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Luisa Anderloni - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • bank affiliation influence on life insurers performance before and after the financial crisis
    Social Science Research Network, 2016
    Co-Authors: Lucia Spotorno, Ornella Moro, Luisa Anderloni
    Abstract:

    The article analyses the link between Italian life insurers’ profitability and bank affiliation. It also examines the influence that the differences in product mix and Distribution Costs displayed by bank affiliated versus traditional insurers has on results, and the changes that the big financial crisis caused in the previously established correlations. Our results highlights that, until 2007 neither Distribution efficiency nor being bank affiliated significantly affected performance. Product mix composition did not influence results as well. After the start of the big financial crisis though, both Distribution efficiency and bank affiliation prove to be crucial in fostering performance. Moreover, adverse economic conditions make product mix revision crucial in order to adapt to changes in demand and sustain profitability.

  • bank affiliation influence on life insurers performance before and after the financial crisis
    Journal of Economics & Management University of Economics in Katowice, 2016
    Co-Authors: Lucia Spotorno, Ornella Moro, Luisa Anderloni
    Abstract:

    IntroductionBoth in the US and in most European countries actuarial risk coverage is an exclusive domain of insurance companies. However, while the law forbids banks to perform this activity, it allows them to sell insurance products. Therefore, starting from the 1970s, European banks carved a role in the insurance business by distributing policies through their branch networks and creating the "bancassurance" phenomenon [Hoschka 1994].As documented in the following section, at least before the big financial crisis, European banks operating in the life insurance business through controlled insurance companies favoured the offer of "financial" policies - i.e. insurance products with a limited actuarial risk protection content and whose main objective is producing returns by investing premiums either in index linked bonds or in mutual funds. On the other hand, players that were not bank affiliated competed in the traditional area of demographic and financial risk insurance, mostly selling "with profit policies".The positive trend in financial markets' prices, lasting from the beginning of the 2000s until 2007, benefited bank affiliated insurers because it magnified the returns to holders of the products they marketed. New customers were enticed by the results coming from financial policies, enabling insurers to pocket part of considerable management fees [Fiordelisi & Ricci 2012]. On top of that, bank affiliated insurers could take advantage of lower Distribution Costs, due to the availability of their banking partners' Distribution networks.The financial crisis changed all this, making products sold by non-bank affiliated insurers attractive again. Savers' increased risk aversion shifted demand towards safer investing, giving traditional insurers the chance to fight back banks controlled ones by offering products earning nice profits for them while being easy to sell by their agents.Has traditional insurers' performance benefited from this change, in spite of higher Distribution Costs? More in general, how relevant is being "bank affiliated" for succeeding in the life insurance business?In this article, we try to answer the above questions by analysing the performances of Italian life insurers from 2003 to 2013. We examine the impact that bank affiliation, product mix composition and Distribution Costs had on their economic results and the change that the big financial crisis determined on the influence that the above variables have on profitability.To our knowledge, this is the first systematic attempt at examining all the above factors' contribution to life insurers' performance. Moreover, we consid- ered their interaction with macroeconomic conditions, adding value and generalization extent to our analysis.In order to shed light on the above topic, Italy is an interesting case from various points of view. First, banks accession to the life insurance sector through the acquisition of ownership stakes in established players has been particularly swift due to the virtual absence of cooperative insurers. The "bancassurance" phenomenon had been developing for a number of years before 2000, allowing us to analyse it when the presence of banks in the life insurance market was full-fledged.Second, during the timeframe of our analysis, Italy never exited the great crisis that hit Europe in 2008. Except for 2010, from 2008 to 2013 Italian GDP growth was zero or negative. While this is unfortunate for obvious reasons, it means that both bank affiliated and independent insurers had to adapt to economic recession because it became soon clear that it was not a temporary occurrence. We could therefore observe how insurance companies reacted to it.Third, the Italian life insurance market is the fourth in Europe for volume of premiums written, making it meritorious of an analysis of its own.Limiting our analysis to one country allowed us to be sure that the same legal and accounting framework applies to the entire sample, avoiding data manipulation that could bias our results. …

Sven Werner - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • district heating and cooling
    2013
    Co-Authors: Sven Werner
    Abstract:

    District heating and cooling systems move heat in urban areas. Heat and cold are generated in central supply units by heat or cold recycling, renewables, or by direct heat or cold generation. The heat and cold demands should be concentrated in order to keep low Distribution Costs. District heating and cooling systems substitute ordinary primary energy supply for heating and cooling. Therefore, district heating and cooling increase both energy efficiency and decarbonisation in the global energy system. However, district heating and cooling is a highly underestimated energy efficiency and decarbonisation method in contemporary energy policy, both nationally and internationally.

