Internal monitoring, regulation, and compensation of top executives in banks

This paper examines the relation between incentive pay, monitoring, and regulatory requirements in banks. Using a one-period model with asymmetrical information between the bank owner and the top management team, as well as within the team itself, we show that (1) incentive pay increases the mutual-monitoring activity among top executives; (2) senior executives, especially the CEO, collect more incentive pay than their subordinates; and (3) bank regulations, such as capital adequacy (CAD) requirements, reduce the absolute amount of incentive pay granted to executives.     

Involuntary excess reserve and bankers’ remuneration: evidence from Chinese banks

This article analyses the effects of involuntary excess reserves (IER) on bankers’ remuneration and the penalty associated with bank risk-taking if discovered. The study finds that IER help conceal tail risks, improves bankers’ performance and remuneration. However, the risks once discovered result in heavy penalties on bankers’ remuneration. The study extends the agency theory to the context where banks hold large IER.     

Government bailouts and default risks of a duopoly: strong bank versus weak bank

A duopolistic loan market includes a strong bank without the problem of early closure that opts out of government bailouts and a weak bank with this problem that participates in the bailout programmes of distressed loan purchases and direct equity injections. A direct implication of our framework is that the strong bank’s equity will be priced as a standard call option, while the weak bank’s equity will be priced as a down-and-out call option. We find that an increase in either bailout (i.e. distressed loan purchases and direct equity injections) directly decreases the weak bank’s default risk but indirectly increases the strong bank’s default risk. Accordingly, either bailout contributes to banking stability since the indirect positive effect insufficiently offsets the direct negative effect, giving an overall negative response of default risks to an increase in either bailout. Higher competition by shifting to quasi-competition from collusion increases banking stability under either bailout. Our analysis suggests that competition is aligned with the regulatory objective of improving stability.     

The pay parity matrix − a tool for analysing the structure of pay

This article introduces a new tool for measuring relative pay within organizations. We call this innovation the ‘Pay Parity (PP) matrix’, and discuss its advantages and useful properties. The PP matrix allows us to conveniently measure, and draw inferences about, the nature of the whole remuneration schedule, such as its gradient and smoothness. We illustrate the application of the PP matrix by using data on the remuneration of academic executives in universities.     

高级管理人员报酬的实证研究

本文以沪市上市公司为样本，考察了高级管理人员的报酬情况。本文发展，高级管理人员的年度报酬与企业绩效、企业规模、和法人股比例等显著正相关。本文还考察了行业、地区对高级管理人员报酬的影响，但发现只在一些行业和地区有明显的差异。     

European banks’ executive remuneration under the new European Union regulation

We review how the new European regulation of bank executive compensation could affect the future of banking in Europe. Although there is no conclusive empirical evidence on the relation between bank executive remuneration and the financial crisis, authorities have intensively regulated the compensation of bank managers to eliminate risk-taking incentives in the financial industry. However, the new regulation could have unintended consequences of creating an adverse selection problem at European banks, reducing the number of best-performing managers available for European banks, and motivating an excessive increase in fixed remuneration over total remuneration, altering the way incentive systems work.     

中国商业银行分行能力的实证研究

本文通过调查问卷的方式,对我国商业银行分行能力及分行关键成功因素进行了实证研究。研究发现:绩效和能力是分行成功的标志,其中能力的作用更为明显;总行、领导、经营策略、管理与文化、人力资源等5类因素为分行关键成功因素;银行中高层领导对分行关键成功因素的认识各有侧重;分行能力要素之间存在明显的因果驱动关系。鉴于此,本文建议我国商业银行抓住分行能力建设的关键因素,从基础能力培育入手,渐次提升分行能力,促进分行成功和银行核心能力的形成。     

Organisational regulatory legitimacy,entrepreneurial orientation,and SME innovation: an optimal distinctiveness perspective

The optimal distinctiveness perspective argues that firms face competing pressures to be both ‘like’ and ‘different from’ their peers. On the one hand, institutional scholars assert that firms need to be similar to peers in order to gain legitimacy. On the other hand, strategy scholars insist that firms need to strive to be different to gain competitive advantage. In order to enrich the optimal distinctiveness perspective, the present study builds a conceptual model that addresses the relationships among organisational regulatory legitimacy, entrepreneurial orientation, and SME innovation under the context of China’s transition economy. Our empirical results show that organisational regulatory legitimacy has an inverted-U relationship with SME innovation. Further, entrepreneurial orientation strengthens this inverse-U shaped relationship. That is, entrepreneurial orientation magnifies both the positive and the negative effect of organisational regulatory legitimacy on SME innovation. This study echoes to the call to conduct broader optimal distinctiveness research by integrating institutional theory and strategic management. Furthermore, our findings provide new evidence for the strategic balance perspective of optimal distinctiveness.     

