Abstract: According to the SCP hypotheses of industrial economics, there is a causal relationship between China’s insurance market structure and market performance in theory. But the empirical study conducted with China’s economical and insurance data from 1981 to 2011 and the VAR model shows that the relationship between the two is not completely consistent with the SCP hypotheses. The decline of market concentration has little influence on market performance; on the contrary the lower market performance would hinder the optimizing of market structure to a certain extent. This is closely related with the historic background of China’s financially-supported special insurance system, the extensive mode of development and the imperfect insurance supervisory system. It is suggested that while optimizing the insurance market structure, the operating efficiency of the insurance companies should be improved.

Key words: market structure; market performance; SCP hypotheses; market concentration