Bank monitoring: Evidence from syndicated loans

We directly measure banks’ monitoring of syndicated loans. Banks typically demand borrower information on at least a monthly basis. About 20% of loans involve active monitoring (i.e., site visits or third-party appraisals). Monitoring increases with the lead bank’s incentives and the value of information and is negatively associated with loan spreads and maturity. The monitoring captured by our measures can either complement or substitute for covenant-based monitoring, depending on whether the monitoring informs covenant compliance. Banks increase monitoring following deteriorations in borrower financial condition and credit line drawdowns. Finally, monitoring is positively related to future covenant violations and loan renegotiations.     

Price Rigidity in Turkey: Evidence from Micro Data

In this study we investigate the duration of consumer price spells and price change patterns for Turkey by employing a comprehensive micro price data covering around 6,000 items over four years. In detail, we analyze how long typical price spell lasts and we investigate the size, frequency, distribution and synchronization of price changes. Compared to advanced economies, a higher frequency of price changes is estimated. Findings suggest substantial heterogeneity among sub-groups in terms of frequency and synchronization indicators. The mixed evidence of both state and time-dependent pricing is also relevant for Turkey, an emerging market economy.     

Specialization in Bank Lending: Evidence from Exporting Firms

We develop a novel approach for measuring bank specialization using granular data on borrower activities and apply it to Peruvian exporters and their banks. We find that borrowers seek credit from banks that specialize in their export destinations, both when expanding exports and when exporting to new countries. Firms experiencing country-specific export demand shocks adjust borrowing disproportionately from specialized banks. Specialized bank credit supply shocks affect exports disproportionately to countries of specialization. Our results demonstrate that firm credit demand is bank- and activity-specific, which reduces banking competition and affects the transmission and amplification of shocks through the banking sector.     

Corporate Governance, Opaque Bank Activities, and Risk/Return Efficiency: Pre- and Post-Crisis Evidence from Turkey

Does better corporate governance unambiguously improve the risk/return efficiency of banks? Or does either a re-orientation of banks’ revenue mix towards more opaque products, an economic downturn, or tighter supervision create off-setting or reinforcing effects? The authors relate bank efficiency to shortfalls from a stochastic risk/return frontier. They analyze how internal governance mechanisms (CEO duality, board experience, political connections, and education profile) and external governance mechanisms (discipline exerted by shareholders, depositors, or skilled employees) determine efficiency in a sample of Turkish banks. The 2000 financial crisis was a wake-up call for bank efficiency and corporate governance. As a result, better corporate governance mechanisms have been able to improve risk/return efficiency when the economic, regulatory, and supervisory environments are more stable and bank products are more complex.     

Investor Sentiment and Stock Returns: Evidence from Turkey

This paper investigates the relation between investor sentiment and stock returns on the Istanbul Stock Exchange, employing vector autoregressive (VAR) analysis and Granger causality tests. The sample period extends from July 1997 to June 2005. In the VAR models, stock portfolio returns and investor sentiment proxies are used as endogenous variables. Two dummy variables accounting for natural and economic crises are used as exogenous variables. The analysis results suggest that, excepting shares of equity issues in aggregate issues, stock portfolio returns seem to affect all investor sentiment proxies, namely closed-end fund discount, mutual fund flows, odd-lot sales-to-purchases ratio, and repo holdings of mutual funds. Investor sentiment does not appear to forecast future stock returns; only the turnover ratio of the stock market seems to have forecasting potential.     

影响银行冒险行为的因素——来自我国银行业的实证检验

本文以15家全国性商业银行的数据为研究样本,采用面板数据二阶段可行广义最小二乘方法检验了影响银行冒险行为的因素.研究发现,银行资本对冒险行为具有显著的负效应,银行规模对冒险行为具有显著的负效应,特许权价值对冒险行为的影响不显著,稳定股东所有权对冒险行为具有显著的负效应,监管压力对冒险行为具有显著的正效应,但对上市银行的冒险行为却具有显著的负效应.     

