ECONOMIC ADJUSTMENT IN HEAVILY INDEBTED DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The threat to the international financial system resulting from the developing-country debt problem has diminished since the initial 1982 crisis, despite halting adjustment and impaired creditworthiness in heavily indebted developing countries. The threat to the financial system has eased as commercial banks have reduced sharply the share of their assets and capital exposed to the troubled debtor countries. The countries themselves, however, are no better off. A sizable balance-of-payments adjustment has occurred in the heavily indebted developing countries, but that adjustment was concentrated–at least in quantitative terms–during the years immediately following the onset of the crisis and might have been more efficient had it been executed more gradually. Despite the adjustment that has occurred, the creditworthiness of the heavily indebted countries–as evaluated by conventional indices–has not improved. And, for reasons that this article explores, economic growth per capita has not resumed either.     

ECONOMICS OF THE LIVING DEAD*

Zombie firms are those firms that are insolvent and have little hope of recovery but avoid failure thanks to support from their banks. This paper identifies zombie firms in Japan, and compares the characteristics of zombies to other firms. Zombie firms are found to be less profitable, more indebted, more dependent on their main banks, more likely to be found in non‐manufacturing industries and more often located outside large metropolitan areas. Overall, larger size makes the firm less likely to be a zombie, but among small firms, relatively larger firms are more likely to be protected and become zombies. Controlling for profitability, the exit probability for zombie firms does not differ from that for non‐zombies. Zombie firms tend to increase employment by more (but do not reduce employment by more) than non‐zombies. Finally, when the proportion of zombie firms in an industry increases, job creation declines and job destruction increases, and the effects are stronger for non‐zombies.     

Does a one-size-fits-all approach to financial regulations alleviate default risk? The case of dual banking systems

Financial regulations are developed to curb financial and economic fragility costs without undermining the economic contributions of banks to economic development. To understand the impact financial regulations have on reducing the financial fragility of banks we use the probability-of-default of banks as a proxy for bank failure. After analyzing data collected from 15 countries with a dual banking system for the period 2000–2015, we find convincing evidence that not all financial regulations have risk-reducing benefits for banks and the impact of financial regulations on default risk is not the same for conventional banks (CBs) and Islamic banks (IBs). The empirical evidence suggests that regulations that lessen overall default risk have a greater impact on IBs while those increasing default risk have a greater impact on CBs. Based on our findings we recommend that regulators should consider the different natures of CBs and IBs and tailor financial regulations to suit these operationally distinct financial intermediaries.     

银行危机、道德风险与存款保险

存款保险制度是一国金融安全网的核心,在一定程度上防止对银行因存款挤兑而破产。但是,如果缺乏对银行业的有效监管,存款保险制度又会引起银行的道德风险。     

Banking deregulation and allocative efficiency in Pakistan

This article examines the impact of deregulation policies on allocative efficiency of banks in Pakistan. It investigates whether deregulation has impacted the pattern of allocative efficiency of banks and explores which bank ownership segment has been more responsive. It uses data from 1991 to 2005 and explicitly models allocative inefficiency by using the translog shadow cost-share system. Empirical results show that overregulation and imperfect market structure hampers the ability of banks to make competitive decisions. We find evidence of allocative inefficiency leading to over-utilization of labour and deposits vis-à-vis operating cost. Empirical results for time-varying allocative efficiency show declining levels of allocative inefficiency for state-owned and private banks in post-reform period. Deregulation policies induce state-owned banks to decrease over-utilization of labour relative to deposits and operating cost while private banks succeed in using operating cost closer to optimal levels. Hence, policymakers have latitude to introduce more reforms without jeopardizing allocative efficiency.     

改善西部民营企业融资环境的几点设想

西部民营企业的发展离不开银行信贷资金的支持和投入，因此必须建立相应的社会信用体系，为民营企业创造良好的融资环境。为此，提出了下述设想：建立信用保障机构和资信评估体系以增强民营企业的信用程度；规范民间信用，建立为西部民营企业和西部开发服务的区域性商业银行，形成多层次的金融服务体系；国有商业银行应发挥其信贷资金主渠道作用，积极为西部民营企业金融服务。与此相适应，西部民营企业要转变观念，提高企业信誉，向高层次发展。     

金融制度变迁、银行组织模式与我国商业银行成长

本文通过对金融制度变迁的理论分析和历史考察,揭示了综合化经营制度是金融制度的基本制度安排,对商业银行的成长和发展具有重要的推动作用,我国已经具备了实施商业银行综合化经营的制度基础和条件.本文认为,金融控股公司是我国商业银行实施综合化经营的目标模式.基于目前我国的制度、体制和法律现实,我国商业银行综合化经营的实现必须分步实施,走渐进之路.同时,必须加强制度基础的塑造和建设.     

