Mortgage‐backed Securitization and SME Lending During the Financial and Economic Crisis: Evidence from the Italian Cooperative Banking System

I investigate the determinants of the securitization activities of Italian cooperative banks during the financial and economic crisis (2007–2014) and the impact of securitization on the supply of loans to SMEs. The less deposit‐funded, less profitable and less capitalized cooperative banks are, the more likely they are to securitize and the more likely it is that they will securitize to a larger extent. Furthermore, I find that securitization has not directly affected the supply of new SME loans. However, there is strong evidence of a risk‐rebalancing effect of securitization on the balance sheet, especially in the period 2010–2014.     

The varying shadow of China's banking system

The rapid rise of shadow banking activities in China since 2009 has attracted a great deal of attention in both academia and policy circles. Most existing studies and commentary on China's shadow banking have treated it as a recent phenomenon that appeared after the Global Financial Crisis and China's response to it. In this paper, I argue that shadow banking is not a new phenomenon; it has always been a part of China's financial system since the 1980s, and arose from the need to get around various lending restrictions imposed by the central government on banks. I also emphasize that there are two types of shadow banking activities, those initiated by banks and those initiated by local governments or state-owned enterprises. I provide evidence suggesting that the shadow banking activities initiated by banks prior to 1996 helped directing credits to the more productive non-state sector and were efficiency enhancing. In recent years, however, I find that the shadow banking loans have a positive effect on real estate investments only, and their effects on investments by private firms outside the real estate sector have been negative.     

金融压力、所有制结构与银行风险承担——基于中国影子银行活动的实证研究*

2008年金融危机之后，监测与防范系统性金融风险、维护金融稳定成为各国监管机构的工作重点。本文构建了一个反映我国系统性金融风险的中国金融压力指数（FSIC）。基于此，本文研究不同所有制结构的商业银行将如何调整影子银行业务以应对系统性金融风险。实证结果表明，当金融压力上升时，相较于国有银行，非国有银行的风险承担水平显著上升。进一步研究发现，这一差异与两类银行对影子银行这一风险业务的调整有关。当金融压力上升时，国有银行会显著减少影子银行业务，而非国有银行的影子银行业务不会减少。本文提出了国有银行的双重职能这一观点来解释实证研究的发现。本文的研究结论对于指导我国金融市场化改革和防范系统性金融风险具有重要启示。     

论国有商业银行不良资产证券化技术的运用和推广

不良资产证券化是一种已经被国际经验证明的大规模处置不良资产的技术和手段。商业银行通过实施资产证券化能够将其不良资产以"真实出售"的方式转移到资产负债表外,使其风险加权资产减少,从而在不增加资本的情况下提高资本充足率。在中国,实施不良资产证券化还有助于国有商业银行提高自身的综合经营能力和积累市场化资本运作经验。本文正是从这一角度对不良资产证券化的技术要领进行了深入的探讨,力图从证券化产品的角度分析影响不良资产证券化的主要因素以及如何在不同市场条件下,运用和推广不良资产证券化的核心技术即不良资产证券化交易结构的选择和设计。     

Overcapacities in banking: Measurement,trends and determinants

Global banks face profitability challenges since the global financial crisis. Besides cyclical factors, structural features such as overcapacities have been identified as root causes. While policymakers agree on the need for bank consolidation, there is less consensus on the definition and measurement of overcapacities in banking. This paper contributes by conceptualising and formalising the different dimensions of overcapacities in banking and by constructing a novel measure thereof. In addition, it empirically tests the main determinants of overcapacities in banking from 2006 to 2017 and assesses their relative importance. The results indicate that non-bank competition, the interest rate environment and bank business models are the most important driving factors of banking sector overcapacities. This is because shadow banks, benefitting from regulatory arbitrage, have altered banks’ capacity needs, low rates compressed margins and increased pressure to improve cost efficiencies, and retail-oriented business models have operated extensive branch networks entailing heavy fixed costs.     

Inside Shadow Banking in China: Credit Driven Growth vs. Financial Stability

Shadow banking has been growing rapidly in China since the 2008 global financial crisis. Shadow banking has also played an increasing role in supplying credit. I investigate the development of the shadow banking sector, and assess its impacts on financial stability and economic growth in China. I argue that, due to the loose regulations and institutional characteristics of the shadow banks, these banks tend to adopt business practices that elevate institutional risks. At the systemic level, shadow banks have contributed to credit expansion and credit-driven growth. However, such growth entails significant financial risks and renders the macro-economy financially fragile. I conclude with a discussion of imminent fullblown financial crisis, calling for policy actions.     

