Credit Losses in Australasian Banking

We analyse the determinants of bank credit losses in Australasia. Despite sizeable credit losses over the past two decades, ours is the first systematic study to do so. Analysis is based on a comprehensive dataset retrieved from original financial reports of 32 Australasian banks (1980–2005). Credit losses rise when the macro economy is weak. Asset markets, particularly the equity market, are also important. Larger banks provide more for credit losses while banks with high cost-income-ratios show greater loan loss provisions. Strong loan growth translates into significantly higher credit losses with a lag of 2–4 years. Finally, the results show strong evidence of income smoothing activities by banks.     

Consolidation and commercial bank net interest margins: Evidence from the old and new European Union members and candidate countries

This paper examines the effects of financial reforms on the determinants of commercial bank net interest margin in the banking systems of the new EU member countries and candidate countries by dividing the sample period (1995–2006) into two sub-periods: consolidation period (1995–2000) and post-consolidation period (2001–2006). The paper also compares the new and old EU members to check whether differences with respect to the determinants of net interest margins between these two groups of countries exist within the same time period. The results indicate that size and managerial efficiency are negatively and significantly related to net interest margins in the two sub-periods. Regulators should promote merger and acquisition and market entry in order to increase the scale and efficiency of banks operating in the sector. Exploitation of the scale economies seems to be important in decreasing the interest rate spread in the sampled banking sectors. The results further indicate that all macroeconomic variables are statistically insignificant in the second sub-period, suggesting that differences in macroeconomic fundamentals have decreased among the sampled countries due to the increased convergence process in recent years. As for the comparison of the new and old EU members, the results suggest that the financial and economic convergence between the new and old members has not been completed. Macroeconomic differences within the group and between the groups still exist.     

On the welfare equivalence of asset markets and banking in Diamond Dybvig economies

Why do people choose bank deposit contracts over a direct participation in asset markets? In their seminal paper, Diamond and Dybvig’s (1983) answer this question by claiming that bank deposit contracts can implement allocations that are welfare superior to asset markets equilibria. The present paper demonstrates that this claim is false whenever the asset market participants are highly rational.     

Art market inefficiency

Art is often used as an investment vehicle. Given the importance of market efficiency in finance, we use a large auction-based index to test whether the art market is weakly efficient. Evidence reveals that returns on artworks exhibit high positive auto-correlation. We attribute this result to price truncation resulting from unobservable reserve prices in auctions. We conclude that the art market is not efficient, mainly because price formation is opaque to outsiders who lack information on unsold artworks.     

Financial structure,productivity, and risk of foreign direct investment

This study investigates how heterogeneous firms choose their lenders when they raise external finance for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and how the choice of financing structure affects FDI activities. We establish an asymmetric information model to analyze why certain firms use private bank loans while others use public bonds to finance foreign production. The hidden information is the productivity shock to FDI. Banks are willing to monitor the risk of FDI, while bondholders are not; hence, banks act as a costly middleman that enables firms to avoid excessive risk. We show that firms’ productivity levels, the riskiness of FDI, and the relative costs of bank finance and bond finance are three key determinants of the firm’s financing choice. Countries with higher productivity, higher bank costs, or investment in less risky destinations, use more bond finance than bank finance. These results are supported by evidence from OECD countries.     

Quantifying the recapitalization fund premium using option pricing techniques

The purpose of the paper consists in developing a formula for quantifying the premium a bank is expected to pay for a fund that provides recapitalization in order to allow orderly failure if the bank is in financial distress. The main finding is that such a premium can be computed as the difference between the prices of two European put options.     

Should you pay off your mortgage or invest?

The mortgage payoff dilemma affects many retirees that have enough financial assets to pay off their mortgage. I find that, on average, retirees with less than $300,000 in non-housing financial wealth are better off keeping the mortgage and investing.     

WEALTH EFFECT OF PUBLIC FUND INJECTIONS TO AILING BANKS: DO DEFERRED TAX ASSETS AND AUDITING FIRMS MATTER?*

This paper examines the wealth effect on other banks by the public fund injection into Resona Bank. This paper finds that the injection initially conveyed the auditing firms' strict stance towards deferred tax assets. More importantly, the procedure that the government employed was regarded by market participants as a too‐big‐to‐fail policy. Therefore, although the Resona injection was effective in obviating a financial crisis, the policy was inevitably accompanied with the moral hazard problem.     

Culture, caution, and trust

Trust is an important determinant of economic development. Understanding its origins is therefore critical. We develop a principal-agent model with heterogeneous players to determine the aggregate amount of trustworthiness and trust in a society. People are distributed according to their preference toward caution, which we model as loss aversion. The first two moments of the distribution across principals and agents—along with institutional quality—are critical to the process by which trustworthiness and trust are formed. A direct effect suggests that more caution leads to less societal trust. An indirect effect of greater caution, working through trustworthiness, leads to more trust. Paradoxically, the net effect is almost always positive. The results are similar when we use expected utility theory. Different distributional assumptions can influence the results.     

Do Upgradings and Downgradings Convey Information? An Event Study of the French Bond Market

This study has two purposes:

• 1 

  To present an alternative method for the study of events related to bond spreads applicable when only a small number of events is available;

       
  
  

DO SMALL DEPOSITORS EXIT FROM BAD BANKS? EVIDENCE FROM SMALL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS IN JAPAN*

This paper empirically investigates the issues of depositor discipline by examining deposit shifts among Japan's small banking institutions in the 1990s. We are concerned with two questions: (i) whether depositor discipline has effectively worked since the early 1990s, and (ii) whether changes in the regulatory frameworks, including the deposit insurance scheme, affect depositor discipline. Our findings support the effective role of market discipline by depositors. Riskier institutions attract smaller amounts of deposits and are required to pay higher interest rates. Depositor sensitivity to bank risks has changed over time, in compliance with the historical developments of the deposit insurance system.JEL Classification Numbers: G21, G32.     

Estimating bilateral exposures in the German interbank market: Is there a danger of contagion?

Credit risk associated with interbank lending may lead to domino effects, where the failure of one bank results in the failure of other banks not directly affected by the initial shock. Recent work in economic theory shows that this risk of contagion depends on the precise pattern of interbank linkages. We use balance sheet information to estimate a matrix of bilateral credit relationships for the German banking system and test whether the breakdown of a single bank can lead to contagion. We find that in the absence of a safety net, there is considerable scope for contagion that could affect a large proportion of the banking system. The financial safety net (in this case institutional guarantees for saving banks and cooperative banks) considerably reduces—but does not eliminate—the danger of contagion. Even so, the failure of a single bank could lead to the breakdown of up to 15% of the banking system in terms of assets.     

The changing role of dividends: a firm-level study from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century

Abstract .  We investigate the changes in dividend policy for one of North America's oldest banks (and Canada's first bank), Bank of Montreal, over time by considering the relationships between dividends, prices and earnings for this prominent firm. In the early part of the sample we find that annual dividend and earnings changes are highly variable, with dividend changes following changes in earnings and a larger portion of investors' returns coming from dividends. Since World War II dividend policy has been characterized by more stable and gradual increases in dividends, with more of investors' returns coming from capital gains. Overall, our results suggest that investors' perception of dividends has changed over time, allowing management to pay smaller dividends and reinvest funds in the firm.