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Roger Roy Gregory, was the former president of the NCCU Alumni Association and later served as the director of alumni relations at North Carolina Central University in Durham.

This paper explores agency problems associated with mutual and joint stock organizational forms. It examines whether the independent mode of distribution acts as a governance factor that reduces principal-agent and principal-principal costs. By analyzing a 1990-1997 panel of life insurance companies this paper provides evidence that mutuals have higher principal-agent costs, but lower principal-principal costs, compared with stocks. Independent distribution mitigates both agency problems by reducing managerial expenses while safeguarding interests of policy holders. These relationships are positively moderated by product complexity and free cash flow. This is consistent with the assumption that companies that use independent agents exhibit lower levels of manager and shareholder opportunism. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

To the Editor: The Obama administration is proposing a major overhaul of the U.S. health care system, and the insurance industry is poised to play a major role in the process. Insurance firms, like any business, are driven by profit, and this fact compromises any health care plan that includes them. In case there is any doubt that insurers place profit above health, consider their investments in tobacco. The U.S.-based Prudential Financial provides life insurance and long-term disability coverage and is also a major owner of tobacco stocks, with total tobacco holdings of $264.3 million (Table 1). The U.K.-based Prudential . . .

Documents relating to the Kellogg lithographic firm of Hartford, Connecticut, provide insights into how nineteenth-century lithographers distributed and sold the thousands of popular prints that they produced. Letters at the Connecticut Historical Society and copies of other letters still in private hands document the early years of the firm when traveling salesmen sold prints door to door. A salesman’s sample book from the late 1860s reflects a shift in focus from pictorial prints to corporate job printing, which allowed the firm to prosper into the twentieth century.

Asa T. Spaulding Jr. was the former president of Barber-Scotia College in Concord, North Carolina, university lecturer, and served as a member of the University of North Carolina Board of Governors.

An especially evocative passage imagines law clerk Ezra Thayer's early morning walk through a bustling downtown Washington to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court (p. 170). Three years earlier, at the National Archives branch in Kansas City, she had discovered in the Supreme Court files for Hillmon a trove of seven photographs: two studio portraits of Frederick Walters, three of John Hillmon, and-most importantly-two (front and profile) of the corpse briefly displayed at Lawrence in 1879.

Northwestern Mutual and MassMutual have released their numbers.

Funds managed or advised by Blackstone Group LP's Tactical Opportunities business, Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. have agreed to acquire Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s entire shareholding in Rothesay Life Plc. Sky News recently reported that Goldman was close to inking a deal to sell its 33% stake in the U.K.-based insurer to the three shareholders that made an initial investment in the company in December 2013. Under the announced transaction,GIC, MassMutual and Blackstone will each acquire a portion of Goldman's shares such that GIC and Blackstone will hold equal largest stakes and MassMutual will increase its stake substantially.

Funds managed or advised by Blackstone Group LP's Tactical Opportunities business, Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. have agreed to acquire Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s entire shareholding in Rothesay Life Plc. Sky News recently reported that Goldman was close to inking a deal to sell its 33% stake in the U.K.-based insurer to the three shareholders that made an initial investment in the company in December 2013. Under the announced transaction,GIC, MassMutual and Blackstone will each acquire a portion of Goldman's shares such that GIC and Blackstone will hold equal largest stakes and MassMutual will increase its stake substantially.

Early American life insurers found themselves facing the problem of asymmetric information, as they needed to rely on applicants themselves to provide truthful, complete answers to a standard set of questions. In an attempt to repersonalize the relationship between their boards of directors and the individual applicants, firms selected highly respected local citizens to act as their agents. These agents were expected to evaluate the appearance of candidates, unearth evidence of unhealthy family histories or questionable habits, and attest to the respectability of people writing testimonial letters on an applicant's behalf. In short, the initial purpose of the agency system was not to actively solicit customers, but rather to recreate the glass-bowl mentality associated with small towns or city neighborhoods.