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Does the insurance sector really matter for economic growth? Evidence from Central and Eastern European countries

    Yilmaz Bayar   Affiliation
    ; Marius Dan Gavriletea   Affiliation
    ; Dan Constantin Danuletiu   Affiliation

Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of insurance sector development on economic growth based on a sample that includes 14 Central and Eastern European (CEE) post-transition countries for a period of 19 years, from 1998 to 2016. Considering the presence of cross-section dependence and multiple structural breaks, recently developed panel econometric techniques were employed and led to the following conclusions: (1) life insurance has no significant effect on economic growth in both panel and individual countries, (2) non-life insurance positively affects economic growth in both panel and individual countries, (3) Dumitrescu and Hurlin causality test indicates a unidirectional causality running from economic growth to both life and non-life insurance and infers the absence of causal connection between life and non-life insurance and economic growth.

Keyword : insurance sector, life insurance penetration, non-life insurance penetration, economic growth, Central and Eastern Europe, multiple structural breaks, panel cointegration, causality

How to Cite
Bayar, Y., Dan Gavriletea, M., & Danuletiu, D. C. (2021). Does the insurance sector really matter for economic growth? Evidence from Central and Eastern European countries. Journal of Business Economics and Management, 22(3), 695-713. https://doi.org/10.3846/jbem.2021.14287
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Apr 1, 2021
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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