The Cross‐Market Spillover of Economic Shocks through Multimarket Banks

This study investigates the mortgage lending of banks operating in multiple U.S. metropolitan areas during the housing market collapse of 2007–09. We show that multimarket banks reduced local portfolio lending in response to high overall mortgage delinquencies in their other markets, consistent with the view that local economic shocks can be transmitted to other regions through banks’ internal capital markets. This spillover was greatest when the bank lacked a branch presence and when the market was highly peripheral to the bank in terms of its total mortgage lending. These effects were not fully offset by securitization or other portfolio lenders.     

Mortgage Fund Flows, Capital Appreciation, and Real Estate Cycles

This paper provides strong evidence for a positive feedback loop between property prices and mortgage supply, using data from the U.S. commercial property and mortgage markets over the 1991 to 2011 period. The empirical analyses control for the endogeneity of property prices, mortgage flows, mortgage interest rates, and loan to value ratios, and provide two main findings. First, exogenous increases in mortgage supply, measured with the growth of the CMBS market, significantly reduce property cap rates. Second, volatility of past price changes and the “biggest loss” in property values in the past significantly affect mortgage supply. This positive feedback loop may be an important driving force for real estate cycles.     

美国应对金融危机的货币政策效果分析

美国爆发次贷危机以来,采用了一系列的政策手段,来减少危机对美国经济的影响,其中最主要、使用最频繁的政策手段就是降低利率和注资。本文通过货币金融学的经典理论对这两种政策手段的治理效果进行研究,分析政策传导途径中的问题和关键因素,解释了在短期内政策效果不明显以致危机继续蔓延的原因。     

Cash holdings and share repurchases: International evidence

In this study, we examine the patterns and determinants of share repurchases using firm-level data from seven major countries—Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S.—over the period 1998–2006. We find that while non-U.S. firms do not repurchase shares as much as U.S. firms do, both U.S. and non-U.S. firms display a common set of share repurchase behaviors. For example, across countries, firms use share repurchases as a flexible means of distributing cash. More importantly, large cash holdings are significantly associated with the amount of share repurchases in all countries. There is evidence that large cash holdings held by repurchasing firms represent excess cash. Firms tend to experience substantial increases in cash holdings prior to share repurchase as a result of reductions in capital expenditures. Overall, our evidence lends support to two hypotheses: (i) firms discharge excess capital to reduce agency conflicts and (ii) firms use repurchases to distribute temporary cash flows.     

An International Perspective for Mortgage Market Reform

The United States and certain European countries (e.g., Ireland and Spain) have recently experienced serious distress in their residential mortgage markets. Public policy has responded with interventions to limit the deadweight costs of mortgage foreclosures, but with limited success. There are also open questions with respect to long‐term reforms in mortgage market structures. In this paper, I make use of the important differences that exist between U.S. and European mortgage markets to help identify those aspects of residential mortgage markets that are most in need of reform.     

Regulatory Capital Arbitrage and the Potential Competitive Impact of Basel II in the Market for Residential Mortgages

U.S. banking regulators have proposed a bifurcated system of capital regulation where the largest, internationally active banking organizations would be subject to significantly more risk sensitive regulatory capital requirements than are currently in place, while most others would remain subject to the current rules. The proposed new capital regime has the potential to affect the competitive landscape among banking institutions, particularly in the area of residential mortgage lending. We analyze the potential competitive effects of the proposed, bifurcated regulatory capital system on competition in the residential mortgage market from the perspective of the theory of regulatory capital arbitrage. We then apply the theory and available evidence to perform some benchmark calculations that suggest a significant, potential shift of market share and income to the largest banking institutions in the mortgage market.

Housing,Illiquidity, and Wealth

This article develops a model of asset allocation relevant for the representative consumer. Consumption is composed of two items: housing, and other goods and services. The representative household's balance sheet consists largely of a house and a mortgage. Its income statement is dominated by labor earnings, constraining cash expenditures. Housing-market behavior thus underlies intertemporal wealth and consumption allocation. With a housing-dominated portfolio and a maximizing plan, a plausible bound on the intertemporal marginal rate of substitution in consumption can be estimated for a typical household. The model takes account of idiosyncratic characteristics of housing returns and finance. Underwriting standards oblige borrowers to secure mortgage debt with a housing asset and with cash flow, usually from labor income. Access to the mortgage market depends on the loan-to-value ratio, or leverage and debt size, and the debt-coverage ratio, or cash solvency. If there are seasonals or predictable patterns in house returns, their magnitude is amplified for the typical liquidity-constrained household. Empirical results for the aggregate U.S. market confirm predictability and serial correlation in house capital gains. There are seasonals in housing returns. While there is no January effect, above-average returns are obtained during the summer months.     