An empirical note on relative monetary expansion and depreciation: The case of the Lira-Swiss franc exchange rate (February 1973–December 1976)

This note presents an empirical test of fluctuations in the spread between the lira Swiss franc exchange rate for bank notes and cable transfers in Zurich. This spread is trendless, and since the market for Italian bank notes in Zurich is relatively small, it is virtually free from reverse causation in relation to relative monetary expansion. The tests show that relative monetary expansion is the main determinant of fluctuations in the spread.     

我国上市公司经理层报酬激励机制研究--理论模型、经验数据及改进建议

报酬激励是上市公司经理层激励机制中的一个重要方面,是经理层努力工作的最直接、最原始的推动力.本文在研究中首先对我国上市公司采用报酬激励报酬的现状进行了调查统计,然后对激励经理报酬与企业业绩之间的关系进行了检验,进而对报酬激励报酬机制的改进提出了自己的观点建议.     

Liberalization,bankers’ motivation and productivity: A simple model with an application

Proponents of financial liberalization argue that deregulation motivates bankers to increase their effort and operate at a higher level of efficiency and productivity. Sceptics, however, see that liberalization engenders economic instability and banking crises, and impedes growth. Bank efficiency and productivity, following liberalization, is extensively examined. Nonetheless, the core issue of bankers’ self-motivation remains implicitly assumed and unaddressed. Does liberalization self-motivate bankers and increase their efforts and productivity? This paper models bank productivity from this perspective and evaluates what proportion of banks’ total factor productivity is accounted for by the self-motivated productivity of bankers. We provide a micro-founded framework for the analyses of bankers’ optimal level of effort and effort-driven productivity. Our model also captures banks’ unit input-output prices, optimal wages, bank spread and the overall cost of bank services – measures that are important in evaluating reform policies. We assess the financial liberalization of Nepal as a test case and find that (i) bankers’ efforts and productivity have notably improved in Nepal, although banking services have become costly, and (ii) bank spread has moderately declined in recent years. Our approach is parametric which differs from DEA, hence complements the literature. We hope this analytical framework will be useful to evaluate reform episodes elsewhere.     

Shareholder wealth responses to European legislation on bank executive compensation

This paper uses an event study approach to investigate the shareholder wealth responses to European legislation on bank executive compensation. Using a sample of 124 banks over 2009–2010 and over 20 legislative and related events, we find that in early stages bank shareholders react positively to broad discussion at the EU level on executive pay. When plans to regulate the pay process are considered, however, this results in a negative stockholder reaction. We also find that large bank shareholders are most affected by remuneration policy.     

Determinants of income diversification: evidence from Chinese banks

This article presents an analysis of the determinants of Chinese commercial banks’ income diversification decisions. Using a panel dataset comprising 88 Chinese domestic banks from 2003 to 2010, we find that bank diversification reflects a variety of managerial abilities: insolvency risks, cost, capital position, asset scale and ownership structure. A larger ratio of banking assets to gross domestic product and lower interest spread lead to a higher level of diversification. Moreover, national banks and regional banks have different strategic responses to the macroeconomic, and indeed, regulatory environment. Resisting shocks from the banking sector and the macro economy, and supplementing liquidity shortages from intermediation business seem to be the driving forces of national banks to operate in non-banking sectors.     

SME performance in transition economies: The financial regulation and firm-level corruption nexus

Using a general equilibrium endogenous growth model we explain underperformance in the small and medium enterprise sector as an effect of corruption and non-competitive banking. Limited competition in the banking sector causes a high loan-deposit spread, worsens the initial effect of corruption, and depresses growth. Fostering bank competition, for instance, by allowing foreign bank entry, would be a simple solution to this problem, but frequently, authorities choose to hamper bank competition. Therefore, we explain the persistence of non-competitive banking as a result of governments’ regulatory choice. If the government has a stake in the banking sector there exists a trade-off between current benefits from bank profits and future growth. Firm-level corruption affects intertemporal optimization and distorts the government’s choice towards more restrictive regulation, i.e., less bank competition, even if the deciding institution itself is not corrupt. These results show that the two prominent problems for small and medium enterprises, corruption and finance, are mutually reinforcing.     

