Credit quality and technical efficiency in banking

We estimate banks’ technical efficiency using directional distance functions, a generalization of the radial distance functions that allow us to credit banks for their efforts to increase outputs and decrease resource use and bad loans. We find that once bad loans are considered, banks’ efficiency increases significantly. In addition, omitting bad loans may result in the underestimation of the performance of good credit quality banks. These results suggest that a significant aspect of banking production, credit quality, needs to be considered when evaluating banks’ performances for regulatory purposes.     

Loan officer gender and loan repayment performance. Evidence from greenfield microfinance institutions in Cameroon1

We explore whether loan officer gender affects loan repayment performance in Cameroonian microfinance institutions (MFIs). After controlling for demand-side factors (borrower characteristics), lending methodology, loan contract terms, year, and industry fixed effects, we apply a pooled probit model to a unique loan-level dataset including more than 7000 loans approved between 2007 and 2012 by two Cameroonian commercial MFIs. We find that loans granted and monitored by male loan officers perform better than those granted by female officers and that loans approved under joint liability contracts and monitored by male loan officers are less likely to fall into arrears. Our findings also show that the performance advantage of male loan officers over female officers is confirmed only during bad times. Compared to female loan officers, male loan officers seem to intensify their monitoring efforts during a crisis period. The results are robust after controlling for selection bias and are less sensitive to a change in the loan repayment performance measurement.     

Publicly-funded R&D programs and survival of patents

I apply a survival model to a detailed data set of Swedish patents to estimate how different financing factors affect the likelihood of patent renewal. Since the owners know more about the patents than potential external financiers, there is a problem of asymmetric information. To overcome this, Sweden has for a long time relied on government support rather than Private Venture Capital (PVC). In the empirical analysis, two kinds of government loans are unbundled. The empirical results show that patents which have received soft government loans in the R&D-phase have a higher probability of expiring than patents without such financing. But patents that have received more market-oriented government loans during the commercialization phase are renewed for as long as other commercialized patents. This finding suggests that rather than bad choices of projects, it is the nature of the contract terms that explains the low renewal of some patents with government financing.     

Enterprise restructuring and bank competition in transition economies

We investigate how bank competition affects the efficiency of credit allocation, using a model of spatial competition. Our analysis shows that bad loans are more likely the larger the number of banks competing for customers. We study further how many banks will be active if market entry is not regulated. Free entry can induce too much entry and thus too many bad loans compared to the social optimum. Finally we analyse how bank competition affects the restructuring efforts of firms. We find that restructuring has positive externalities which give rise to multiple equilibria, with either much or little restructuring activity.
JEL classification: D43, G21, G34, L13, P31, P34.     

Financial institutions and the financial crisis in East Asia

This paper investigates institutional reasons for the soft-budget constraint problem; and how the soft-budget constraint problem creates conditions which may result in a financial crisis. As a consequence of soft-budget constraints, bad projects do not stop; bad loans accumulate; and banks and depositors do not receive bad news on time. Poorly informed depositors are then likely to herd to overinvest when there is no bankruptcy (`frenzy'); and they are likely to herd to panic when bankruptcy occurs (`crash'), which may be the result of excessive bad loans that are also a consequence of soft-budget constraints. In contrast, under hard-budget constraints information is disclosed quickly regarding liquidation. Better-informed investors are then less likely to herd wrongly.     

公共管理新视角:化解和防范村级不良债务

村级债务形成的根源在于传统的行政管理模式。目前村级不良债务化解已经进入攻坚阶段,村本级经济组织有所作为的空间有限,镇级及其以上级政府扮演着重要角色。如何借鉴和运用新公共管理思想来防范新的不良债务,成为完善乡村治理、建设社会主义新农村的重要步骤。     

银行关系、政治关联与上市公司银行贷款的可获得性——基于我国上市公司的实证分析

以2001—2011年我国2373家上市公司为研究样本,检验了政治关联和银行关系对其银行贷款可获得性的影响。研究结果显示:对于所有的上市企业而言,政治关联和银行关系均有助于增强其银行贷款的可获得性,但同时具有两种关系反而不利于企业获得银行贷款;对于国有企业而言,建立政治关联或银行关系均有利于其获得长期贷款,但对短期贷款的获得没有显著影响;对于民营企业而言,政治关联有利于其获得长期借款,银行关系能显著增强其获得短期贷款的能力。     

Regional bank efficiency and its effect on regional growth in “normal” and “bad” times

The financial crisis affected regions in Europe in a different magnitude. This is why we examine whether regions which incorporate banks with a higher intermediation quality grow faster in “normal” times and are more resilient in “bad” ones. For this purpose, we measure the intermediation quality of a bank by estimating its profit and cost efficiency while taking the changing banking environment after the financial crisis into account. Next, we aggregate the efficiencies of all banks within a NUTS 2 region to obtain a regional proxy for financial quality in twelve European countries. Our results show that relatively more profit efficient banks foster growth in their region. The link between financial quality and growth is valid in “normal” and in “bad” times. These results provide evidence to the importance of swiftly restoring bank profitability in euro area crisis countries through addressing high non-performing loans ratios and decisive actions on bank recapitalization.     

