Domestic and multinational determinants of foreign bank profits: The case of Greek banks operating abroad

This paper examines the determinants of profits of Greek banks operating abroad by developing an integrated model that includes a set of determinants informed by the literature on the profitability of both multinational and domestic banks. The basis for our econometric analysis is provided by an unbalanced panel dataset for 19 Greek bank subsidiaries operating in 11 nations, covering the period from 1995 to 2001. The results show that the profitability of the parent bank and the operating experience of its host nation subsidiaries have a robust and positive impact on the profits of Greek banks abroad, whereas subsidiary bank size has a negative effect. Domestic financial factors reflecting stock market developments, bank-specific factors such as liquidity, loan loss provisions or cost efficiency, and market specific factors like concentration or market share in the host nations, are all insignificant in explaining Greek subsidiary banks’ profits.     

商业银行效率及其影响因素实证研究

以我国14家商业银行2000～2009年的面板数据为分析依据,采用随机前沿分析(SFA)方法对商业银行效率进行计量,并从公司治理、市场结构、宏观经济政策、金融业结构和经营能力等方面分析商业银行效率的影响因素。结果表明:市场集中度和银行个体市场份额与银行效率反向变动;投资和货币供给对银行效率影响较大;经济周期、通货膨胀和存贷利差对银行效率影响较小;存款准备金率对银行效率影响最小。可以认为,在当前形势下,存款准备金率的调控作用只是暂时的,无法从根本上抑制货币的流动性;存贷利差对银行效率影响不大。因此,为控制通货膨胀实施不对称加息政策,不会对商业银行系统产生较大影响;从银行经营能力考察,传统的存贷业务已不能独立支持商业银行的进一步发展,应大力提倡金融创新,寻求新的业务增长点。     

Governance,efficiency and risk taking in Chinese banking

We employ a hand-collected unique dataset on banks operating in China between 2003 and 2011 to investigate the impact of board governance features (size, composition and functioning) on bank efficiency and risk taking. Our evidence suggests that board characteristics tend to have a greater influence on banks' profit and cost efficiency than on loan quality. We find that the proportion of female directors on the board appears not only to be linked to higher profit and cost efficiency but also to lower traditional banking risk. Similarly, board independence is associated with higher profit efficiency of banks; while the opposite is found for executive directors and in the presence of dual leadership of the CEO/chairperson. Among the control variables, we found that liquidity negatively affects profit and cost efficiency, while positively affecting risk. Interestingly, we find some evidence of an incremental effect of specific board characteristics on efficiency for banks with more concentrated ownership structures and state-owned institutions; while for banks with CEO performance-related pay schemes the effect on efficiency when significant is usually negative. Our results offer useful insights to policy makers in China charged with the task of improving the governance mechanisms in banking institutions.     

Organizational mode choices of multinational banks abroad

We investigate the determinants of organizational modes adopted by multinational banks abroad using a unique database of 98 parent banks and their organizational modes in 169 countries from 2005 to 2015. Our findings reveal that multinational banks operate in various organizational modes abroad, including multiple modes in a single host country; however, subsidiaries are the dominant mode of operation, followed by branches and simultaneously operating branches and subsidiaries in the host country. Furthermore, the characteristics of multinational banks play a significant role in determining their organizational decisions in a host country. Our results indicate that less profitable banks are less likely to open representative offices and are more likely to have branches. In contrast, multinational banks with high asset growth are more likely to operate a representative office abroad and less likely to open a subsidiary. These findings suggest that parent bank profitability and asset growth are important considerations when determining the optimal organizational mode of foreign expansion. Furthermore, country characteristics (particularly openness to economic and capital flows, institutional framework, and geographical and cultural distance) between host and home countries also influence foreign bank operations in a given host country.     

地方性银行产权结构、贷款供给与地方经济发展

从经济增长和经济效率两个维度衡量地方经济发展,在对地方性银行产权结构、贷款供给与地方经济发展关系进行理论分析的基础上,采用我国67家地方性银行的数据,实证研究在贷款供给促进地方经济发展方面,不同产权性质的地方性银行是否具有差异;并进一步分析城商行与农商行在促进城市和非城市经济发展方面的差异性。研究发现：地方性银行提供的贷款越多,地方经济增长速度越快,地方经济效率也越高。在贷款促进地方经济增长方面,国有与非国有控股银行的作用无明显差异,但在贷款促进地方经济效率提升方面,国有控股银行的作用弱于非国有控股银行。城商行和农商行的贷款均能有效促进市辖区的经济发展,且作用效果无明显差异,但它们均未能明显促进非市辖区的经济发展。     