The dynamic of bank lending channel: Basel regulatory constraint

This article analyzes the impact of monetary policy on bank behavior under the Basel I regulatory framework using a dynamic model with monopolistic competition. There are two main objectives. First, we theoretically predict the dynamic model of bank lending channels under the Basel I regulatory constraint. Second, we empirically analyze the situation in Malaysia by using panel data on 23 commercial banks in the period of 1999 to 2007 by using General Method of Moments. The empirical results show that market rates on loans and policy rates are important influences on average rates of banks' loans. This has an implication that Malaysian banks have the power to set their own prices on loans as they are influenced by the change in the market rate and policy rate. We also have proven that the previous period of spread risk weighted loans and securities is statistically significant and correlated with the average loan rate, whereas risk weighted securities is also statistically significant and correlated with the average time deposit rate in both periods. This shows that the role of risk-weighted assets under the Basel I is important in influencing the optimal rates on loans and time deposits.     

Whose property is it anyway? The social nature of economic actors and egalitarian remuneration ∗

This article formulates an egalitarian theory of property based on an ethic of remuneration for economic contributions. The principle of egalitarian remuneration is developed by revising basic notions of economic contributions. Economic contributions are found to be those activities that contribute to the value of commodities not just those that produce a product. Consumers, and not only producers, contribute to the creation of value, and these economic contributions make consumers eligible for remuneration. However, the concept of consumer contributions needs to be recast, for consumer contributions do not consist of neoclassical, individualistic actors maximizing subjective preferences. Rather, consumers economic contributions flow from their socially self-determined attributes as formed through relation to the system of economic actors. Indirect social contributions spread responsibility throughout the members of the system, affecting calculations of dueness. Other members indirect contributions are relatively equal in degree of responsibility for the social formation of the consumer's economic contributions. The dispersion and equalization of responsibility for the creation of economic contributions entails a correlative equalization of claims to remuneration, on a principle of dueness for economic contributions. This implies a property right to egalitarian remuneration.     

Are banks public utilities? Evidence from Europe

The regulatory response to the global financial crisis has been to instal a myriad of new rules in order to improve bank capital and liquidity, as well as to reduce systemic risks through structural reform. All these new rules place a straightjacket around banker’s activities and inhibit their operational freedom. This new environment has made European banks look less like private free-wheeling profit-maximising firms and more like public utilities. The utility services banks provide to society means that they should be overseen even more heavily. This includes greater regulatory oversight of bank pricing, profitability and service provision.     

Taxation of Non-Cash Fringe Benefits

This article examines the introduction of a fringe benefits tax (FBT) as part of a revenue-neutral package with personal income tax cuts. With an effective tax-wage bargain in force, such an FBT package will not increase labour costs overall. It will, however, increase the labour costs of employers who, prior to the tax reform, were paying above average shares of their employees' remuneration in non-cash benefits. Employers whose pre-reform labour costs contained relatively low shares of non-cash payments will experience falls in labour costs.     

Heterogeneous bank regulatory standards and the cross-border supply of financial services

This paper investigates whether the differences in bank regulatory standards matter for the cross-border supply of financial services. A gravity model of the bilateral exports of financial services is implemented to assess the impact of various factors that measure cross-country differences in the bank regulatory standards. The results show that cross-country heterogeneity in private monitoring impedes the export of financial services. However, this effect remains limited compared to the effect of direct trade barriers.     

Income smoothing behavior of U.S. banks under revised international capital requirements

The use of the loan-loss provision to smooth reported income by large bank holding companies is a much-investigated practice. To the extent that the variability of net income is a measure of risk, income smoothing may reduce the perceived riskiness of the bank and thus increase stock value. Managers may have added incentive to smooth income in response to the structure of their compensation package. The Basel Accord of 1988 phased in new definitions of regulatory capital for banks. These changes have increased the incentives for income smoothing. Most previous studies on income smoothing and loan-loss reserves predate the implementation of the Basel Accord. Others use data that include the transition period. This study revisits the subject, using only post-Accord data. Results of this study are compared with previous results. The evidence confirms the continued existence of income smoothing and supports the proposition that banks have become more aggressive in using loan-loss reserves as a tool for income smoothing.