{"title":"New evidence of moral hazard: Environmental liability insurance and firms' environmental performance","authors":"Shiyi Chen, Xiaoxiao Ding, Pingyi Lou, Hong Song","doi":"10.1111/jori.12380","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper provides novel evidence of the moral hazard problem in environmental insurance by investigating the effect of environmental liability insurance (ELI) on firms' environmental performance. Using the staggered adoption of ELI policies in China as a quasi-natural experiment, we employ a difference-in-differences setup based on a comprehensive firm-level data set. We find that the adoption of ELI policies significantly reduces firms' efforts in treating water pollution. The negative estimate indicates a moral hazard problem and is the opposite of the positive estimates found mainly in studies that focus on US firms. We further find that the negative effect is lessened for firms in strictly supervised regions and for firms with strong environmental awareness. This paper is one of the first to evaluate environmental insurance in developing economies and provides novel evidence on moral hazard in environmental liability insurance markets.</p>","PeriodicalId":51440,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Risk and Insurance","volume":"89 3","pages":"581-613"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"6","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Risk and Insurance","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jori.12380","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 6
Abstract
This paper provides novel evidence of the moral hazard problem in environmental insurance by investigating the effect of environmental liability insurance (ELI) on firms' environmental performance. Using the staggered adoption of ELI policies in China as a quasi-natural experiment, we employ a difference-in-differences setup based on a comprehensive firm-level data set. We find that the adoption of ELI policies significantly reduces firms' efforts in treating water pollution. The negative estimate indicates a moral hazard problem and is the opposite of the positive estimates found mainly in studies that focus on US firms. We further find that the negative effect is lessened for firms in strictly supervised regions and for firms with strong environmental awareness. This paper is one of the first to evaluate environmental insurance in developing economies and provides novel evidence on moral hazard in environmental liability insurance markets.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Risk and Insurance (JRI) is the premier outlet for theoretical and empirical research on the topics of insurance economics and risk management. Research in the JRI informs practice, policy-making, and regulation in insurance markets as well as corporate and household risk management. JRI is the flagship journal for the American Risk and Insurance Association, and is currently indexed by the American Economic Association’s Economic Literature Index, RePEc, the Social Sciences Citation Index, and others. Issues of the Journal of Risk and Insurance, from volume one to volume 82 (2015), are available online through JSTOR . Recent issues of JRI are available through Wiley Online Library. In addition to the research areas of traditional strength for the JRI, the editorial team highlights below specific areas for special focus in the near term, due to their current relevance for the field.