Hal S. Scott (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195169713
- eISBN:
- 9780199783717
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195169713.001.0001
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Financial Economics
This book is timely since the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision at the Bank for International Settlements is in the process of making major revisions in the capital rules for banks. It is ...
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This book is timely since the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision at the Bank for International Settlements is in the process of making major revisions in the capital rules for banks. It is important that capital adequacy regulation helps to achieve financial stability in the most efficient way. Capital adequacy rules have become a key tool to protect financial institutions. The research contained within the book covers some key issues at stake in the capital requirements for insurance and securities firms. The contributors are among the leading scholars in financial economics and law. Their contributions analyze the use of subordinated debt, internal models, and rating agencies in addition to examining the effect on capital of reinsurance, securitization, credit derivatives, and similar instruments.Less
This book is timely since the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision at the Bank for International Settlements is in the process of making major revisions in the capital rules for banks. It is important that capital adequacy regulation helps to achieve financial stability in the most efficient way. Capital adequacy rules have become a key tool to protect financial institutions. The research contained within the book covers some key issues at stake in the capital requirements for insurance and securities firms. The contributors are among the leading scholars in financial economics and law. Their contributions analyze the use of subordinated debt, internal models, and rating agencies in addition to examining the effect on capital of reinsurance, securitization, credit derivatives, and similar instruments.
Cheris Shun-ching Chan
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195394078
- eISBN:
- 9780199951154
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195394078.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Economic Sociology
Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the organizational strategies of insurance firms. Chapter 2 analyzes the disparity between transnational and domestic life insurance firms’ strategies. Insurance firms from ...
More
Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the organizational strategies of insurance firms. Chapter 2 analyzes the disparity between transnational and domestic life insurance firms’ strategies. Insurance firms from both camps faced a conflict between local preferences and profits when designing their products. However, they handled this conflict very differently. While transnational firms defined life insurance as modern risk management, and offered products for managing unexpected misfortunes; domestic firms defined life insurance as money management, and launched products for savings and investment purposes. The former adopted a profit-oriented model by attempting to change local preferences; whereas the latter took on a market-share approach by accommodating local preferences. Through a chronology of the ebbs and flows of the market’s development, this chapter demonstrates the tension between the local cultural logics and the profit-oriented institutional logic of life insurance. It documents the battle between the transnational and domestic players in the field, explaining how their battle is rooted in their different ways of handling cultural obstacles, and in their divergent institutional logics of operation.Less
Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the organizational strategies of insurance firms. Chapter 2 analyzes the disparity between transnational and domestic life insurance firms’ strategies. Insurance firms from both camps faced a conflict between local preferences and profits when designing their products. However, they handled this conflict very differently. While transnational firms defined life insurance as modern risk management, and offered products for managing unexpected misfortunes; domestic firms defined life insurance as money management, and launched products for savings and investment purposes. The former adopted a profit-oriented model by attempting to change local preferences; whereas the latter took on a market-share approach by accommodating local preferences. Through a chronology of the ebbs and flows of the market’s development, this chapter demonstrates the tension between the local cultural logics and the profit-oriented institutional logic of life insurance. It documents the battle between the transnational and domestic players in the field, explaining how their battle is rooted in their different ways of handling cultural obstacles, and in their divergent institutional logics of operation.
Cheris Shun-ching Chan
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195394078
- eISBN:
- 9780199951154
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195394078.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Economic Sociology
Based on an extensive ethnography of the emergence of commercial life insurance in China, this book examines how culture impacts economic practice. It details how a Chinese life insurance market is ...