Hedge funds,CDOs and the financial crisis: An empirical investigation of the “Magnetar trade”

The so called Magnetar trade (a kind of capital structure arbitrage on the US housing market, using CDS and synthetic CDOs, and exploiting rating-dependent mispricing of risk) has gained a high publicity due to a Pulitzer Prize awarded media story from two journalists of ProPublica (an online news outlet). The story essentially claimed that the mortgage investment strategy of the hedge fund Magnetar during the period between 2006 and mid 2007 was based on a desire to construct CDO deals with riskier assets so that they could place bets that portions of their own deals would fail. This paper provides several pieces of evidence in line with the argument that tranches from Magnetar-sponsored CDOs present overly risky investments. However, investors and rating agencies appear to have adjusted their required spread levels and ratings to reflect this higher riskiness, at least to some extent.     

Borrower Self-Selection,Underwriting Costs,and Subprime Mortgage Credit Supply

In the U.S., households participate in two very different types of credit markets. Personal lending is characterized by continuous risk-based pricing in which lenders offer households a continuous distribution of borrowing possibilities based on estimates of their creditworthiness. This contrasts sharply with mortgage markets where lenders specialize in specific risk categories of borrowers and mortgage supply is stepwise linear. The contrast between continuous lending for personal loans and discrete lending by specialized lenders for mortgage credit has led to concerns regarding the efficiency and equity of mortgage lending. This paper sheds both theoretical and empirical light on the differences in the two credit markets. The theory section demonstrates why, in a perfectly competitive credit market where all lenders have the same underwriting technology, mortgage credit supply curves are stepwise linear and lenders specialize in prime or subprime lending. The empirical section then provides evidence that borrowers are being effectively sorted based on risk characteristics by the market.     

Mortgage Default during the U.S. Mortgage Crisis

Which theory can quantitatively explain the rise in mortgage defaults during the U.S. mortgage crisis? This paper finds that the double‐trigger hypothesis, which attributes mortgage default to the joint occurrence of negative equity and a life event such as unemployment, is consistent with the evidence. By contrast, a traditional frictionless default model strongly overpredicts the increase in default rates. This paper provides microfoundations for double‐trigger behavior in a model where unemployment causes liquidity problems for the borrower. This framework implies that mortgage crises may be mitigated at a lower cost by bailing out borrowers instead of lenders.     

Global Banks,Financial Shocks,and International Business Cycles: Evidence from an Estimated Model

This paper estimates a two‐country model with a global bank, using U.S. and euro area (EA) data. Empirically, a model version with a bank capital requirement outperforms a structure without such a constraint. A loan loss originating in one country triggers a global output reduction. Banking shocks matter more for EA macro variables than for U.S. real activity. Banking shocks account for about 2–5% of the unconditional variance of U.S. GDP and for 3–14% of the variance of EA GDP. During the 2007–09 recession, banking shocks accounted for about 15% of the fall in U.S. and EA GDP, and for more than a third of the fall in EA investment and employment.     

Federal Home Loan Bank Advances and Commercial Bank Portfolio Composition

Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) advances are a source of government‐sponsored liquidity intended to encourage housing finance, although “community financial institutions” may use such funds more generally. Because money is fungible, it is an empirical question as to how advances are actually employed. Using panel‐vector autoregression techniques, we estimate dynamic responses of U.S. commercial bank portfolios to: FHLB advance shocks, bank lending shocks, and macroeconomic shocks. We find that FHLB advances: (i) are used as a general source of liquidity by U.S. commercial banks of all sizes and (ii) dampen the sensitivity of mortgage lending to macroeconomic shocks at small banks.     

Prudential policies and their impact on credit in the United States

We analyze how two types of recently used prudential policies affected the supply of credit in the United States. First, we test whether the U.S. bank stress tests had any impact on the supply of mortgage credit. We find that initiation of the Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) stress tests in 2011 had a negative effect on the share of jumbo mortgage originations and approval rates at stress-tested banks, whereby banks with worse capital positions were impacted more negatively. Second, we analyze the impact of the 2013 Supervisory Guidance on Leveraged Lending and subsequent 2014 FAQ notice, which clarified expectations on the Guidance. We find that the institution-specific share of speculative-grade term-loan originations decreased notably at regulated banks after the FAQ notice, especially at banks with greater market share for such loans.     

利差、美元指数与跨境资本流动

一般认为跨境资本流动由利差决定,政策制定也强调利差对资本流动的指示意义。但本文发现,中国跨境资本流动历史上主要是由套汇而非套息资本决定,且套汇的显著指标是多边美元指数(DXY)而非人民币兑美元双边汇率,我们把这一现象称之为“中国的跨境资本流动之谜”。我们提出,汇率影响大于利率且多边汇率影响大于双边汇率的原因在于人民币兑美元双边汇率历史上波动幅度较小,及时和充分反映中美基本面的分化还不够。美元指数是市场指标,能够预示人民币兑美元双边汇率的走势,进而驱动资本流动。进一步研究发现,由于中国经济的外溢效应,中美经济基本面的分化不仅决定中美利差,还在很大程度上驱动美欧、美日经济基本面的分化,进而略有时滞地驱动美元指数。因此,中美利差在统计意义上是美元指数的同步甚至略微领先的指标,从这个意义上讲,政策制定仍要关注利差。随着人民币汇率弹性增强,中美利差和美元指数对中国跨境资本流动的解释力都会边际减弱。     

