The Bank of Japan's operating procedures and the identification of monetary policy shocks: A reexamination using the Bernanke–Mihov approach

This paper reexamines the operating procedures of the Bank of Japan (BOJ) using the structural VAR approach of Bernanke and Mihov [Measuring Monetary Policy, Quart. J. Econ. 113 (1998) 869–902]. This approach identifies the exogenous components of monetary policy by establishing equilibrium models of the reserve market. In this paper, two equilibrium models are presented: the Implicit Cost (IC) model and the Credit Rationing (CR) model. These particular models are distinguished by opposing views about the BOJ's discount-window borrowing policy. The IC model is characterized by the assumption that the BOJ endogenously accommodates the demand for discount-window borrowing by private banks, whereas the CR model assumes that the BOJ exogenously controls the level of discount-window lending. The results indicate that the CR model is superior to the IC model in describing the operating procedures used by the BOJ up to June 1995. J. Japanese Int. Economies 20 (3) (2006) 406–433.     

Quantitative easing and Japanese bank equity values

One of the primary motivations offered by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for its quantitative easing program—whereby it maintained a current account balance target in excess of required reserves, effectively pegging short-term interest rates at zero—was to maintain credit extension by the troubled Japanese financial sector. We conduct an event study concerning the anticipated impact of quantitative easing on the Japanese banking sector by examining the impact of the introduction and expansion of the policy on Japanese bank equity values. We find that excess returns of Japanese banks were greater when increases in the BOJ current account balance target were accompanied by “non-standard” expansionary policies, such as raising the ceiling on BOJ purchases of long-term Japanese government bonds. We also provide cross-sectional evidence that suggests that the market perceived that the quantitative easing program would disproportionately benefit financially weaker Japanese banks. J. Japanese Int. Economies 20 (4) (2006) 699–721.     

贷款技术、设立取址与村镇银行小微企业贷款

本文选取东中西部六个省份200家村镇银行作为研究样本,实证分析了村镇银行贷款技术、设立取址与小微企业贷款发放量之间的关系。研究结果表明：（1）经济发达地区村镇银行小微企业贷款发放量明显低于经济欠发达地区;（2）村镇银行在发放小微企业贷款时,更倾向于使用关系型贷款技术。随着地区金融基础设施的完善,村镇银行所使用的贷款技术中交易型贷款技术的比例逐渐增加,且小微企业贷款发放量也呈递增趋势;（3）当主发起人为农村金融机构时,村镇银行的小微企业贷款发放量明显高于主发起人为非农金融机构的村镇银行。因此,为了进一步缓解小微企业融资难,政府应当采取积极措施鼓励村镇银行更多的设立在能发挥其小微企业贷款比较优势的欠发达地区,尤其是当主发起人为农村金融机构时;同时,应当努力完善地区金融基础设施,以方便贷款技术的创新与应用。     

The effectiveness of bank recapitalization policies in Japan

This study examines the effectiveness of bank recapitalization policies in Japan. Based on a reading of the “business revitalization plan” submitted by banks requesting government funds, we identify four primary goals for the capital injection plan in Japan: (1) to increase the bank capital ratios; (2) to increase write-offs of non-performing loans; (3) to increase lending, in particular to small and medium enterprises, in order to avoid a “credit crunch”; (4) to encourage restructuring. Using a panel of individual bank data, we empirically estimate the effectiveness of the Japanese government policy of public fund injection in achieving the first three of these stated goals. Our empirical analysis reveals that, in general, the capital injections into the large internationally active banks were more effective than those into the smaller domestic banks in Japan. In addition, the second round capital injection, administered in 1998, was more effective than the first round, administered in 1997. The first capital injection in 1997 mostly served as a stop-gap measure to help the large international banks clear the 8% capital adequacy ratio (BIS ratio) required under the Basel Accord and did not make much contribution to the other policy objectives. The second round of capital injections in 1998 were more effective, boosting capital adequacy ratios for the domestic as well as international banks and supporting other policy objectives as well by stimulating banks to write off bad loans and increase domestic lending, in particular to small and medium enterprises.     