Ownership structure,risk and performance in the European banking industry

We compare the performance and risk of a sample of 181 large banks from 15 European countries over the 1999–2004 period and evaluate the impact of alternative ownership models, together with the degree of ownership concentration, on their profitability, cost efficiency and risk. Three main results emerge. First, after controlling for bank characteristics, country and time effects, mutual banks and government-owned banks exhibit a lower profitability than privately owned banks, in spite of their lower costs. Second, public sector banks have poorer loan quality and higher insolvency risk than other types of banks while mutual banks have better loan quality and lower asset risk than both private and public sector banks. Finally, while ownership concentration does not significantly affect a bank’s profitability, a higher ownership concentration is associated with better loan quality, lower asset risk and lower insolvency risk. These differences, along with differences in asset composition and funding mix, indicate a different financial intermediation model for the different ownership forms.     

改进的效率测算模型、影子银行与中国商业银行效率

商业银行及其效率的高低是金融供给侧结构性改革的关键环节,而可以压缩的“坏”投入和影子银行对商业银行效率产生重要影响。本文首次建立理论模型并分析影子银行影响商业银行效率的路径;方法上,同时区分投入和产出的“好”或“坏”,拓展只区分产出的“好”或“坏”的效率测算模型;实证上,首次测算并分析“坏”投入、影子银行业务对商业银行利润、风险和效率的影响。结果表明:理论上,影子银行会同时增加风险承担和利润,但无法确定经风险调整后的利润增加能否提升效率;只区分产出的模型高估了效率,尤其是显著高估四大行和股份制商业银行第一阶段的效率,大型商业银行依靠网点的扩张不利于效率的提升;影子银行业务提升了四大国有银行尤其是股份制银行的效率,但对中小型商业银行效率影响较小。总的来看,压缩“坏”投入和规范影子银行是增加有效金融供给、优化金融供给结构和提升银行效率的重要途径。     

金融科技布局、银行信贷风险与经营绩效——来自商业银行与科技企业战略合作的证据

商业银行通过布局金融科技进行的金融服务创新,已成为深化金融供给侧结构性改革的重要举措。本文通过手工搜集2005—2019年323家商业银行与科技企业战略合作的数据,研究银行布局金融科技如何影响其信贷风险与经营绩效。结果表明:(1)银行布局金融科技战略能降低银行信贷风险,提高银行经营绩效;(2)银行布局金融科技通过提高其自身创新能力与竞争力从而降低银行的信贷风险水平;(3)银行布局金融科技,通过降低信贷风险、提升普惠金融服务、提高运营管理能力与拓展中间业务这四个渠道提高了银行经营绩效;(4)全国性银行发展金融科技使其信贷风险水平得到降低,资本充足率低的银行通过布局金融科技降低信贷风险的效果更强。同时,信用贷款比重越高的银行通过发展金融科技降低信贷风险、提高经营绩效的效果更加明显。本文研究有助于理解商业银行顺势而为所进行的金融科技布局的微观经济后果,也为进一步完善金融服务实体经济相关政策提供参考。     

Entry Decisions and Adverse Selection: An Empirical Analysis of Local Credit Markets

During the last decades there has been a widespread relaxation of legal entry barriers into the banking industry, with potential benefits for financial integration and competition. Obstacles to banks geographical and business expansion have been removed and branching has been substantially liberalized. This paper analyses the determinants of entry decisions into local credit markets using a unique data set before and after deregulation of the Italian banking industry. We estimate an entry model à la Poisson and find evidence that spreads between loan and deposit rates drive entry only for newly chartered banks, but does not affect the decision to open branches of banks operating in other markets. Branching by outside banks is instead positively correlated with business opportunities in the provision of financial services which do not require the acquisition of substantial proprietary information. Both these results are consistent with the hypothesis that in credit markets incumbents have an informational advantage over new entrants.     

Bank Portfolio Allocation: The Impact of Capital Requirements, Regulatory Monitoring, and Economic Conditions

This paper develops a structural, dynamic model of a banking firm to analyze how banks adjust their loan portfolios over time. In the model, banks experience capital shocks, face uncertain future loan demand, and incur costs based on their proximity to regulatory minimum capital requirements and the intensity of regulatory monitoring. Implications of the model then are estimated using panel data on large U.S. commercial banks operating continuously between December 1989 and December 1997. The estimated model is used to simulate the optimal bank response to (1) past and proposed changes in capital requirements, (2) changes in regulatory monitoring intensity, and (3) economic downturns. The simulation results are used to shed light on the decline in loan growth and the rise in bank capital ratios witnessed over a decade ago as well as the possible impact of the current proposed modification to capital requirements.     