Geographic Deregulation and Competition in the U.S. Banking Industry

We examine the effects of geographic deregulation on state‐level competition in U.S. banking markets over the period 1976‐2005. The empirical results confirm that the U.S. banks in general operated under monopolistic competition during the period examined. After partitioning the sample based on bank size we find that the market competition for large banks in Delaware, Oregon, and Rhode Island can be characterized as monopolistic while small banks in Arizona and Massachusetts seem to have operated under the conditions of perfect competition. The removal of geographic restrictions appears to have very limited and non‐uniform effect on state‐level competitive conduct. There is some evidence that the U.S. banking industry might have actually experienced a less competitive behavior in recent years due to increased market power of larger banks.     

Cross-country effects of regulatory capital arbitrage

One reason for the recent asset price bubbles in many developed countries could be regulatory capital arbitrage. Regulatory and legal changes can help traditional banks to move their assets off their balance sheets into the lightly regulated shadows and thus enable regulatory arbitrage through the securitized sector. This paper adopts a global vector autoregression (GVAR) methodology to assess the effects of regulatory capital arbitrage on equity prices, house prices and economic activity across 11 OECD countries/regions. A counterfactual experiment disentangles the effects of regulatory arbitrage following a change in the net capital rule for investment banks in April 2004 and the adoption of the Basel II Accord in June 2004. The results provide evidence for the existence of an international finance multiplier, with about half of the countries overshooting U.S. impulse responses. The counterfactual shows that regulatory arbitrage via the U.S. securitized sector may enhance the cross-country reallocation of capital from housing markets towards equity markets.     

How bank capital buffers vary across countries: The influence of cost of deposits,market power and bank regulation

This paper analyzes the bank and country determinants of capital buffers using a panel data of 1337 banks in 70 countries between 1992 and 2002. After controlling for adjustment costs and the endogeneity of explanatory variables, the results show that capital buffers are positively related to the cost of deposits and bank market power, although the relations vary across countries depending on regulation, supervision, and institutions. Their impact is the result of two generally opposing effects: restrictions on bank activities and official supervision reduce the incentives to hold capital buffers by weakening market discipline, but at the same time they promote higher capital buffers by increasing market power. Institutional quality has the two opposite effects. Better accounting disclosure and less generous deposit insurance, however, have a clear positive effect on capital buffers by both strengthening market discipline and making charter value better able to reduce risk-taking incentives.     

Foreign cultures, Sarbanes–Oxley Act and cross-delisting

Using a sample of foreign firms listed in U.S. and delisting shares over the period 2000 and 2010, this paper studies the impact of Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) on the cross-delisting behavior of foreign firms based on the firm characteristics, legal tradition, overall culture and degree of individualism of the country of domicile. Pre-SOX, the propensity to delist is lower for firms from countries with cultural similarities to the U.S. and higher for firms from individualistic societies. Post-SOX these trends are reversed. Consistent with the existing research we find that the delisting decision of foreign firms cross-listed in the U.S. is based on the potential gains from listing based on the growth opportunities, length of presence in the U.S. and legal regulations of the country of domicile. Out findings provide evidence of the cultural factors that impact the competitiveness of U.S. capital markets.     

经济开放进程中金融危机冲击比较研究

亚洲金融危机和美国次贷危机对中国经济产生了明显的影响,但在经济开放进程中这两次危机冲击特点和结果均有所不同。本文对开放进程中金融危机向国内传导的渠道进行分析,利用指标对比分析法、干扰模型、脉冲响应以及方差分解技术分析比较了两次金融危机对我国冲击的不同影响机制。研究结论表明,在经济开放进程中,美国次贷危机对国内经济的冲击要远超于亚洲金融危机;在资本项目没有完全开放条件下,国际贸易渠道越来越成为国际金融危机冲击向国内传导的重要渠道;尽管经济开放增加了金融风险,但良好的制度设计和金融风险管理手段的加强,使金融危机通过金融渠道传导而产生的冲击波有所降低。     

通货膨胀、住房所有者资本成本与住房需求——中国35个大中城市面板数据的实证分析

通过对我国35个大中城市的实证研究表明,通货膨胀将降低购房需求。这是因为前期住房所有权成本的增加和收入约束的共同作用使得通货膨胀对住房需求产生了不利影响。进一步对住房所有权成本的主要构成成分进行分析,构成住房所有权成本的资产升值和还款负担对住房需求的影响力存在差异,由治理通货膨胀引起的加息对住房需求带来负面影响要大于资产升值的积极效应,从而印证了在以个人住房贷款为购房资金主要来源的条件下,通货膨胀会降低住房的有效需求,对房地产市场产生抑制作用。