INFLATION AND STABILIZATION IN YUGOSLAVIA

This paper examines the main causes of the acceleration of inflation in Yugoslavia during the 1980s and Yugoslavia's last attempt at stabilization in 1990. Yugoslav inflation shares common elements with inflation in other highly indebted countries despite appearances otherwise. Like these other countries, Yugoslavia failed to make internal adjustments to match a large transfer to resources abroad, resulting in a large internal redistribution to real resources through inflation. However, in Yugoslavia these internal conditions were not transparent. Instead of an open fiscal deficit, complex interactions took place among enterprises, banks, and the central bank, involving the central bank's absorption and servicing of a large stock of foreign exchange liabilities.
Failure to correct hidden losses in the economy was the main reason that various stabilization attempts failed during the 1980s. The 1990 program was the first to recognize the existence of those hidden losses and the need for a fiscal correction. The program succeeded in eliminating the central bank's own deficit and was initially successful infighting inflation, but pressures to finance enterprises and avoid a liquidity crisis in the financial system resulted in a relaxation of monetary policy and a revival of inflation. Seen from this angle, the Yugoslav program of 1990 resembles other heterodox programs that had initial success in reducing inflation but later faltered because of an insufficient fiscal adjustment.     

Labour unions and global bank loan market

This article attempts to collect a data set of labour unions in global 500 biggest banks and investigate whether labour unions of banks influence the designing of bank loan contracts. We use global syndicate loan market to examine this issue. For simplicity, banks with and without labour unions are referred to as ‘unionized banks’ and ‘nonunionized banks’, respectively. We find that unionized banks tend to loosen their lending standard in the bank loan contract: unionized banks are more likely to charge lower loan spread and favourable nonprice terms compared with nonunionized banks. Hence, our results support that unionized banks tend to lend more loans to reduce the negative effect of labour unions.     

REGULATORY STRUCTURE, REGULATORY FAILURE, AND THE S& L DEBACLE

Widespread S & L failures during the 1980s required the federal government to spend over 100 billion dollars bailing out the deposit insurance fund. This paper interprets the S & L debacle as a regulatory failure. Review of the S & L debacle suggests that regulators failed to manage the deposit insurance system efficiently. But the regulatory agencies' structure appears to have played a secondary role in contributing to regulatory failure. Faced with the same incentives, objectives, and resources, regulators probably would have behaved similarly regardless of the regulatory structure.     

Winners and losers from financial derivatives use: evidence from community banks

This article provides empirical evidence on how profitability of small community banks was affected by derivatives use before and after the 2008 crisis. We use an endogenous switching regressions model to estimate the sensitivity of bank profitability to risks and control for the endogenous choice to use or not to use derivatives. We then compute counterfactual effects and show how profitability would have looked without derivatives use for banks that used derivatives and how it would have looked with derivatives for banks that did not use derivatives. The results show that derivatives helped reduce the sensitivity of profitability to credit risks and improved profitability for most specialists. However, for the largest number of banks which are non-user non-specialists, devivates use would have resulted in lower return on assets had they used derivatives post 2008. Therefore, our evidence suggests that implementation of the Volcker Rule, imposing high compliance costs on community banks and, thus, discouraging hedging, may have a negative impact on profits of specialists banks but, overall, a neutral effect on profits in the community banks industry as a whole.     

中国国有银行改革的比较制度分析

中国国有银行经历了多次改革而未能实现预期的商业化改革目标,甚至在其股份制改革后也很难说建立了现代银行制度。本文利用比较制度分析方法,从制度互补视角对此原因进行分析,本文的结论是,中国的金融改革只是经济体制整体改革的一部分,国有银行改革是在与企业改革和政府职能转变的互动中实现的。     

Competition,economies of scale,and diversity of firm sizes

This paper presents an empirical example in which small firms are able to compete by specializing, without monopolistic conduct, despite economies of scale. The viability of small commercial banks in Illinois is established both by casual observation and by a finding of constant returns to scale, not correcting for specialization. A second specification of the cost function, correcting for specialization, exhibits economies of scale, suggesting that specialization is the means by which small banks survive. Monopoly conduct is ruled out by a Rosse–Panzar test, rejecting the alternative hypothesis that monopoly power has allowed inefficient banks to survive.     