当前中国银行业面临的风险分析与判断

本文借鉴银行危机发生机理,对比分析了当前我国经济运行状态和银行风险因素,对当前中国银行业面临的风险程度进行了深入分析判断。本文认为,中国未来一段时间爆发系统性银行危机的可能性不大,但当前确实存在一些深度的风险因素,需要中国银行业引起重视与关注并采取措施积极应对,并针对性的提出了一些措施建议。     

Banking reforms,performance and risk in China

We investigate the impact of the banking reform started from 2005 on ownership structures in China on commercial banks’ profitability, efficiency and risk over the period 2000–2012, providing comprehensive evidence on the impact of banking reform in China. We find that banks on average tend to have higher profitability, lower risk and lower efficiency after the reforms, and the results are robust with our difference-in-difference approach. Our results also show that the Big 5 state-owned banks (SOCB) underperform banks with other types of ownership when risk is measured by non-performing loans (NPLs) over the entire study period but tend to have fewer NPLs than other banks during the post-reform period. Our results provide some supporting evidence on the ongoing banking reforms in China, suggesting that attracting strategic foreign investors and listing SOCBs on stock exchanges appear to be effective ways to help SOCBs deal with the problem of NPLs and manage their risk.     

The United States and United Kingdom activities of Japanese banks, 1980–1988

This paper analyzes the United States and United Kingdom activities of Japanese banks by integrating their activities in these two markets with the regulatory environment for banks in Japan and Japan's overall external financial position, as well as with business opportunities in the two host countries. The paper concludes that the regulatory environment in Japan, including restraints on interest rates and possible quantitative restraints, has had an impact on activities of Japanese banks in these two foreign markets.Japanese banks appear to have adjusted to their domestic regulatory environment by using their London branches as a flexible funding source and their U.S. offices in extending commercial and industrial loans to Japan-based companies as well as a substitute location for interbank trading. In both markets Japanese banking offices are large net barrowers from unrelated banks because of constraints on raising funds in their homer market.     

绿色信贷能否缓解银行系统性风险*——基于中国22家上市银行的证据

本文选取2009—2020年中国22家上市银行年度数据，构建面板回归模型,就绿色信贷对银行系统性风险的影响及其传导机制与异质性特征进行实证分析。研究表明：绿色信贷对银行系统性风险具有抑制作用。风险承担与盈利能力在绿色信贷与银行系统性风险的关系中承担着双重中介作用。绿色信贷对银行系统性风险的影响存在异质性特征。相对于国有银行、低环境规制时期银行及经济上行期银行，绿色信贷对非国有银行、高环境规制时期银行及经济下行期银行系统性风险的抑制作用更为明显。该成果将为防控中国银行业系统性风险提供重要的理论指导与决策参考。     

影子银行体系的信用创造：机制、效应和应对思路

本文从金融功能视角,将影子银行体系的范畴界定在发挥了类似于商业银行存款、贷款、结算等功能的三大类非银行金融机构。在此前提下,从金融机构和金融产品视角,重点剖析了前两类金融机构的信用创造机制。同时,提出影子银行体系的信用创造机制对商业银行具有有限替代效应,并在货币市场上产生外部溢出效应。即流动性之谜。最后,基于影子银行体系信用创造机制缺陷,提出从抵押品管理角度入手。在金融市场中建立证券最后贷款人,以规避影子银行体系信用扩张的风险。     

The Efficiency of China's Banking Industry and the Determinants

The recent global financial crisis highlights the importance of a sound financial sector for economic development. This paper evaluates the economic efficiency of China's banking industry and investigates the determinants of this efficiency. Our analysis shows that the average economic efficiency of joint-stock commercial banks is highest, followed by the ‘Big Four’ state-owned commercial banks and city commercial banks. The economic inefficiency of these banks during the past 15 years was mainly caused by technical inefficiency, and this technical inefficiency was mainly caused by scale inefficiency. Using the scores of efficiency as dependent variables, the paper also comprehensively studies the impact of (1) the characteristics of individual banks, (2) the characteristics of the whole banking industry and (3) macroeconomic factors on banking efficiency. The results suggest a number of factors that banks can work on to improve efficiency and lend support to deepening reforms in the Chinese banking industry, including regulatory reforms that require capital adequacy in a more strict way, reforms that introduce more competition and, more broadly, reforms that aim at establishing institutions that can truly commercialize Chinese banks. Last but not least, the efficiency of banking depends on healthy growth of the overall economy.     

我国商业银行经济效率及影响因素分析

本文在取得银行投入品价格信息的基础上,利用DEA模型测度了我国9家商业银行(包括4大国有商业银行和5家股份制商业银行)1997-2001期间的经济效率;进而建立计量经济模型,从微观层面对影响我国商业银行经济效率的因素进行了回归分析,结果表明银行自由资本比例、贷款质量、人力资源质量和经营管理水平是影响银行经济效率的关键因素.     

