The effect of industry consolidation and deposit insurance reform on the resiliency of the U.S. bank insurance fund

We examine the effects of structural change in the U.S. banking industry, as well as key regulatory changes, including recently enacted deposit insurance reform legislation, on the resiliency of the FDIC-administered bank insurance fund (BIF) by estimating and comparing the probability of BIF insolvency over time. We do this using a Markov-switching model that relies on historical patterns of BIF disbursements to define the probability of switching among three “states” of the banking industry's financial health. Monte Carlo simulations are then performed to project the financial condition of the BIF over a 50-year period. Our results indicate that the insolvency risk to the bank insurance fund has increased significantly due to industry consolidation, and is mainly due to the concentration of deposits in the 10 largest U.S. banking companies. We also find that recent deposit insurance reforms will cause only a marginal reduction in the risk of BIF insolvency. The increased risk associated with a more concentrated industry structure simply dominates the reform effect.     

存款保险研究新进展:定价和制度效应

存款保险制度的主要作用是应对挤兑风险,加强公众对银行体系的信心。通过对现有关于存款保险定价和存款保险制度效应的文献进行梳理发现：基于期权定价法的存款保险定价方法虽较少在实践层面应用,但促进了存款保险制度的完善;存款保险制度受金融环境、制度设计及银行自身等影响而产生不同的效应,良性的制度运转与金融体系的完善相辅相成。未来的研究将着重考虑中小银行费率的厘定及存款保险制度与金融安全网之间的协同作用。     

Deposit insurance and subsidized recapitalizations

The 2007–2009 financial crisis saw a vast expansion in deposit insurance guarantees around the world and yet our understanding of the design and consequences of deposit insurance schemes is in its infancy. We provide a new rationale for the provision of deposit insurance. In our model the banking sector exhibits both adverse selection and moral hazard, which implies that the social benefits of bank monitoring must for incentive reasons be shared between depositors and banks. Consequently, socially too few deposits are made in equilibrium. Deposit insurance – or, equivalently, bank recapitalization – corrects this market failure. We find that deposit insurance should be funded not by banks or depositors but out of general taxation. The optimal level of deposit insurance varies inversely with the quality of the banking system. Hence, when the soundness of the financial sector is uncertain, governments should consider supporting deposit insurance schemes and undertaking subsidized recapitalizations.     

Why do contagion effects vary among bank failures?

Many of the previous studies on contagion effects in the banking industry focused on the failure of a large bank to determine whether the adverse effects spread to other banks. Yet, little is known whether other publicized bank failures cause contagion effects, and why the effects may vary among bank failures. Given the changes in the banking environment over time, contagion effects could be conditioned on the characteristics of the failing bank and of the banking environment at that time. We assess 99 publicized bank failures over the 1980–1996 period, and find that contagion effects exist in general for the surviving rivals of the failed bank. The degree of contagion effects varies over time (among bank failures), and is stronger when the failed bank is a multibank holding company, when the failed bank is publicly held, when the failed bank is relatively large, when the rivals are relatively small, and when the rivals have relatively low capital levels. The contagion effects are less pronounced in the period following the passage of FIRREA. Furthermore, the total risk-shifts of surviving rival banks in response to the announcement of a failed bank are inversely related to their capital level, and total risk-shifts of rival banks are less pronounced for failures occurring just after the passage of FIRREA. The results suggest that a bank’s exposure to possible contagion effects due to a bank failure can be partially controlled by a bank’s managerial policies and by regulatory policies.     

香港银行业防范房地产信贷风险的经验及启示

房地产贷款是香港银行业的主要盈利来源.亚洲金融危机期间,香港物业价格大幅下跌,导致大量的负资产按揭贷款.然而,在如此严峻的形势下,香港银行业依然稳健,没有出现银行倒闭或要求政府提供财政援助的情况.研究香港银行业及监管部门成功应对房地产价格波动的经验,对于内地银行业防范房地产价格波动带来的危机,有着重要的意义.     

