Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/128685 
Year of Publication: 
2000
Series/Report no.: 
WIFO Working Papers No. 131
Publisher: 
Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO), Vienna
Abstract: 
The Single Market Project of the European Commission was supposed to change the financial service industry markedly. We provide a first attempt to assess its consequences on the insurance industry in Germany, the largest insurance market within the European Union. For this purpose we apply a Data Envelopment Analysis on a panel of German insurance companies and compute efficiency scores for the years 1992 through 1996 as well as a Malmquist index for the productivity growth. The results indicate cost saving potentials and an increasing divergence between fully efficient firms and efficiency laggards. Measured scale economies imply an L-shaped average cost curve for the industry and thus low cost saving potential from further merging activities.
Subjects: 
European Integration
Single Market
Productivity growth
JEL: 
L50
G22
C14
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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