银行业的集中、竞争与绩效

各国金融资产配置方式不同 ,银行业的产业组织结构也存在鲜明的差异。与传统的产业组织理论的逻辑推论及其倡导的理想境界可能完全相反 ,由大规模银行组成的相对集中的产业组织结构并不一定导致竞争程度的下降。中国银行业偏高的集中率并不是影响行业竞争程度的原因 ,事实表明 ,中国各银行之间在存贷业务及其他业务上并不缺乏竞争。主要问题在于现有的国有银行经营机制不灵活、效率过低。即使中国银行业大幅度提高了商业化程度 ,银行业的产业组织结构也不宜于过度分散 ,保持相对集中的行业结构 ,可能更有利于提高金融资产的配置效率。     

Credit Risk Determinants for the Bulgarian Banking System

Using an autoregressive distributed lag model, this paper examines the factors that influence the credit risk of the Bulgarian banking system over the decade 2001–2010, as measured by non-performing loans. Recent papers aim to identify the determinants of non-performing loans using a cross-country modelling framework. As the South East European region (SEE) is non-homogeneous, our analysis is country-specific and captures the timeline between the bank privatisation era up to the global financial crisis and the ensuing Greek crisis. The contribution of our paper is twofold: it uses the ARDL modelling framework that is scarcely employed in related studies but also investigates spillover effects from the Greek crisis in view of the material presence of Greek banks in Bulgaria. In accordance with previous studies, the findings suggest that the credit risk determinants of Bulgarian banks should be sought endogenously in macroeconomic variables and industry-specific factors but also in exogenous factors. We evidence a pronounced role of the global financial crisis and the country’s bank regulatory framework. The Greek debt crisis appears to play an immaterial role indicating that Greek banks have not been a Trojan horse in the Bulgarian banking system.     

Banks’ non-traditional activities under regulatory changes: impact on risk,performance and capital adequacy

Using the big six Canadian chartered banks quarterly financial statements and daily stock market data from 1982 to 2018, we examine the impact of non-interest income on Canadian banks’ risk, performance and capital under the different major regulatory changes made to the Bank Act of Canada. Our results show that Canadian banks’ expansion into non-traditional activities had slightly decreased their risks and significantly improved their performance benefitting from income diversification. Moreover, while adhering to capital adequacy regulation, reshuffling banks’ portfolio towards non-traditional activities did not reduce Canadian banks’ capital ratio. In spite of the re-regulation towards universal banking against ring-fencing, this feature buttresses the effectiveness of capital adequacy regulation in Canada in linking banks capital allocation with their risk taking.     

Sovereign default risk and state-owned bank fragility in emerging markets: evidence from China and Russia

In this paper we investigate the interdependence of the sovereign default risk and banking system fragility in two major emerging markets, China and Russia, using credit default swaps as a proxy for default risk. Both countries’ banking industries have strong ties with their governments and public sector, even after a series of significant reforms in the last two decades. Our analysis is built on the case studies of each country’s two biggest banks. We employ a bivariate vector autoregressive (VAR) and vector error correction (VECM) framework to analyse the short- and long-run dynamics of the chosen CDS prices. We use Granger causality to describe the direction of the discovered dynamics. We find evidence of a stable long-run relationship between sovereign and bank CDS spreads in the chosen time period. The more stable relationship is found in cases where the biggest state-owned universal banks in emerging markets are closely managed by the government. But the fragility of those banks does not directly affect the state of public finances. However, in cases where state-owned banks directly participate in large governmental projects, banking fragility may result in the deterioration of state funds, while raising the risk of sovereign default.     

Why are interest spreads so high in Uganda?

Using international comparisons and a unique bank-level dataset on the Ugandan banking system over the period 1999 to 2005, we explore the factors behind consistently high interest rate spreads and margins. International comparisons show that the small size of Ugandan banks, persistently high T-Bill rates and institutional deficiencies explain large proportions of the high Ugandan interest rate margins. The Ugandan bank panel confirms the importance of macroeconomic factors, such as high inflation, high T-Bill rates and exchange rate appreciation. There is also evidence for the small market place and high costs of doing business explaining persistently high spreads and margins; smaller banks and banks targeting the low end of the market incur higher costs and therefore higher margins. Spreads and margins also vary significantly with the sectoral loan portfolio composition of banks, while there is little evidence for foreign bank entry, privatization or changes in market structure explaining variation in spreads or margins over time.     

浅析中国式影子银行

作为新兴市场的代表,中国的影子银行业务得到快速发展,金融脱媒现象不断加剧,一方面适应了客户的多样化需求与银行的创新冲动,另一方面使得中国的金融系统比以往传统的金融系统更脆弱。通过对于影子银行的全面分析,追溯其产生的根源,寻找相关对策,降低其对我国金融系统的风险,同时能够更好规范影子银行的发展,充分放大其融资的有利效应,推进我国金融创新的监管机制,并建立风险预警体系,提高防范能力,使得金融系统健康有序地发展。     

中国银行业引进境外战略投资者的绩效分析

引进境外战略投资者是近几年中国银行业改革的一项重要措施。自2001年加入世界贸易组织后,已先后有十几家中资银行引入了境外战略投资者。中国银行业引进境外战略投资者这一改革措施的选取是正确的,但外资持股比例与银行绩效没有必然联系的实证检验结果提示我们,银行绩效的提升不一定非要以外资控股为前提。对于中国这样一个大国来说,保持国内力量的银行控股权应该具有重要战略意义。