银行业市净率问题研究——兼论国有商业银行股权转让价格问题

近一个时期,中国银行业改革出现重大突破,以交通银行和建设银行为代表的中国银行业掀起了一轮引进战略投资者和境外上市的高潮。本文以市净率这一价格指标为切入点,对境外银行业股权转让价格的一般规律进行了研究,并在此基础上对交通银行和建设银行引进战略投资者和上市的价格进行分析。     

‘Slow-burn’ spillover and ‘fast and furious’ contagion: a study of international stock markets

‘Fast and furious’ contagion across capital markets is an important phenomenon in an increasingly integrated financial world. Different from ‘slow-burn’ spillover or interdependence among these markets, ‘fast and furious’ contagion can occur instantly. To investigate this kind of contagion from the US, Japan and Hong Kong to other Asian economies, we design a research strategy to capture fundamental interdependence, or ‘slow-burn’ spillover, among these stock markets as well as short-term departures from this interdependence. Based on these departures, we propose a new contagion measure which reveals how one market responds over time to a shock in another market. We also propose international portfolio analysis for contagion via variance decomposition from the portfolio manager’s perspective. Using this research strategy, we find that the US stock market was cointegrated with the Asian stock markets during four specific periods from 3 July 1997 to 30 April 2014. Beyond this fundamental interdependence, the shocks from both Japan and Hong Kong have significant ‘fast and furious’ contagion effects on other Asian stock markets during the US subprime crisis, but the shocks from the US have no such effects.     

Information Effects During the U. S. Subprime Crisis

We investigate the impact of the U. S. subprime crisis on the stock markets of the Asia-Pacific countries on various event dates. Using data from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan, we find that the subprime crisis negatively affects these stock markets and investor behavior, especially in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In addition, the subprime crisis generally works through more financial linkages than trade linkages. However, when the subsamples are classified according to industry, this result exists only for the banking industry, but both financial and trade linkages become important to explain the impact of the crisis on the manufacturing industry.     

金融危机跨国传染的实证检验——以美国金融危机为例

论文使用包括美国在内的28个经济体的股票指数的日收益率,进行相关系数及其费雪Z转换来检验美国金融危机的跨国传染效应;并运用单因素模型回归来验证纯传染效应的存在以及用经异方差调整后的相关系数对此纯传染效应进一步判断,分析结果表明:中国大陆和香港地区在本次危机中不仅存在金融危机传染效应,而且存在金融危机纯传染效应,而另外8个存在金融危机传染效应的经济体则不存在纯传染效应。     

Market Reaction to Regulatory Action in the Insurance Industry: The Case of Contingent Commission

We examine the market's reaction to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's civil suit against mega‐broker Marsh for bid rigging and inappropriate use of contingent commissions within a generalized autoregressive conditionally heteroskedastic (GARCH) framework. Effects on the stock returns of insurance brokers and insurers are tested. The findings are: (1) GARCH effects are significant in modeling broker/insurer returns; (2) the suit generated negative effects on the brokerage industry and individual brokers, suggesting that contagion dominates competitive effects; (3) spillover effects from the brokerage sector to insurance business are significant and mostly negative, demonstrating industry integration; and (4) information‐based contagion is supported, as opposed to the pure‐panic contagion.     

Corporate Control,Portfolio Choice,and the Decline of Banking

In the 1980s, U.S. banks became systematically less profitable and riskier as nonbank competition eroded the profitability of banks' traditional activities. Bank failures rose exponentially during this decade. The leading explanation for the persistence of these trends centers on fixed-rate deposit insurance: the insurance gives bank equityholders an incentive to take on risk when the value of bank charters falls. We propose and test an alternative explanation based on corporate control considerations. We show that managerial entrenchment played a more important role than did the moral hazard associated with deposit insurance in explaining the recent behavior of the banking industry.     

Australia's Implicit Deposit Insurance — Should It Be Reconsidered?

Most major developed countries have bank deposit insurance; the European Parliament recently mandated it for all member countries. One of the characteristics of most deposit insurance schemes to protect depositors is that the banking industry funds the scheme through assessments. Interestingly, Australia does not have explicit deposit insurance and to date there has been little public debate on this subject. This paper proposes that such a debate should be initiated.     

Bank selection and share of wallet among SMEs: Apparent differences between Hong Kong and Australia

This paper examines the factors that small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Hong Kong consider when selecting a banking partner, and the extent to which they use different banks (share of wallet). The findings are contrasted with those from another study of Australian business. The results show that firms in both countries view a bank's willingness to accommodate their banking and credit needs as being important. Hong Kong firms appear to give this factor higher priority when making their bank selection, while Australian firms appear to place higher emphasis on long-term relationships. Australian firms appear to have a more stable relationship with their primary bank as compared to the firms in Hong Kong where switching behaviours are found to be common. While ‘guanxi’ is often seen as critical in maintaining a business relationship in the Asian context, this study suggests it has limited impact for SMEs in Hong Kong in increasing share of wallet. The findings offer marketing implications for banks that are operating, or are planning to operate, business banking in both places.     

