Information Spillovers, Margins, Scale and Scope: With an Application to Canadian Life Insurance
构建了寿险服务生产模型，分析定价能力及规模与多样性带来的成本优势，并应用于加拿大寿险公司。研究发现利润空间来自营销活动的信息溢出，规模优势小但多样性优势显著。
This paper develops a model of the production of life insurance services. The focus is on price setting ability and the cost advantages from size and diversity. The model characterizes insurers decisions on the face value and number of policies and the number of insurance lines. The model is applied to Canadian life insurance firms. Price-cost margins average from 13% to 40%. These margins emanate from information spillovers generated by marketing activities. Cost advantages due to size are small, but are substantial from diversity. Returns to scale average from 1.13 to 1.40, while returns to scope average from 70% to 100%.