外资参股城市商业银行:制度与风险

外资参股作为近年来外资银行进入中国的捷径,也是城市商业银行摆脱发展困境的一个有效途径。但是,城市商业银行的产权制度、人事制度与激励制度、信息披露制度以及所面临的存款保险制度、分业经营制度改革的滞后,为外资参股带来了不可回避的风险。     

循环经济发展的金融支持研究

循环经济体系,没有强大的资金支持是不可能实现的。只有建立和完善有效的金融支持体系,才能全方位地满足循环经济产业化的金融需求。因此,我们要为循环经济相关的市场主体建立一个良性的、面向市场的投融资环境和金融支持体系：改革发展循环经济的商业银行间接融资体系;建立专为循环经济生产提供资金的政策性金融组织;组建循环经济产业投资基金;培育和发展资本市场,拓宽循环经济项目融资渠道;推进与循环经济相关的金融资源创新,实现循环经济和金融创新的双赢。     

中国国有商业银行服务创新测评

基于对服务创新及其在国有商业银行发展中的重要作用的认识,本文试图通过分析我国国有商业银行的发展特征及其服务创新的现状,构建适合我国国有商业银行的服务创新评价指标体系,并以中国工商银行、中国银行、中国建设银行、交通银行4家上市的我国国有商业银行及部分股份制商业银行为例,对其服务创新进行测评比较,从而对我国国有商业银行的服务创新水平做出较客观的科学评价,并提出相应的发展建议。     

Business cycle and bank lending procyclicality in a dual banking system

The paper studies bank lending behaviour over the business cycle in a dual banking system, Malaysia, with the objective of ascertaining whether Islamic banks have a role in stabilizing credit. The study makes use of unbalanced panel data of 21 conventional banks and 16 Islamic banks covering mostly the period 2001–2013. Applying dynamic GMM estimators, we find the aggregate loans by banks to be pro-cyclical in conformity with existing studies. However, when we segregate the lending/financing behaviour of conventional and Islamic banks, the cyclicality of bank lending seems to be true only for conventional banks. As for the Islamic banks, the business cycle does not seem to affect their financing decisions. Indeed, there is indication that the Islamic banks in general and the full-fledged Islamic banks in particular can even be counter-cyclical in their financing decisions. This conclusion is fairly robust to a different loan measure, alternative model specifications, and to an alternative business cycle measure. Hence, our results provide further support to the “stability” view of the Islamic banks in that they have the ability to stabilize credit.     

WTO challenges and efficiency of Chinese banks

After joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in December 2001, China was given 5 years to completely open up its banking market for international competition. Chinese banks have been renowned for their mounting nonperforming loans and low efficiency. Despite gradual reforms, the banking system is still dominated by state ownership and encapsulated monopolistic control. How to raise efficiency is a key to the survival and success of domestic banks, especially the state-owned commercial banks. Two important factors may be responsible for raising efficiency: ownership reform and hard budget constraints. This article uses a panel data of 22 banks over the period 1995 to 2001, and employs a stochastic frontier production function to investigate the effects of ownership structure and hard budget constraint on efficiency. Empirical results suggest that nonstate banks were 8–18% more efficient than state banks, and that banks facing a harder budget tend to perform better than those heavily capitalized by the state or regional governments. The results shed important light on banking sector reform in China to face the tough challenges after WTO accession.     

基于流动性过剩的中小企业融资分析

以商业银行流动性过剩为背景,对我国中小企业融资难问题进行分析.认为除信息不对称外,国有商业银行对中小企业信贷动力不足是导致我国中小企业融资难的又一重要原因.为此提出通过再造银行体系、重塑国有商业银行经营目标及完善内部激励制度来健全对中小企业信贷的动力机制.     

外资银行监管法律制度的完善

随着金融的国际化以及我国加入WTO后金融市场的逐步开放,外资银行大量抢滩国内市场,这对我国金融乃至整个经济运行将产生深远影响,并使加强对外资银行的监管显得尤为必要。为此,作者在分析对外资银行监管的必要性的基础上,针对我国外资银行监管法律制度的不足,借鉴国际经验,从监管目标入手,阐述了我国外资银行监管法律制度的完善。