A study on risk retention regulation in asset securitization process

We study the impacts of the recently proposed risk retention regulation for asset securitization, i.e. the issuer has to retain a certain proportion of securitized assets. We also consider the frequently discussed measure to require the issuer disclose certain information of the securitized assets. In a dynamic model with asymmetric information between a risk-averse originating bank and a continuum of risk-averse investors, we find that it is impossible for a flat-rate retention requirement to be optimal for all asset types. Although both risk retention and information disclosure regulations are effective in reducing investors’ informational loss, neither can unconditionally enhance social welfare upon the unregulated case. For both measures, there are associated regulatory cost: risk retention regulation aggravates adverse selection problem because it undermines the channel of informational revelation by the choice of securitization intensity, and information disclosure requirement incurs a signalling cost by distorting banks’ securitization intensity in sending signals. Under an appropriate set of conditions we find that information disclosure requirement complements risk retention regulation when investors are sufficiently risk averse.     

Pricing CDS spreads with Credit Valuation Adjustment using a mixture copula

Credit derivatives pricing models before Basel III ignored losses in market value stemming from higher probability of counterparty default. We propose a general credit derivatives pricing model to evaluate a Credit Default Swap (CDS) with counterparty risk, including the Credit Valuation Adjustment (CVA) in order to optimize the economic capital allocation. We work from the model proposed by Luciano (2003, Working Paper, International Center of Economic Research) and the general pricing representation established by Sorensen and Bollier (Financial Analysts Journal 1994;50(3):23–33) to provide a model close to the market practice, easy to implement and fitting with Basel III framework. We approach the dependence between counterparty risk and that of the reference entity with a technical tool: the copula, in particular, the mixture one that combines common “extreme” copulas. We study the CDS's vulnerability in extreme dependence cases. By varying Spearman's rho, the mixture copula covers a broad spectrum of dependence and ensures closed form prices. We end up with an application on real market data.     

Is ex-post credit risk affected by the cycles? The case of Italian banks

The objective of this research is to empirically examine if both credit and business cycle affect the ex-post credit risk (i.e. non-performing loans) in the banking system of Italy for the period 1995Q1–2014Q1. The increase in NPLs post-2008 has put into question the robustness of many European banks and the stability of the whole sector. It still remains a serious challenge, especially in Italy which is one of the countries that hit by the financial crisis. By employing fixed and random effects and a dynamic GMM estimation as econometric methodologies I find results that underline common causes for NPLs. Higher NPLs in Italy are mostly due to worse macroeconomic conditions (i.e. bad phase of business cycle) and due to excess credit. Through a Granger causality test, my arguments found even more support. Such findings can be helpful when designing macro-prudential as well as NPL resolution policies.     

Political uncertainty and a firm's credit risk: Evidence from the international CDS market

Using a large sample of firms with single-name credit default swap (CDS) contracts in 30 countries, we document the evidence that political uncertainty, proxied by national election dummy, is positively related to firm-level credit risk. Specifically, this positive relation is more pronounced for the firms that have no political connection or poor international diversification, and in the countries with higher political uncertainty and lower investor protections. Further, by using a difference-in-differences approach, we find evidence to support idiosyncratic volatility and debt rollover channels through which political uncertainty affects the credit risk of individual firm.     

Bubbles,banks and financial stability

The macroeconomic impact of rational bubbles in a limited commitment economy crucially depends on whether banks or ordinary savers hold the bubble. Banks hold the bubble asset when their leverage is high, when long-term real interest rates are low or when lax supervision allows them to enjoy high deposit insurance subsidies. When banks are the bubble-holders, this amplifies the output boom by reducing loan–deposit rate spreads while the bubble survives but also deepens the recession when the bubble bursts. In contrast, the real impact of bubbles held by ordinary savers is more muted.     

Charting a Course on the Islamic Finance Ocean： A Survey of Islamic Insurance Literatures

The number of Muslim literates in Islamic finance and conventional finance, particularly Islamic insurance, has grown tremendously, so has the number of academic and professional articles, books, and other monographs published in Islamic insurance profession. Despite Islamic insurance uniqueness based on Islamic values and philosophies, its emancipation aimed to compete or eradicate the conventional insurance at both academic and professional levels. Those monographs that were intended to replace their conventional insurance counterpart have triggered endless debates among stakeholders on their authenticity and quality of knowledge and as well challenged their authors＇ authorities. Therefore, with content analysis, this survey verified whether the Islamic insurance literatures were capable of producing well-seasoned professionals of lslamic insurance. The results showed that the disputes over the available literatures might have contributed to the failure of having a standard curriculum for teaching Islamic insurance as a profession in academic at national and international levels. Review of the literatures and curriculum was recommended.     

The impact of securitization on credit rationing: Empirical evidence

We study whether banks’ involvement into different types of securitization activity – asset backed securities (ABS) and covered bonds – in Spain influences credit supply before and during the financial crisis. While both ABS and covered bonds were hit by the crisis, the former were hit more severely. Employing a disequilibrium model to identify credit rationing, we find that firms with banks that were more involved in securitization see their credit constraints more relaxed in normal periods. In contrast, only greater covered bonds issuance reduces credit rationing during crisis periods whereas ABS aggravates these firms’ credit rationing in crisis periods. Our results are in line with the theoretical predictions that a securitization instrument that retains risk (covered bond) may induce a more prudent risk behavior of banks than an instrument that provides risk transferring (ABS).     

Reputation,risk-taking,and macroprudential policy

This paper examines the role of macroprudential capital requirements in preventing inefficient credit booms in a model with reputational externalities. In our model, unprofitable banks have strong incentives to invest in risky assets when macroeconomic fundamentals are good in order to avoid the stigma of being assessed as low ability by the market. We show that across-the-system countercyclical capital requirements that deter such gambling are constrained optimal when fundamentals are neither extremely weak nor extremely strong.     

Flight to liquidity and the Great Recession

This paper argues that counter-cyclical liquidity hoarding by financial intermediaries may strongly amplify business cycles. It develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model in which banks operate subject to agency problems and funding liquidity risk in their intermediation activity. Importantly, the amount of liquidity reserves held in the financial sector is determined endogenously: Balance sheet constraints force banks to trade off insurance against funding outflows with loan scale. A financial crisis, simulated as an abrupt decline in the collateral value of bank assets, triggers a flight to liquidity, which strongly amplifies the initial shock and induces credit crunch dynamics sharing key features with the Great Recession. The paper thus develops a new balance sheet channel of shock transmission that works through the composition of banks’ asset portfolios.     

我国小企业的紧融资约束

紧融资约束是我国大多数小企业进一步发展所面临的瓶颈问题。其直接原因是信贷配给制下国有银行的自利性歧视,如企业规模歧视、治理结构歧视、所有权歧视、资金需求歧视和交易费用歧视等。其根本原因是我国的金融抑制和金融发展的水平偏低。重要的是,金融抑制往往是金融不发达的重要原因。因此,解决的办法主要有加强信用评价与管理、发展信用担保业、加强对国有银行贷款行为的规制、放松对民间融资的规制和在银行业中引入私人小银行等。其中,第三条措施是根源于国有银行的企业性质的,也是可以立即执行并在短期内见效的解决办法。