More
Based on an extensive ethnography of the emergence of commercial life insurance in China, this book examines how culture impacts economic practice. It details how a Chinese life insurance market is created in the presence of an ingrained Chinese cultural taboo on the topic of death. It documents how transnational insurance firms, led by AIG’s subsidiary AIA, introduced commercial life insurance to Chinese urbanites, and how they were confronted with local resistance to the risk management concept of life insurance. It compares the organizational strategies of the transnational and the newly emerged domestic insurance firms, analyzing why they adopted disparate strategies to deal with the same local cultural resistance. It further compares the management styles of individual firms headed by executives of different origins, explaining why some were more effective in managing and motivating the local sales agents. It describes how sales agents mobilized various cultural tool-kits to prompt sales, and how potential buyers negotiated with life insurers regarding the meaning of life insurance, and the kinds of products they preferred. The book argues that these dynamics and micro-politics produced a Chinese life insurance market with a specific developmental trajectory. The market first emerged with a money management, instead of risk management, character. As the local cultural tool-kit enabled insurance practitioners to circumvent local resistance to achieve sales, local cultural values shaped the characteristics of the emergent market. This analysis sheds light on the dynamics through which modern capitalist enterprises are diffused to regions with different cultural traditions.Less
Based on an extensive ethnography of the emergence of commercial life insurance in China, this book examines how culture impacts economic practice. It details how a Chinese life insurance market is created in the presence of an ingrained Chinese cultural taboo on the topic of death. It documents how transnational insurance firms, led by AIG’s subsidiary AIA, introduced commercial life insurance to Chinese urbanites, and how they were confronted with local resistance to the risk management concept of life insurance. It compares the organizational strategies of the transnational and the newly emerged domestic insurance firms, analyzing why they adopted disparate strategies to deal with the same local cultural resistance. It further compares the management styles of individual firms headed by executives of different origins, explaining why some were more effective in managing and motivating the local sales agents. It describes how sales agents mobilized various cultural tool-kits to prompt sales, and how potential buyers negotiated with life insurers regarding the meaning of life insurance, and the kinds of products they preferred. The book argues that these dynamics and micro-politics produced a Chinese life insurance market with a specific developmental trajectory. The market first emerged with a money management, instead of risk management, character. As the local cultural tool-kit enabled insurance practitioners to circumvent local resistance to achieve sales, local cultural values shaped the characteristics of the emergent market. This analysis sheds light on the dynamics through which modern capitalist enterprises are diffused to regions with different cultural traditions.
Cheris Shun-ching Chan
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195394078
- eISBN:
- 9780199951154
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195394078.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Economic Sociology
This chapter provides a context for the ethnographic stories that unfold in subsequent chapters. It begins with a brief historical background of commercial life insurance in China, dating back to the ...
More
This chapter provides a context for the ethnographic stories that unfold in subsequent chapters. It begins with a brief historical background of commercial life insurance in China, dating back to the early nineteenth century through the end of the Maoist regime. Then, it details the economic, institutional, and cultural conditions in urban China in the late 1980s to the 1990s, and assesses each of these conditions’ possible impacts on the development of commercial life insurance, both favourable and unfavourable. In particular, the chapter details how major cultural barriers to life insurance, including the Chinese cultural taboo on death, are rooted in Chinese philosophical and folk religious traditions. Finally, it relates these institutional and cultural conditions to the theoretical questions of the book. It presents the characteristics of the emergent Chinese market, namely its uneven growth pattern, the dominance of domestic insurers, and its disproportionate focus on money management, and argues that neither the cultural value nor the cultural tool-kit model alone is sufficient to explain these characteristics.Less
This chapter provides a context for the ethnographic stories that unfold in subsequent chapters. It begins with a brief historical background of commercial life insurance in China, dating back to the early nineteenth century through the end of the Maoist regime. Then, it details the economic, institutional, and cultural conditions in urban China in the late 1980s to the 1990s, and assesses each of these conditions’ possible impacts on the development of commercial life insurance, both favourable and unfavourable. In particular, the chapter details how major cultural barriers to life insurance, including the Chinese cultural taboo on death, are rooted in Chinese philosophical and folk religious traditions. Finally, it relates these institutional and cultural conditions to the theoretical questions of the book. It presents the characteristics of the emergent Chinese market, namely its uneven growth pattern, the dominance of domestic insurers, and its disproportionate focus on money management, and argues that neither the cultural value nor the cultural tool-kit model alone is sufficient to explain these characteristics.