Bad loans,soft budget constraints and the political economy of financial market reform in transition economies

Financial market imperfections and especially the bad debt problem are among the most important factors impeding economic restructuring in transition economies. This paper analyses the implications of non-performing loans for the lending policy of banks and for the ensuing allocation of credit. It is shown that a lending bias exists in favour of old debtors, which not only impedes structural change but may also counteract policies intended to harden budget constraints and to promote restructuring. The paper also discusses from a political economy perspective, why despite these negative implications financial market reforms were not pursued more forcefully in most countries.     

The problem of bad loans and enterprise indebtedness in Bulgaria

Conclusions The problem of bad enterprise and bank debts has developed into one of the most acute economic problems in PETs. The general delay in implementing comprehensive policy measures to combat this issue as well as mismanagement contributed to the snow-balling of bad loans. In the case of Bulgaria this led to a major financial crisis and the authorities had to undertake a large-scale rescue operation.The experience of the past three years or so indicates that there are no ideal definitive solutions to the bad-loan problem. All bad-loan management options discussed in the literature and experimented with in PETs have serious drawbacks and their inherent cost is usually quite high. So the bad-loan problem has turned into one of the many dilemmas that economic policy makers of the PETs have to face up to.The Bulgarian approach to the bad loans issue builds on ideas that have been debated in the literature and adds some new and original aspects. It is an attempt to link the process of cleaning up the bad loans to the recapitalization of commercial banks and to the process of privatizing SOEs. In this respect it can be regarded as an element of a broader policy aimed at speeding-up the process of economic transformation of the country. At the same time, the Bulgarian approach has a number of weak features that may have undesirable consequences.     

银行监管中的最优市场约束研究

基于社会利润最大化的视角,本文研究了银行监管中的最优市场约束问题.研究发现:在银行监管中实施最优的市场约束不仅可以提高银行监管帕累托效率,而且可以给社会带来最大的利润;最优市场约束水平受到银行"额外价值",无市场约束时贷款失败的概率、贷款成功的收益、市场约束的成本弹性等因素的影响,且与这些因素呈正相关;最优市场约束水平对银行"额外价值"、贷款成功的收益这两个因素的变化敏感性较强,对无市场约束时贷款失败的概率的变化敏感性较弱,对市场约束的成本弹性的敏感性呈现出由强变弱的趋势.     

中国国有银行的资本金谜团

本文旨在考察中国国有银行资本金谜团的由来 ,并为破解该谜团提供一种可能的视角。本文的讨论表明 ,国有银行之所以能在真实资本极少得到补充且不良贷款比率居高不下的情况下保持稳定 ,是因为国家与居民在中国特殊的改革背景下建立起了一种奇妙的资本联盟。由于在这种联盟中 ,国家以声誉入股且具有不可分性 ,因此 ,中国国有银行改革的可行方式是谋求改变资产结构 ,而不是试图重组资本结构。     

经营困境、政治关系与银行贷款差异——基于持续经营不确定上市公司的经验证据

笔者以2002年~2005年获得非标审计意见上市公司为样本,以上市公司各年度银行贷款占资产总额比例以及贷款的自然对数作为银行贷款决策的替代变量,考察持续经营存在重大不确定对银行贷款决策的影响。多元回归分析发现,民营上市公司在持续经营不确定情况下,银行贷款决策更加严格,而国有上市公司没有因此受到明显影响,但持续经营不确定的国有上市公司债务违约现象比该类民营上市公司更严重。这说明政治关系、政府干预影响了银行向国有上市公司的贷款决策。     

DOES EDUCATION LOAN DEBT INFLUENCE HOUSEHOLD FINANCIAL DISTRESS? AN ASSESSMENT USING THE 2007–2009 SURVEY OF CONSUMER FINANCES PANEL

Families with student loans in 2007 have higher levels of financial distress than families without such loans, and these families also transitioned to financial distress at higher rates during the early stages of the Great Recession. This correlation persists once we control for a host of other demographic, work‐status, and household balance sheet measures. Families with an average level of student loans were 3.1 percentage points more likely to be 60 days late paying bills and 3 percentage points more likely to be denied credit. Families with other types of consumer debt were no more or less likely to be financially distressed. (JEL D14, H81, I22)     