Monetary policy of the Bank of Japan—inflation target versus exchange rate target

This paper reviews the empirical evidence on the monetary policy of the Bank of Japan (BOJ). The main findings confirm [McKinnon, R., Ohno, K., Dollar and Yen, Resolving Economic Conflict between the United States and Japan. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, 1997] thesis that the BOJ has tried to stabilize exchange rate. The interest rate is counter-cyclical to the exchange rate and the coefficient of inflation, which is not weakly exogenous, is significantly smaller than 1. Impulse response analysis confirms the BOJ’s sensitivity not only to inflation and output gap but also to exchange rate. Finally, historical decomposition reveals a major role for exchange rate in explaining cyclical patterns of the interest rate, especially during the bubble period.     

Loan interest rate pass-through and changes after the financial crisis: Japan’s evidence

We estimate interest rate pass-through in the loan market using an individual bank-based panel dataset from Japan. Previous studies using data from European countries have presented a number of common findings, including that banks with a high proportion of relationship lending tend to set lower pass-through. In this respect, we have obtained similar results using a dataset for Japan going back to the early 2000s. We further examine the influence of borrowing firms’ balance sheet characteristics on loan interest rate pass-through, and find that these additional factors are also important determinants for pass-through dispersion. However, after the recent global financial crisis, even banks with a high proportion of relationship lending have largely lowered loan interest rates by raising pass-through, and pass-through has not necessarily been determined in accordance with borrowing firms’ balance sheet characteristics. These results differ from those of recent studies on European countries. Possible background factors explaining this change are that (i) pressure to lower loan interest rates has risen due to extensive monetary easing and greater lending competition among banks, while Japan’s banking system as a whole has maintained its resilience in the post-crisis period; (ii) demand for bank loans has increased substantially due to disruptions in the market for alternative funding sources, such as commercial paper and corporate bonds; and (iii) public measures to increase bank loans have been broadly introduced in Japan.     

The Performance of Development Banks: The Case of the Reconstruction Finance Bank

This paper analyzes the performance of the Reconstruction Finance Bank (RFB) in order to shed light on the role of development banks in fostering economic growth. The RFB played a large role in Japan′s transition from war-time command economy to a market economy in the early post-war period. We use individual firm level data on sales, profits, and loans from the RFB, and find that, initially, the RFB was making loans to firms with below-average performance. We then find that this was partly a result of political interventions into the loan policy of the RFB. In fact, we also find evidence of improvements in the performance of the RFB after its loan policy became more independent. Implications for developing economies are also discussed. J. Japan. Int. Econ., Dec. 1995, 9(4), pp. 486-504. Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 13, Japan.     

Dealing with the bad loans of the Chinese banks

Chinese banks suffer from serious financial fragility manifested by high proportions of nonperforming loans and low capital-adequacy ratios. A key policy introduced recently by the Chinese government to reduce financial risks is the establishment of four asset management companies (AMCs) for dealing with bad loans. Drawing on the experiences of the Resolution Trust Corporation in the United States and bank restructuring in the Central European transition economies, we argue that the original AMC design will not be successful in resolving the existing nonperforming loans, nor will it prevent the creation of new bad loans. We recommend a modification of the current proposal that redefines the relationships between the parent banks and the AMCs by transferring the deposits of problem enterprises along with their nonperforming loans from parent banks to AMCs.     

Factors affecting bank loan quality: a panel analysis of emerging markets

This study investigates the factors affecting the loan quality of banking sector in seventeen emerging and developing markets using quarterly panel dataset covering period of 2010–2019 and utilising feasible generalised least square methodology. Our empirical analysis suggests that inflation and lending rates negatively affect the banks’ loan quality measured by non-performing loans. On the contrary, economic growth and capital adequacy show a positive impact on banks’ loan quality. The inclusion of the ratio of net open position in foreign exchange to capital and its’ lagged values, as an additional factor, has marked out this research from other studies. Our results reveal that the ratio has a significant negative impact on loan quality in banking. This finding, as it was also seen in Asian crises of 1997, indicates that the higher the ratio net open position in foreign exchange to capital cause moral hazard problem leading to the higher non-performing loans in banking sectors.

