“Swimming Against the Current” of Demutualizations in the 1990s and 2000s: The Case of the Private Statutory Pension Insurance Sector in Finland

  • Antti Talonen University of Helsinki, Finland
  • Jukka Mähönen University of Helsinki, Finland
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18543/dec.2889
Keywords: mutual insurance, pension insurance, co-operatives, demutualization

Abstract

The global insurance industry of the 1990s and 2000s witnessed a significant wave of demutualizations often regarded as a world-wide phenomenon. In this article, we describe the case of the Finnish private statutory pension insurance sector and the reasons why it eventually “swam against the current” by explicitly deciding to emphasize mutuals —that still today account for 96% of the particular sector in Finland and has ensured that the almost 150 billion euros of pension assets has stayed in control and in use of the Finnish people, organizations and entrepreneurs. As an empirical dataset, we analyze two interviews of high-level experts who participated in the working group drafting the guidelines for the Finnish Act on Pension Insurance Companies.

Received: 28 April 2023 
Accepted: 20 December 2023

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Author Biography

Jukka Mähönen, University of Helsinki, Finland

Professor of Cooperative Law at the University of Helsinki Faculty of Law and a Professor of Law at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law. He is an principal investigator in Academy of Finland project Shaping, fixing and making markets via IPR: regulating sustainable innovation ecosystems (SHARE), leader of the University of Oslo research group Futuring Sustainable Nordic Business Models and deputy head of the University of Oslo research group Sustainability Law. He is also a work package leader in a Horizon Europe project Towards a New Zero Food Waste Mindset Based on Holistic Assessment (ToNoWaste). He holds LL.M. (Berkeley), M.Sc. (Econ.) (Turku), LL.Lic. (Turku), and LL.D. (Turku) degrees. Before coming to Oslo and Helsinki, he was a Professor of Civil Law and Dean at the University of Turku. In Helsinki he teaches cooperative law, corporate sustainability, law and economics and private global governance, and in Oslo law and economics and company law. His research interests are in company and cooperative law, securities law, accounting and auditing law, tax law and economic analysis of law. Recently he has worked with accounting and auditing, institutional investors, and sustainability. He is also looking for possibilities of new sustainable business models.

Published
2024-01-30
How to Cite
Talonen, Antti, and Jukka Mähönen. 2024. “‘Swimming Against the Current’ of Demutualizations in the 1990s and 2000s: The Case of the Private Statutory Pension Insurance Sector in Finland”. Deusto Estudios Cooperativos, no. 23 (January), 145-63. https://doi.org/10.18543/dec.2889.
Issue
No. 23 (2023): Cooperatives in Finland
Section
Articles

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