Securitization,competition and monitoring

We analyze the impact of loan securitization on competition in the loan market. Using a dynamic loan market competition model where borrowers face both exogenous and endogenous costs to switch between banks, we uncover a competition softening effect of securitization that allows banks to extract rents in the primary loan market. By reducing monitoring incentives, securitization mitigates winner’s curse effects in future stages of competition thereby decreasing ex ante competition for initial market share. Due to this competition softening effect, securitization can adversely affect loan market efficiency while leading to higher equilibrium profits for banks. This effect is driven by primary loan market competition, not by the exploitation of informational asymmetries in the secondary market for loans. We also argue that banks can use securitization as a strategic response to an increase in competition, as a tool to signal a reduction in monitoring intensity for the sole purpose of softening ex ante competition. Our result suggests that securitization reforms focusing exclusively on informational asymmetries in markets for securitized products may overlook competitive conditions in the primary market.     

Capital Constraints,Asymmetric Information,and Internal Capital Markets in Banking: New Evidence

A growing literature investigates the role of internal capital markets in mitigating financial constraints faced by the subsidiaries of a conglomerate. Most studies have relied on indirect tests based on correlations between the cash flows and the investment of the subsidiaries. In contrast, we avoid the widespread criticisms of such specifications by providing direct tests that focus on the mechanisms through which internal reallocations of funds occur. We find that internal capital markets are used by multibank holding companies to mitigate capital constraints faced by individual bank subsidiaries. In addition, we show that internal capital management within a multibank holding company involves not only the movement of capital to those subsidiaries with a relatively greater need for capital but also the movement of assets (loans) from less well capitalized to better capitalized subsidiaries by means of loan sales and purchases among the subsidiaries. Furthermore, net loan sales are used to allow efficiency‐enhancing specialization among bank subsidiaries, insofar as those subsidiaries with the best loan origination opportunities are able to focus on loan originations even if they do not have sufficient capital to hold the loans. Our evidence is consistent with banks affiliated with holding companies more actively participating in loan sales and purchases because, by using their internal secondary loan market, they are able to avoid the “lemons” problem faced by stand‐alone banks.     

Loan Loss Provisions, Earnings Management and Capital Management under IFRS: The Case of EU Commercial Banks

Prior research has shown that loan loss provisions are primarily used as a tool for earnings management and capital management by listed banks. Effective 2005 all listed companies in the European Union (EU) are required to comply with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Adherence to IFRS, it is claimed, should enhance transparency of reporting practices relative to local General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The overall objective of this paper is to examine the impact of the implementation of IFRS on the use of loan loss provisions (LLPs) to manage earnings and capital. We use a sample of 91 EU listed commercial banks covering a period of 10 years (before and after implementation of IFRS). Since early adopters may have different incentives and motivations relative to those who adopt mandatorily, we dichotomize our sample into early and late adopters. Overall, we find that earnings management (using loan loss provisions) for both early and late adopters while significant over the estimation window is significantly reduced after implementation of IFRS. We also find that, for risky banks, earnings management behavior is more pronounced when compared to the less risky banks, but is significantly reduced in the post IFRS period. Capital management behavior by bank managers is not significant in both pre and post IFRS regimes. Overall, we conclude that the implementation of IFRS in the EU appears to have improved earnings quality by mitigating the tendency of bank managers of listed commercial banks to engage in earnings management using loan loss provisions.     

Liquidity regulation and bank lending

Bank liquidity shortages during the global financial crisis of 2007–2009 led to the introduction of liquidity regulations, the impact of which has attracted the attention of academics and policymakers. In this paper, we investigate the impact of liquidity regulation on bank lending. As a setting, we use the Netherlands, where a Liquidity Balance Rule (LBR) was introduced in 2003. The LBR was imposed on Dutch banks only and did not apply to other banks operating elsewhere within the Eurozone. Using this differential regulatory treatment to overcome identification concerns and a difference-in-differences approach, we find that the LBR increased the volume of lending by Dutch banks relative to other banks located in the Eurozone. Increased equity, an inflow of retail deposits and subsequent increase in balance sheet size allowed Dutch banks to increase lending despite having to meet the LBR requirements. The LBR also affected the loan composition of Dutch banks (with corporate and retail lending increasing more than mortgage lending) and the maturity profile of loan portfolios. Our results have relevance for policymakers tasked with monitoring the impact of liquidity regulations on banks and the real economy.     