     

Information contents of collateral under heterogeneous borrower qualities on the bank loans market in China

We analyze the risk of default and provision of collateral for bank loans made to firms of varied credit qualities using a unique dataset obtained from a major state-owned commercial bank in China. Both high and low quality borrowers provide collateral more often than medium quality debtors do. Using models that explicitly incorporate heterogeneous borrower qualities, we find a positive relation between collateralization and risk of default for loans issued to debtors with low credit ratings. In contrast, collateral provided by debtors with high credit ratings is negatively associated with the risk of default. These results suggest that low quality borrowers may be required to provide collateral at the bank's request to mitigate moral hazard problem. On the other hand, high quality borrowers may provide collateral willingly to signal quality in order to mitigate adverse selection problem when competing for getting access to bank loans. Our findings shed new lights on different information contents of collateral on the bank loans market of China, and have important implications for banks in screening, contracting and monitoring the risk of commercial loans for clients with diverse credit qualities.     

Debt disorganization in Japan

Business transactions shrank in the early 1990s in Japan, and banks rolled over significant amounts of non-performing loans to keep non-viable firms afloat. Why did firms became inactive even though banks continued providing loans? In order to solve this problem, we focus on the nature of debt contracts as a commitment device. By rolling over bad loans, the banks might have destroyed (unintentionally) the trustworthiness of the commitments of the debtors, thereby breeding distrust among firms. The rise of distrust could then have disorganized chains of productions.We conducted an empirical analysis to check this hypothesis. Our empirical results are supportive of this line of thinking, suggesting that the Japanese economy might have suffered from disorganization due to the rollover of bad debts.     

Some Evidence on the Relevance of Bank Behaviour for the Lending Channel in The Netherlands

This paper studies the behaviour of Dutch banks. We test the adjustment of banks' balance sheets in times of monetary policy changes during the period 1957–1991. As a reaction to a policy change, banks basically have two alternatives to adjust their net money creation: (1) sell securities in public capital markets, and/or issue long-term liabilities, and (2) change domestic loan supply. If banks opt for the latter a lending channel may be relevant, even in a small open economy with a fixed exchange rate and a high degree of international capital mobility. We test for the effectiveness of both indirect and direct instruments of monetary policy. It turns out that in case of changes in the official interest rate, the volume of bank loans is not affected and that banks display a kind of buffer-stock behaviour by diminishing their publicly traded assets. In situations with quantity restrictions on the growth of net money creation, however, the volume of loans is affected significantly when the quantity restriction is withdrawn thereby fulfilling a necessary condition for the bank lending channel to be effective.     

Monetary policy transmission through the bank lending channel in Thailand

This paper investigates the strength of the bank lending channel in the transmission of monetary policy in Thailand. Bank behavior is captured by quarterly balance sheet data for ten commercial banks of diverse size for the period 2007-2016. Based on a flexible form profit function, bank supply and demand equations are estimated that capture lending and funding choices. The estimation results are used to derive time-dependent supply and demand elasticities which are then combined with estimates of pass-through from the policy rate to retail rates to simulate the dynamic impact of a monetary tightening on bank portfolio allocations. Due to pass-through differentials among retail interest rates, an increase in the policy rate is shown to raise the cost of loan-production relative to the return on loans, thereby motivating banks to contract their lending. Small banks show a greater degree of loan contraction than large banks because large banks are better able to fund continued lending through debt issuance. Because the Thai economy relies heavily on bank loans, these findings suggest that the bank lending channel is an important conduit for the transmission of monetary policy in Thailand.     

Why do commercial banks hold government bonds? The case of Japan

We investigate the determinants of the demand for Japanese government bonds (JGBs) by commercial banks in Japan. In particular, by estimating portfolio equations for JGB demand and bank loans, based on a panel data set from the late 1990s to the 2000s, we rigorously test the popular assertion that the long stagnation of the real economy caused a shift in the portfolios of commercial banks from bank lending to JGBs. We find that the popular assertion is not empirically supported. Rather, the portfolio shift from loans to JGBs has been caused by a fall in the ratio of the loan rate to unit lending costs, or the bank’s price–cost margin for lending.     

