SPATIAL CONVERGENCE PROCESSES ON THE EUROPEAN UNION'S LIFE INSURANCE MARKET

Starting from the idea that interactions exist in the European Union, we have implemented Spatial Econometrics methods to assess the occurrence of absolute, conditional or club beta-convergence on the EU life insurance market. The life insurance density was used as a proxy for the development of the life insurance market in our analysis for 27EU countries, during the period 2002 - 2014. The absolute beta-convergence was accepted by the spatial regression analysis. Spatial influences were accounted for by using the longitude and latitude as exogenous variables, together with the spatially lagged variable for the dependent. From all the economic, cultural and institutional determinants considered in our analysis, only the Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance index proved to he statistically significant. The positive correlation coefficient between this cultural dimension and the growth rate of life. insurance density in the European Union proves that countries with a higher level of uncertainty avoidance will experience higher growth rates.