Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/177835 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
SAFE Working Paper No. 204
Publisher: 
Goethe University Frankfurt, SAFE - Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe, Frankfurt a. M.
Abstract: 
This paper investigates the effect of the conventional and unconventional (e.g. Quantitative Easing - QE) monetary policy intervention on the insurance industry. We first analyze the impact on the stock performances of 166 (re)insurers from the last QE programme launched by the European Central Bank (ECB) by constructing an event study around the announcement date. Then we enlarge the scope by looking at the monetary policy surprise effects on the same sample of (re)insurers over a timeframe of 12 years, also extending the analysis to the Credit Default Swaps (CDS) market. In the second part of the paper by building a set of balance sheet-based indices, we identify the characteristics of (re)insurers that determine sensitivity to monetary policy actions. Our evidences suggest that a single intervention extrapolated from the comprehensive strategy cannot be utilized to estimate the effect of monetary policy intervention on the market. With respect to the impact of monetary policies, we show how the effect of interventions changes over time. Expansionary monetary policy interventions, when generating an instantaneous reduction of interest rates, generated movement in stock prices in the same direction till September 2010. This effect turned positive during the European sovereign debt crisis. However, the effect faded away in 2014-2015. The pattern is confirmed by the impact on the CDS market. With regard to the determinants of these effects, our analysis suggests that sensitivity is mainly driven by asset allocation and in particular by exposure to fixed income assets.
Subjects: 
event study
monetary policy surprise
unconventional monetary policy
conventional monetary policy
insurance industry
JEL: 
E44
E52
G14
G22
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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