The Austrian insurance industry: A structure, conduct and performance analysis

摘要: Abstract: There exist a vast number of studies on the banking industry. However, insurance industry remains relatively unexplored. Increasingly, Austrian institutions are becoming important as financial intermediaries in domestic market, and - based proximity advantage also Central Eastern European markets. This paper applies structure, conduct performance (SCP) approach to sample 52 firms. The main finding is that standard SCP hypothesis highly concentrated markets, which create incentives engage collusive behaviour turn leads higher profit rates, cannot be supported by industry.;