  • district heating in sequential energy supply
    Applied Energy, 2012
    Co-Authors: Urban Persson, Sven Werner
    Abstract:

    Increased recovery of excess heat from thermal power generation and industrial processes has great potential to reduce primary energy demands in EU27. In this study, current excess heat utilisation levels by means of district heat Distribution are assessed and expressed by concepts such as recovery efficiency, heat recovery rate, and heat utilisation rate. For two chosen excess heat activities, current average EU27 heat recovery levels are compared to currently best Member State practices, whereby future potentials of European excess heat recovery and utilisation are estimated. The principle of sequential energy supply is elaborated to capture the conceptual idea of excess heat recovery in district heating systems as a structural and organisational energy efficiency measure. The general conditions discussed concerning expansion of heat recovery into district heating systems include infrastructure investments in district heating networks, collaboration agreements, maintained value chains, policy support, world market energy prices, allocation of synergy benefits, and local initiatives. The main conclusion from this study is that a future fourfold increase of current EU27 excess heat utilisation by means of district heat Distribution to residential and service sectors is conceived as plausible if applying best Member State practice. This estimation is higher than the threefold increase with respect to direct feasible Distribution Costs estimated by the same authors in a previous study. Hence, no direct barriers appear with respect to available heat sources or feasible Distribution Costs for expansion of district heating within EU27.

  • profitability of sparse district heating
    Applied Energy, 2008
    Co-Authors: Charlotte Reidhav, Sven Werner
    Abstract:

    The expansion of district heating into areas of low heat densities (heat sparse areas) constitutes a challenge due to the higher Distribution Costs. The profitability of sparse district heating has been analysed from actual investments in 74 areas with 3227 one-family houses connected to district heating between 2000 and 2004 in Goteborg, Sweden. The profitability was estimated from a probable price model, a typical marginal heat generation cost, and the investments from the actual connections made. The analysis identified factors as the linear heat density and heat sold per house explaining the main variations in profitability. The profitability analysis was concluded with a competition analysis. The main conclusion is that sparse district heating is possible when reaching low investment Costs for the local Distribution network and low marginal Costs for the heat generation. In Sweden, the general competitiveness of sparse district heating is facilitated by the high consumption taxes for fuel oil, natural gas, and electricity. Hence, it should be more difficult to introduce sparse district heating in other countries with low energy taxes.

Lucia Spotorno - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • bank affiliation influence on life insurers performance before and after the financial crisis
    Social Science Research Network, 2016
    Co-Authors: Lucia Spotorno, Ornella Moro, Luisa Anderloni
    Abstract:

    The article analyses the link between Italian life insurers’ profitability and bank affiliation. It also examines the influence that the differences in product mix and Distribution Costs displayed by bank affiliated versus traditional insurers has on results, and the changes that the big financial crisis caused in the previously established correlations. Our results highlights that, until 2007 neither Distribution efficiency nor being bank affiliated significantly affected performance. Product mix composition did not influence results as well. After the start of the big financial crisis though, both Distribution efficiency and bank affiliation prove to be crucial in fostering performance. Moreover, adverse economic conditions make product mix revision crucial in order to adapt to changes in demand and sustain profitability.

  • bank affiliation influence on life insurers performance before and after the financial crisis
    Journal of Economics & Management University of Economics in Katowice, 2016
    Co-Authors: Lucia Spotorno, Ornella Moro, Luisa Anderloni
    Abstract:

    IntroductionBoth in the US and in most European countries actuarial risk coverage is an exclusive domain of insurance companies. However, while the law forbids banks to perform this activity, it allows them to sell insurance products. Therefore, starting from the 1970s, European banks carved a role in the insurance business by distributing policies through their branch networks and creating the "bancassurance" phenomenon [Hoschka 1994].As documented in the following section, at least before the big financial crisis, European banks operating in the life insurance business through controlled insurance companies favoured the offer of "financial" policies - i.e. insurance products with a limited actuarial risk protection content and whose main objective is producing returns by investing premiums either in index linked bonds or in mutual funds. On the other hand, players that were not bank affiliated competed in the traditional area of demographic and financial risk insurance, mostly selling "with profit policies".The positive trend in financial markets' prices, lasting from the beginning of the 2000s until 2007, benefited bank affiliated insurers because it magnified the returns to holders of the products they marketed. New customers were enticed by the results coming from financial policies, enabling insurers to pocket part of considerable management fees [Fiordelisi & Ricci 2012]. On top of that, bank affiliated insurers could take advantage of lower Distribution Costs, due to the availability of their banking partners' Distribution networks.The financial crisis changed all this, making products sold by non-bank affiliated insurers attractive again. Savers' increased risk aversion shifted demand towards safer investing, giving traditional insurers the chance to fight back banks controlled ones by offering products earning nice profits for them while being easy to sell by their agents.Has traditional insurers' performance benefited from this change, in spite of higher Distribution Costs? More in general, how relevant is being "bank affiliated" for succeeding in the life insurance business?In this article, we try to answer the above questions by analysing the performances of Italian life insurers from 2003 to 2013. We examine the impact that bank affiliation, product mix composition and Distribution Costs had on their economic results and the change that the big financial crisis determined on the influence that the above variables have on profitability.To our knowledge, this is the first systematic attempt at examining all the above factors' contribution to life insurers' performance. Moreover, we consid- ered their interaction with macroeconomic conditions, adding value and generalization extent to our analysis.In order to shed light on the above topic, Italy is an interesting case from various points of view. First, banks accession to the life insurance sector through the acquisition of ownership stakes in established players has been particularly swift due to the virtual absence of cooperative insurers. The "bancassurance" phenomenon had been developing for a number of years before 2000, allowing us to analyse it when the presence of banks in the life insurance market was full-fledged.Second, during the timeframe of our analysis, Italy never exited the great crisis that hit Europe in 2008. Except for 2010, from 2008 to 2013 Italian GDP growth was zero or negative. While this is unfortunate for obvious reasons, it means that both bank affiliated and independent insurers had to adapt to economic recession because it became soon clear that it was not a temporary occurrence. We could therefore observe how insurance companies reacted to it.Third, the Italian life insurance market is the fourth in Europe for volume of premiums written, making it meritorious of an analysis of its own.Limiting our analysis to one country allowed us to be sure that the same legal and accounting framework applies to the entire sample, avoiding data manipulation that could bias our results. …