Credit policy,real exchange rate volatility and moral hazard

We extend the well-developed theoretical literature on unconventional credit policy from a closed economy to a small open economy. Consistent with the literature, we find that credit policy has positive effects on output and consumption by raising investment demand. In terms of expanding output, it is more effective to extend government credit to banks than to the goods-producing sector because for each unit of credit supplied to banks, banks - through leverage - can supply greater than one unit of intermediation to firms. We find the welfare implications are ambiguous and depend on the type of policy chosen. A policy of providing funds to goods-producing firms tends to be welfare-improving because it dampens the responses of all variables after a negative shock, including the real exchange rate. However, providing government assistance to the banking sector may be a costly policy because it encourages greater risk-taking on part of banks, leading to higher bank leverage. All else equal, this increases the volatility of the economy, raising the variances of consumption and of the real exchange rate, which is welfare-deteriorating. We interpret this as indicative of the problem of moral hazard associated with a policy of providing support to failing banks.     

日本战争时期土地价格与银行贷款关系的实证分析

关于战争时期土地价格和银行贷款的关系，主要是以这一时期不动产担保抵押贷款作为两者联系的纽带．在20世纪20年代到30年代期间，日本不动产金融问题越加明显，土地价格下跌对银行贷款产生重要影响．分析显示土地价格变化方向和普通银行及储蓄银行贷款增减变化方向几乎相同．41个道府县的普通银行、储蓄银行贷款增长率与农耕土地价格增长率具有较强的相关性．表明由于战争时期土地价格的下跌，抑制了银行贷款．这一时期，随着借款者拥有的不动产之担保价值下降，使银行资产遭受损失，导致银行防范风险能力下降．     

Community Banks vs. Non-Community Banks: Where is the Advantage in Local Small Business Funding?

Recent literature questions the relative advantage of community banks vs. non-community banks in small business funding. Using the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s definition of a community bank, the study re-examines the role of community banks in providing funding to small businesses using the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) small business lending data over the period 2003 to 2016. The empirical results indicate that community banks are still providing 30 percent more small business funding than non-community banks, especially after the Great Recession. This role is even more important in those counties in non-metropolitan areas. In addition, the results indicate that in counties where community banks do not have offices, they provide 48 percent fewer loans compared to non-community banks in counties where they do not have offices, which suggests community banks still use physical offices to maintain their relationship lending advantage. Clearly, from a public policy standpoint, the results support the view that community banks are important because they continue to provide valuable services to small business firms throughout the country.

     

Contingent capital and bank risk‐taking among British banks before the First World War1

The recent financial turmoil highlights the incentive of highly leveraged financial institutions to take excessive risk, given the protection of limited liability. During the nineteenth and early twentieth century, many banks operated under liability rules which obligated shareholders to bear larger costs of bank insolvency in the form of contingent, or even unlimited, liability. This article examines the empirical relationship between the size of banks' contingent liability and their risk‐taking behaviour using data on British banks from 1878 to 1912. We find that banks with more contingent liability appear to have taken less risk. We also find evidence that the risk‐reducing effects of contingent liability were larger for banks with higher leverage, suggesting that contingent capital mitigated the moral hazard problem at banks.     

外汇管理局监管新政对商业银行的影响及对策探析

2013年5月,国家外汇管理局为了应对外汇储备迅速增长的压力,防范外汇收支风险,出台了加强外汇资金流入的四项管理措施。本文分析了外汇局新政对商业银行的影响,认为新政的推出会降低外汇存、贷款规模,增大银行外汇敞口规模和汇率风险,同时会造成境内对公外汇存贷款利率上升。在此基础上,本文提出了商业银行应对外汇局监管新政的具体对策。     

The new main bank system

We develop a main bank model where the main bank decides whether or not to raise additional funds from the capital market to continue to invest in a borrowing firm when nonmain banks withdraw funds. We show that the threat of withdrawal of nonmain banks is more likely to force the main bank to perform efficiently in handling troubled loans, thereby preventing problems with zombie firms, if the potential cash flow (liquidation value) of the firm decreases (increases) relative to the amount funded by nonmain banks. The theoretical results provide both efficiency evaluations for the renewal of the main bank relation in Japan after the end of the 1990s and empirical implications for the renewed main bank system.