Contagion effect in financial markets after the South-East Asia Tsunami

Powerful earthquakes may cause heavy damage to the financial markets of individual countries (regions), and may even spillover to other countries (regions). Using 26 international stock indexes and exchange rates, this study examines whether any contagion effect occurred across financial markets after the strong earthquake in South-East Asia on December 26, 2004. Using heteroscedasticity biases based on correlation coefficients to examine the existence of the contagion effect, this study shows that no individual country stock market suffered from the contagion effect, but that the foreign exchange markets of some countries (namely India, Philippines and Hong Kong) did suffer from the contagion effect.     

Bank regulation and risk-taking incentives: An international comparison of bank risk

This paper uses a panel database of 251 banks in 36 countries to analyze the impact of bank regulation on bank charter value and risk-taking. After controlling for deposit insurance and for the quality of a country's contracting environment, the results indicate that regulatory restrictions increase banks' risk-taking incentives by reducing their charter value. Banks in countries with stricter regulation have a lower charter value, which increases their incentives to follow risky policies. These results corroborate a negative relation between regulatory restrictions and the stability of a banking system. Deposit insurance has a positive influence on bank charter value, mitigating the risk-shifting incentives it creates. This positive influence disappears when we control for the possible endogeneity of deposit insurance.     

Deposit Insurance, Capital Regulations, and Financial Contagion in Multinational Banks

Abstract:  Banking sector globalization has caused an expansion in foreign-owned bank assets. In this paper we analyse the effects of a MNB's liability structure upon its investment in a foreign country. We develop a model in which capital adequacy requirements introduce some deliberate underinvestment which counters deposit insurance-induced overinvestment. Diversification is unattractive with fixed bank capital requirements, because it reduces the expected value of the deposit insurance net. This effect applies in multinational banks (MNBs), where shocks to the home country economy alter the value of the deposit insurance net and hence affect overseas lending incentives. Thus, MNBs act as a channel for financial contagion. We discuss the policy implications of our results.     

CHANGES IN MARKET PERCEPTION OF RISKINESS: THE CASE OF TOO-BIG-TO-FAIL

In 1984, the Comptroller of the Currency stated that the eleven largest banking firms were “too big to fail,” implying they would receive de facto 100 percent deposit insurance. The question is whether this announcement altered the market's perception of the riskiness of all banking organizations, not just those included in the Comptroller's statement. We address this question with two tests. First, through the examination of changes in institutional equity ownership from 1980 through 1988, we find that the announcement is associated with increases in institutional ownership at a time when a comparable set of nonfinancial firms saw reductions in institutional holdings. Second, through the examination of stock returns behavior of bank holding companies around announcements of dividend cuts and omissions from 1974 through 1991, we find that the Comptroller's 1984 announcement altered the market's reaction to dividend cuts and omissions by bank holding companies not specifically included in the Comptroller's statement.     

金融开放与银行风险承担的异质性研究——基于98个国家的实证分析

金融开放是加剧银行业风险还是分散风险,是颇具争议的研究课题。本文借助Gygli et al.(2018)的金融开放指标,应用1999-2016年98个国家的跨国数据,检验了金融开放和银行风险承担的长期均衡和短期关系。从长期均衡关系来看,金融开放显著地提高了银行抵御风险能力,具有长期"促进效应";从短期关系来看,金融开放则存在一定"风险效应"①。进一步研究发现,短期"风险效应"与外资银行资产占比不存在关联,而与市场制度环境显著相关,即完善的制度环境有助于弱化"风险效应"。结合中国实际情况,文章支持"以开放促改革"的观点,强调完善市场制度环境的重要性,为政策制定者提供实证依据。     

Do accounting measurement regimes matter? A discussion of mark-to-market accounting and liquidity pricing

Using a model with banking and insurance sectors, Allen and Carletti show that marking-to-market interacts with liquidity pricing to exacerbate the likelihood of financial contagion between the two sectors. In this discussion, I lay out the main ingredients of their model and explain how they interact with liquidity pricing to generate financial contagion. I then discuss some limitations of their model and propose an interesting extension.     

Financial contagion,spillovers and causality in the Markov switching framework

In this paper, we introduce the concept of causality in the Markov switching framework into the analysis of financial inter-market dependencies. We extend the methodology of testing for financial spillovers between capital markets by explicitly defining contagion, spillovers and independence, and providing statistics to test for the existence of causality. We apply the methodology to stock index returns on the Japanese (Nikkei 225) and the Hong Kong (HSI) markets during the Asian crisis and find no evidence of contagion between the markets, but strong evidence of feedback spillovers between them.