Economic, Demographic, and Institutional Determinants of Life Insurance Consumption across countries
Life insurance has become an increasingly important part of the financial sector over the past 40 years, providing a range of financial services for consumers and becoming a major source of investment in the capital market. But what drives the larg...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC: World Bank
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2003/01/17741877/economic-demographic-institutional-determinants-life-insurance-consumption-across-countries http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17169 |
| Summary: | Life insurance has become an
increasingly important part of the financial sector over the
past 40 years, providing a range of financial services for
consumers and becoming a major source of investment in the
capital market. But what drives the large variation in life
insurance consumption across countries remains unclear.
Using a panel with data aggregated at different frequencies
for 68 economies in 1961-2000, this article finds that
economic indicators such as inflation, income per capita,
and banking sector development and religious and
institutional indicators are the most robust predictors of
the use of life insurance. Education, life expectancy, the
young dependency ratio, and the size of the social security
system appear to have no robust association with life
insurance consumption. The results highlight the importance
of price stability and banking sector development in fully
realizing the savings and investment functions of life
insurance in an economy. |
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