Same information,different value: New evidence on the value of voluntary assurance

This paper examines whether there is a difference in the value of voluntarily assured financial statements of private firms, depending on the availability of other information for the users of the statements. By using a within-firm estimator that completely controls for firm fixed effects, we find that the loan interest rate for private firms with voluntarily assured financial statements is lower when the firms have longer relationships with their banks. This finding suggests that the value of assured financial statements differs among the same type of users (banks), and is larger for those that accumulate soft information through long-term lending relationships. We also find that this larger value is not present when the tenure of the auditor with the client is very long.     

Voluntary disclosures and peer-to-peer lending decisions: Evidence from the repeated game

This study investigates the effect of voluntary disclosures on lending decisions in the repeated game. Using a unique dataset from a peer-to-peer lending platform,“ppdai” (paipaidai), we document that voluntary disclosures in the repeated game play a stronger role in promoting funding success than those in the one-shot game. We argue that voluntary disclosures improve the bidding activity in the repeated game through which they increase funding success. In addition, the greater impact of voluntary disclosures on funding success in the repeated game only holds for loans without a personal guarantee attribution. Our extended results suggest that the subjective voluntary disclosures in the repeated game have greater information content only when borrowers have a successful borrowing experience. We also point out that voluntary disclosures in the repeated game are associated with a lower probability of default. Our results are robust to the Heckman two-step estimation that addresses the self-selection effect and a specification designed to rule out the alternative explanation from reputation in the repeated game. Our study provides new insights into the real effects of costless, voluntary and unverifiable disclosures on lending decisions.     

宏观调控、所有权结构与商业银行信贷扩张行为

本文结合公司金融和商业银行相关理论,厘清了股权结构对商业银行信贷扩张的作用机理,重点分析政府宏观调控政策目标和意图如何通过股权结构作用于信贷行为。选用21家银行2003-2010年间的面板数据,估计得出中央政府控制、民营化程度低、大股东持股比例高的银行具有更强的信贷扩张冲动;并利用2009年宏观经济扩张政策外生冲击形成的"自然实验"环境,通过双重差分(Difference-in-Difference)估计策略发现,宏观调控对中央政府控制、民营化程度低、大股东持股比例高的银行的信贷行为影响更为显著。本文的研究从政府控制和银行内部治理的视角为信贷扩张的微观机制以及商业银行市场化改革之后政府宏观经济调控的传导渠道提供了一个新的解释。     

Natural or unnatural selection? The end of lending relationships for small businesses

We investigate the situation where small business borrowers and banks end their lending relationships. If credit allocation is efficient, banks terminate their relationships with risky borrowers. Alternatively, small business borrowers are more likely to end their relationships when they have poor investment opportunities and do not require borrowed funds. However, if the soft budget constraints of banks or credit crunches are a significant problem, banks are likely to continue their relationships with risky firms or end their relationships with nonrisky firms, which is representative of an unnatural credit allocation. Using Japanese firm-level data, we show empirically that these relationships end naturally, with natural credit allocation supported even during the recent global financial crisis.     

Explaining changes in the US credit card market: Lenders are using more information

We examine two changes in the cross-sectional distribution of credit card contracts over time: the increasing variance in interest rates and the increasing variance in credit limits, using data from the 1989–2013 Survey of Consumer Finances. Within this dataset, we show that financial institutions seem to be collecting and using more consumer information when extending credit. We then develop a life-cycle model of lending using a novel contract structure reflecting modern credit cards, where interest rates and credit limits are jointly determined before actual borrowing takes place. Within the model, giving lenders more information on consumers generates realistic results along several dimensions. More information leads to better pricing, moving the market from a ‘pooling’ to a ‘separating’ equilibrium, generating the observed increase in variances, with the gains primarily going to young agents.     

European development banks and the political cycle

This paper investigates whether the lending activity of European development banks is affected by opportunistic political behavior, by looking at the change in loans extended by these entities in election years. The empirical analysis leverages on a unique manually collected dataset that includes all the development banks headquartered in Europe, for the period 2002–2015.A comparison with the rest of the European banking system reveals that while the political view of development banks cannot be supported as a general rule, it finds empirical evidence in flawed democracies, where large development banks actually tend to increase their lending activity in election years.     

Does monitoring by the media improve the performance of government banks?

By examining cross-country data for the period from 2000 to 2010, this study investigates whether monitoring by the media affects the performance of government-owned banks (GOBs). The results indicate that GOBs under strong monitoring do not underperform privately owned banks (POBs), whereas those under weak monitoring do underperform POBs. Further, we find that the strength of the media's monitoring has an important effect on corruption behavior and banks’ performance. This result provides an important policy implication that the government should minimize its ownership, and therefore its influence, in the media sector if it intends to improve the performance of its GOBs.     

商业银行微小企业贷款业务初探

微小企业数量多,分布广,在活跃经济、方便生活、增加就业等方面发挥了极大的作用,对国民经济的贡献率也在逐年上升.但贷款难的问题长期存在,严重制约了其健康快速发展.近年来,部分商业银行正在探索既能满足微小企业的融资需求,又能使银行利润稳步增长,并与我国国情相适应的微小企业贷款模式.     

城市家庭的经济条件、理财意识和投资借贷行为——来自全国24个城市的消费金融调查

消费金融调研是获得消费金融研究数据的一个重要途径。清华大学在2010年开展了面向全国城市居民家庭的消费金融调研。本文择要介绍了本次调研的一些成果,包括居民家庭的资产负债情况、家庭的收支状况、家庭的投资和借贷行为,以及家庭其他方面的理财意识和行为等。最后,根据调研结果对我国城市居民家庭金融的几个特点进行了总结。