First Financial Restructuring and operating efficiency: Evidence from Taiwanese commercial banks

This paper investigates the effect of the “First Financial Restructuring” (FFR) on the operating efficiency of commercial banks in Taiwan. Applying data envelopment analysis (DEA) to operations data for 40 commercial banks over the 6-year period 2000–2005, we find that while the banks have lower operating efficiency on average during the reform period (2002–2003) compared to the pre-reform period (2000–2001), improved operating efficiency is reflected in the post-reform period (2004–2005). Our results remain unchanged even after controlling for the non-performing loan ratio, capital adequacy ratio, bank ownership, size, and GDP growth rate. These results suggest that the improved efficiency in the post-reform period is possibly due to enhanced banking and risk management practices and benefits obtained from compliance with the FFR.     

小额贷款公司财务效率和社会效率及其影响因素-基于DEA Tobit两阶段法的实证分析

基于2013-2015年山东省259家小额贷款公司的面板数据,运用DEA-Tobit两阶段法分析小额贷款公司财务效率和社会效率及其影响因素.实证结果表明:小额贷款公司社会效率的均值低于财务效率的均值,同时小额贷款公司在财务效率方面差异较小,并且总体水平较高,而社会效率的分布相对比较分散,并且总体水平较低.盈利能力、融资结构和地区经济发展水平对小额贷款公司的财务效率存在显著的正向影响;涉农贷款比例对财务效率和社会效率均产生显著的正向影响.国有集体资本参股和设立在县域有利于社会效率的提高;经营时间和小额贷款公司社会效率存在负相关关系,但对财务效率的影响并不显著.     

银行发展金融科技能否提高经营绩效？——来自我国92家银行的经验证据

采用对年报进行文本分析的方法构建银行金融科技指数,结合2008—2019年我国92家银行面板数据,考察银行金融科技对经营绩效的影响及作用机制。研究发现,银行发展金融科技能够提升经营绩效;降低不良贷款率以及成本收入比是银行金融科技影响经营绩效的中介机制。异质性分析表明,规模更大的银行发展金融科技对经营绩效的正向作用更为显著;资本充足率更高的银行发展金融科技更有效地提高了股本收益率,对资产收益率的影响则不存在明显差异。      

利率市场化与银行资产配置选择 —基于45家商业银行的面板数据分析

本文在对商业银行资产配置进行理论分析的基础上,构建利率市场化对商业银行 资产配置影响的实证模型,利用45家商业银行2003-2014年的面板数据进行实证检验,实证结 果表明：利率市场化对信贷资产的增长没有产生激励效应,商业银行并未在利率市场化进程中 加速信贷扩张;利率市场化对商业银行资产配置结构产生了显著影响,随着利率市场化程度的 加深,信贷资产和证券资产在总资产中的占比都增大;利率市场化对信贷资产内部配置结构也 产生了显著影响,促进零售信贷资产占比提升,而对公司信贷资产占比和前十大客户信贷资产 占比的影响为负,这验证了在利率市场化的推进过程中,商业银行将信贷资源向个人客户和中 小企业客户倾斜,利率市场化发挥了一定的积极效应。     

基于随机前沿分析的贷款定价效率研究

在同等条件下,高效率的贷款定价能够给银行带来更多的收益。本文将影响贷款定价的因素分成两部分：将成本因素设定为随机前沿生产函数的投入指标,将风险和其他因素设定为影响商业银行贷款定价效率的指标。通过建立商业银行贷款定价的随机前沿生产函数,研究商业银行的贷款定价效率。对中国33家商业银行2003--2012年的面板数据进行实证研究发现：大型商业银行因规模优势表现出了较高的效率;股份制银行和城市商业银行的贷款定价效率差异最大;在利率管制下,外资银行的技术优势没有体现出来。     

农村金融机构经营效率测算及影响因素的空间计量分析——兼论农村金融机构改革

农村金融改革的目标之一在于提升农村金融机构的经营效率,但相关研究较少考虑不良贷款约束,对农村金融机构经营效率及其影响因素的空间计量也很少涉及。基于此,本文以较具代表性的沿海地区G省为例,运用非径向EBM-Undesirable模型从多个视角测算分析了农村金融机构的经营效率,并基于空间相关性检验和空间计量模型,对经营效率进行了空间效应分析与影响因素估计。结果显示:农村金融机构经营效率总体水平较高,但起伏较大;农商行效率高于农信社,但2015年后差距有所缩小;经营效率具有空间相关性,经济水平、产业结构、行业竞争、资产规模和盈利能力是驱动因素,隐形风险是阻碍因素。鉴此,本文提出了加快推进农商行治理能力建设和产品服务创新、将经营效率作为农信社改制的重要参考指标、监管部门和省联社给予针对性经营指导、深化邻近协同经营等政策建议。