October 6, 2008 at 4:45 p.m.
University Events Room
Glickman Family Library, 7th floor
Portland USM Campus
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Click below to view the video:
The U.S. has long been considered a highly litigious culture relative to much of the rest of the industrialized world. Prior research has focused on lawyer compensation and large general damage awards as factors explaining cross-national differences. Another possible reason for differences in litigation rates is the relative generosity of government social programs. Using a sample of 24 countries over a 12 year period, we test the relationship between the size of government social program payments and liability costs as measured by liability insurance premiums, and find a strong negative relationship, controlling for income, accident rates, and a variety of other factors. At a time when U.S. policymakers search for ways to reduce liability costs while leaders in many other countries contemplate reductions in government social programs, this relationship becomes more important and worth continued investigation.
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Professor Kerr received his Ph.D. in Actuarial Science, Risk Management and Insurance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has close to ten years of professional experience in the industry. He comes to USM from a faculty position at Ball State University in Indiana.
Professor Kerr's teaching interests are corporate risk management and insurance, health insurance, financial planning. He published articles in The Journal of Legal Studies, Risk Management and Insurance Review, Compensation & Benefits Review, and Risk Management. Current research interests include risk financing, insurance contracts, insurance claims process, financial planning.
Professor Kerr is co-authoring this research with Joan T. Schmit at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Yuluen Ma at Illinois State University.
The colloquium is sponsored by the L.L. Bean/Lee Surace Endowed Chair in Accounting.
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USM Professor Jeffrey Gramlich was appointed the first L.L. Bean/Lee Surace Chair in Accounting in the USM School of Business in 2003. His appointment was made possible by a $1 million gift from L.L. Bean, Inc., its board chair, Leon Gorman, his wife Lisa, Jim and Maureen Gorman, and Tom Gorman, who established the chair in memory of L.L. Bean CFO Lee Surace '73, '81, who died in March of 2001. Surace was chair of the USM School of Business' Advisory Council and was a frequent guest lecturer.
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