

Sub-Department

Business Administration

First Advisor

Greg Niehaus

Abstract

dissertation investigates relationships among financial institutions. I examine relationships from three different perspectives: relationships among affiliated banks and life insurers, correlated trading among life insurers, and relationships between insurers and bond dealers in the over-the-counter markets. The primary purpose of my research is to examine the benefits and drawbacks of relationships among financial institutions. The main findings are as follows. First, life insurers with bank affiliates had higher growth rates relative to other life insurers during the 2008 financial crisis. However, these Bank-Life Financial Holding Companies performed worse than Non-Bank-Life Financial Holding Companies during the same period. It indicates that the cross-selling effect is not large enough to increase firm’s performance. Second, U.S. life insurers’ investment decisions in corporate bonds are correlated across companies. However, the evidence in this dissertation is mixed as to whether insurers’ investment behavior has the potential to disrupt financial markets. Little evidence shows that this herding pushes prices away from fundamental values. Third, we find that there is variation in the impact of trading relationships on execution costs. The variation is related to the variation in a customer’s market power in the dealer relationship. In addition, the outsourcing of investment services to an affiliate of a dealer help customers with the weak market power to decrease bond execution costs. These findings of three essays add to the financial institution and relationship literature.

Rights

© 2017, Chia-Chun Chiang

Download

Share

COinS