Debt Overhang and Deleveraging in the US Household Sector: Gauging the Impact on Consumption

Using a novel data set for the U.S. states, this paper examines whether household debt and the protracted debt deleveraging help explain the dismal performance of U.S. consumption since 2007 in the aftermath of the housing bubble. By separating the concepts of deleveraging and debt overhang—a flow and a stock effect—we find that excessive indebtedness exerted a meaningful drag on consumption over and beyond wealth and income effects. The overall effect, however, is modest—‐around one sixth of the slowdown in consumption between 2000–06 and 2007–12—and mostly driven by states with particularly large imbalances in their household sector. This might be indicative of non‐linearities, whereby indebtedness begins to bite only when misalignments from sustainable debt dynamics become excessive.     

Deleveraging in a Highly Indebted Property Market: Who does it and are there Implications for Household Consumption?

A distinguishing feature of the period preceding the 2007/2008 financial crisis was the sizeable increase in private sector debt observed across many countries. A key component of household liabilities is mortgage debt and with many countries experiencing persistent increases in house prices from the mid‐1990s, a marked increase in this aspect of household leverage was observed. While aggregate statistics across countries confirm reductions in personal debt levels in recent years, relatively few sources of micro data are available to examine the nature of the deleveraging process at the household level. In this paper, using a unique dataset, we examine deleveraging amongst a representative sample of mortgaged Irish households. We identify the characteristics of households engaged in deleveraging and find that it is those households who can afford to deleverage who do. Furthermore we find some tentative evidence to suggest that the decision to deleverage has negative implications for household consumption.     

Non-performing loans and the cost of deleveraging: The Italian experience

The massive stock of Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) in Europe has forced regulatory and supervisory authorities to promote debate on their management and timely disposal. Simultaneously, the transition to IFRS 9 created the need for higher provisioning and for weighting sale scenarios in the assessment of NPLs. This study, using a scenario analysis based on the Italian experience of the NPL resolution process, focuses on the cost of deleveraging by comparing the alternative strategies of direct sale and securitization. The study highlights the impact of the assumptions derived from the portfolio assessment and the additional cost arising from the uncertainties surrounding the appropriate recovery procedure. It demonstrates that securitization minimises this cost, while estimating the benefit derived from the support of State-backed guarantees. These findings provide useful insights for policy makers, suggesting the promotion of further measures that aim to reduce the transfer of value from banks to third parties.     

Deleveraging crises and deep recessions: a behavioural approach

Macroeconomic dynamics are characterized by alternating patterns of periods of relative stability and large swings. Standard microfounded macroeconomic models account for these patterns through exogenous and persistent shocks. In this article, we develop a fully decentralized and microfounded macroeconomic agent-based model, augmented with an opinion model, which produces endogenous waves of pessimism and optimism that feed back into firms’ leverage and households’ precautionary saving behaviour. A major emergent property of our model is precisely the complex successions of stable and unstable macroeconomic regimes. The model is further able to account for a wide spectrum of macro and micro empirical regularities. Within this framework, we analyse a series of macroeconomic phenomena of key relevance in the current macroeconomic debate, especially the occurrence of deleveraging crises and Fisherian debt-deflation recessions. Our analysis suggests that the relative dynamics of prices and wages and the resulting income distribution along a deflationary path are critical determinants of the severity of the recession and the chances of recovery.     

税务风险、税收规避与企业资本结构调整

基于上市公司数据构建双重差分策略,研究税务风险对企业资本结构调整的影响.结果显示:企业税务风险的下降会减缓企业资本结构调整,平均而言,处理组企业的资本结构降低了约2％,且这一关系在动态条件下依然存在;在规模较小、市场化程度较高的企业,这种抑制效应越明显;税务风险的降低会影响企业避税,进而减缓资本结构的调整速度.因此,完善企业税务风险管理,有助于"稳杠杆"战略的顺利实施.     

基于资金循环流动视角的结构性杠杆与金融脆弱性——理论框架与中国实践

基于资金循环视角,从杠杆率定义推导出资产收益率是连接微观杠杆率与宏观杠杆率的纽带,进而从理论上论证我国经济部门结构性微观杠杆率差异在于各部门之间的资产收益率的差异。依据该理论考察我国现实杠杆率结构,结果发现:当前我国一些部门与行业的现实杠杆率与理论分析相悖,造成了资金的错配,严重冲击了我国金融体系的稳定性,加大了我国金融体系的脆弱性。因此,在保稳定、防风险政策实施过程中要精准识别不同部门、不同领域杠杆率的性质,科学施策,避免“一刀切”的金融去杠杆。     

银行竞争与僵尸企业去杠杆*

本文将银监会公布的金融许可证信息与中国工业企业数据库相匹配，考察了银行竞争对僵尸企业资本结构动态调整的影响机理。研究发现，银行竞争通过提高僵尸企业的融资成本显著加快了其资本结构调整速度，尤其是降杠杆的幅度。进一步研究表明，在货币政策宽松期，银行竞争对僵尸企业降杠杆的促进效果会更明显。此外，预算软约束小、外部融资依赖程度高、规模小的僵尸企业去杠杆的速度更快。本文立足于中国金融体系深化开放的现实情境，聚焦于僵尸企业这一特定主体的资本结构决策，为金融市场的竞争机制如何助力僵尸企业去杠杆提供了一定经验证据。     

美国次贷危机传导机理分析

美国次贷危机爆发后,迅速在国内和国际传导蔓延。从国内看,危机先从信贷市场传导至资本市场,又从资本市场回传到信贷市场,并对实体经济造成冲击。从国际看,危机通过金融渠道、贸易渠道和心理渠道向世界各国扩散。分析本次危机的传导机理,对日后有效防范金融危机的产生和蔓延具有理论和现实意义。     

去杠杆政策、政府审计与国有企业杠杆操纵

如何防范化解债务风险是国有企业管理中的一项重要工作,是国有企业高质量发展的重要基础。以2012—2018年中央企业控股的A股上市公司为研究样本,考察了在去杠杆政策实施过程中政府审计对国有企业杠杆操纵的影响。研究发现,国有企业在2016年以后的杠杆操纵行为显著增多,而政府审计的介入能够有效抑制国有企业的杠杆操纵行为。机制检验发现,约束机会主义行为和缓解信息不对称是政府审计治理国有企业杠杆操纵的两个路径。进一步讨论分析发现,政府审计与注册会计师审计、非国有股东监督、分析师监督、媒体监督的良性互动增强了对国有企业杠杆操纵的“监督合力”。