金融腐败:非规范融资行为的交易特征和体制动因

本文以改革进程中的非规范融资交易为研究对象 ,通过银行 -借款企业动态博弈和经验研究 ,归纳如下主要结论 :第一 ,在金融交易中 ,金融机构的腐败体现为利用资金配置权进行的两类寻租行为 ;第二 ,银行的寻租程度取决于改革进程中中央银行和财政对银行的转移支付和内控制度建设的相对力度比较 ,因而遏制融资腐败的方法是严格转移支付纪律 ,加强内控制度 ;第三 ,企业借款行为是在自筹资金和银行借款间进行的相对成本比较 ,企业被动选择行贿 (交租 ) ,因而其真实融资成本远远高于名义法定金融机构贷款利率 ;第四 ,由于存在转移支付机制 ,企业与银行的非规范金融交易的实质是对中央银行和财政转移支付的分割 ;第五 ,根据以上结论 ,民间借贷与正规金融价格实际是均衡的 ,不能简单定义民间借贷是高利贷 ,如果如此定义 ,则正规金融也同样具备高利贷特征。     

机构投资者持股和企业银行借款关系研究

近年来,机构投资者在中国资本市场蓬勃发展。通过分析机构投资者持股变化对公司治理的影响,可以发现机构投资者持股和企业新增银行借款比例呈倒U型关系:机构投资者持股比例的增加有助于企业获得银行借款,但当机构投资者持股达到一定比例后,机构投资者持股的增加又会抑制企业银行借款的增加。机构投资者持股对于企业获取银行借款的影响依赖于持股比例的变化。     

A Theory of Conflicts of Interest in Banking Relationships

Abstract

This paper highlights a dark side of banking relationships by elucidating the conditions under which a pre-existing relationship between a lending bank and a borrower can be detrimental to positive valuation effects of loan announcements. The effect of a pre-existing relationship is more likely to be negative when the pre-existing loans are large and firms' screening costs are low. A theoretical model shows that loan announcement's positive effect on borrowers' value due to the standard information advantage can be more than offset by the bank's conflict of interest when the bank's asset quality reputation is poor, i.e. when the probability of the bank holding a bad loan is large.     

Cash flow vs. collateral‐based credit

We study factors affecting micro, small and medium‐sized enterprises (MSMEs) receiving loans and the effect of these loans on MSMEs performance. We study two types of loans – a new type based on cash flows and a traditional‐style loan based on collateral. We use unique surveys of MSMEs from Bulgaria, Georgia, Russia and Ukraine. We find that MSMEs receiving a cash flow or collateral loan in the past are more likely to receive the same type of loan (and larger sized) in the future and that cash flow loans may be the preferred form of credit. Both types of loans are related positively to most performance indicators, enabling the MSMEs for instance to be more profitable and expand production. The cash flow loans also appear to be particularly attractive credit delivery schemes for micro and small enterprises. Finally, the effects of the smallest loans are often negative, suggesting that the minimum loan size is an important policy issue.     

中国商业银行成本效率实证研究

基于随机前沿法原理,利用超越对数成本函数模型,本文评估了中国14家主要商业银行在1998—2003年间的成本效率情况,并按考虑贷款产出质量的2003年成本效率情况对各银行排序。实证研究结论为(1)中国商业银行总体的成本效率并不很差;(2)国有商业银行成本效率处于上升趋势,股份制商业银行则保持波动攀升趋势;(3)贷款产出质量对中国商业银行的成本效率有明显的负面影响,在考虑产出质量时,国有商业银行成本效率明显落后于股份制商业银行。     

Fixed versus variable rate loans under regret aversion

This paper examines the optimal mix of fixed and variable rate loans of a competitive bank facing funding cost uncertainty, where the bank is not only risk averse but also regret averse. Regret aversion is characterized by a utility function that includes disutility from having chosen ex-post suboptimal alternatives. We show that a negative spread between fixed and variable rate loans is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the dominance of variable rate loans over fixed rate loans. If the bank optimally extends both fixed and variable rate loans, the total amount of loans depends neither on the bank's regret aversion nor on the funding cost uncertainty. The bank, however, optimally lends less should it be forced to assume the entire funding cost uncertainty by exclusively extending fixed rate loans. Finally, using a two-state example, we show that the bank optimally extends more (less) fixed rate loans than in the case of pure risk aversion if the high (low) marginal cost of funds is more likely to prevail. Regret aversion as such plays a crucial role in determining the bank's optimal choice between fixed and variable rate loans.