Jack G.a.j. Van Der Vorst - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • modeling an inventory routing problem for perishable products with environmental considerations
    International Journal of Production Economics, 2015
    Co-Authors: Mehmet Soysal, Rene Haijema, J M Bloemhof, Jack G.a.j. Van Der Vorst
    Abstract:

    The transition to sustainable food supply chain management has brought new key logistical aims such as reducing food waste and environmental impacts of operations in the supply chain besides the traditional cost minimization objective. Traditional assumptions of constant Distribution Costs between nodes, unlimited product shelf life and deterministic demand used in the Inventory Routing Problem (IRP) literature restrict the usage of the proposed models in current food logistics systems. From this point of view, our interest in this study is to enhance the traditional models for the IRP to make them more useful for the decision makers in food logistics management. Therefore, we present a multi-period IRP model that includes truck load dependent (and thus route dependent) Distribution Costs for a comprehensive evaluation of CO2 emission and fuel consumption, perishability, and a service level constraint for meeting uncertain demand. A case study on the fresh tomato Distribution operations of a supermarket chain shows the applicability of the model to a real-life problem. Several variations of the model, each differing with respect to the considered aspects, are employed to present the benefits of including perishability and explicit fuel consumption concerns in the model. The results suggest that the proposed integrated model can achieve significant savings in total cost while satisfying the service level requirements and thus offers better support to decision makers.

  • Modeling an Inventory Routing Problem for perishable products with environmental considerations and demand uncertainty
    International Journal of Production Economics, 2015
    Co-Authors: Mehmet Soysal, Rene Haijema, Jacqueline M. Bloemhof-ruwaard, Jack G.a.j. Van Der Vorst
    Abstract:

    The transition to sustainable food supply chain management has brought new key logistical aims such as reducing food waste and environmental impacts of operations in the supply chain besides the traditional cost minimization objective. Traditional assumptions of constant Distribution Costs between nodes, unlimited product shelf life and deterministic demand used in the Inventory Routing Problem (IRP) literature restrict the usage of the proposed models in current food logistics systems. From this point of view, our interest in this study is to enhance the traditional models for the IRP to make them more useful for the decision makers in food logistics management. Therefore, we present a multi-period IRP model that includes truck load dependent (and thus route dependent) Distribution Costs for a comprehensive evaluation of CO2 emission and fuel consumption, perishability, and a service level constraint for meeting uncertain demand. A case study on the fresh tomato Distribution operations of a supermarket chain shows the applicability of the model to a real-life problem. Several variations of the model, each differing with respect to the considered aspects, are employed to present the benefits of including perishability and explicit fuel consumption concerns in the model. The results suggest that the proposed integrated model can achieve significant savings in total cost while satisfying the service level requirements and thus offers better support to decision makers.

Edward Sweeney - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • decision support system for vendor managed inventory supply chain a case study
    International Journal of Production Research, 2015
    Co-Authors: Atul B Borade, Edward Sweeney
    Abstract:

    Vendor-managed inventory (VMI) is a widely used collaborative inventory management policy in which manufacturers manages the inventory of retailers and takes responsibility for making decisions related to the timing and extent of inventory replenishment. VMI partnerships help organisations to reduce demand variability, inventory holding and Distribution Costs. This study provides empirical evidence that significant economic benefits can be achieved with the use of a genetic algorithm (GA)-based decision support system (DSS) in a VMI supply chain. A two-stage serial supply chain in which retailers and their supplier are operating VMI in an uncertain demand environment is studied. Performance was measured in terms of cost, profit, stockouts and service levels. The results generated from GA-based model were compared to traditional alternatives. The study found that the GA-based approach outperformed traditional methods and its use can be economically justified in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).