Bank relationships and underwriter competition: Evidence from Japan

I examine the effects of bank relationships on underwriter choice in the Japanese corporate bond market following the 1993 deregulation. Bank relationships have significant positive effects on a firm's underwriter choice. Relationship firms receive a small but significant fee discount and, consistent with the mitigating effect of competition on hold-up costs, multiple-relationship firms receive a significantly deeper discount than single-relationship firms. Bank shareholding alone negatively affects underwriter choice, whereas shareholding together with loans has significantly more positive effects than loans alone. Finally, existing relationships reduce a Japanese firm's switching probability by 32%, in contrast to only 6% for U.S. firms.     

Bank Power and Cash Holdings: Evidence from Japan

Using industrial firms from the United States, German, and Japan,we examine the effect of bank power on cash holdings. We showthat Japanese firms hold more cash than U.S. or German firms.We also document that Japanese cash balances are affected bythe monopoly power of banks. During periods with powerful banks,firms' high cash holdings are consistent with banks extractingrents. When banks weakened, Japanese cash levels became morelike U.S. firms. We conclude that strong Japanese banks persuadefirms to hold large cash balances. This is contrary to widelyheld beliefs about the Japanese governance system.     

Performance of Electricity Price Forecasting Models: Evidence from Turkey

In this article, hourly prices of the Turkish Day Ahead Electricity Market are forecasted by using various univariate electricity price models, then the out-of-sample forecasts are compared with each other and the benchmarks. This article has two main contributions to the literature: Firstly, it provides a factorial Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) as a pre-whitening method of the price series and allows one to work with the stationary residuals series. Secondly, it is the first work, which compares the performances of all important statistical univariate forecast models in the Turkish electricity market. Results indicate the importance of the factorial ANOVA application and the SARIMA model’s success under the given conditions.     

Effect of Banking Regulation on Performance: Evidence from Turkey

In this study, we investigate the effect of regulation on banking sector performance in an emerging country context. Consecutive crises in the early 2000s led to three waves of reformist banking regulations in Turkey: (1) the banking sector restructuring program in 2002, (2) limitation of the full deposit insurance system in 2004, and (3) a corporate governance-related banking law in 2005. Results show that these actions had a positive effect on bank lending, asset quality, and profitability. Findings also support the view that the sequence and timing of banking reforms in Turkey acted as a shield against the global financial crisis of 2008.     

Heterogeneous Market-Making in Foreign Exchange Markets: Evidence from Individual Bank Responses to Central Bank Interventions

Using high-frequency data this article provides evidence that, on average, central bank interventions lead to increased volatility and a widening of bid–ask spreads in the intra-day market for foreign exchange. The results also show that there is dispersion in the bid–ask spread revisions posted by individual banks in response to the central bank entering the market. The findings are consistent with predictions from standard models of market microstructure with heterogeneous agents and have implications for the market power of central banks as well as the payoff generated by trading large amounts of international reserves.     

Monetary Pressures and Inflation Dynamics in Turkey: Evidence from P-Star Model

This paper uses the P-star model to explain inflation dynamics in Turkey. In P-star models, money determines the price gap, which is postulated to measure the pressure on prices in an economy. This pressure emerges when output is above the potential, the interest rate is lower than the natural rate, or there is pure excess money in the economy. The estimation results with the Turkish data show that the price gap contains considerable information for explaining inflation dynamics. Moreover, the model selection criterion that compares the empirical performance of the P-star model with the new classical Phillips curve relation favors the P-star model over the Phillips curve relationship. We conclude that money is efficacious in predicting risk in price stability in Turkey.     

An international comparison of scale economies in banking: Evidence from Turkey

In this article economies of scale are examined for Turkish banks. The literature on economies of scale in depository institutions is substantial. Yet, virtually all published articles have examined production/costs using data for developed countries, such as the United States, Canada, and Israel. Here we examine data from a country that has an economic system vastly different in terms of per capita productivity. Despite the differences, the results are similar across countries in that we find no significant evidence of economies of scale at output levels near the sample mean. This suggests that the conclusion from examining banks in developed countries—that a bank does not have to be large in order to be competitive from a cost perspective—holds in a less developed country.     

银行背景董事与可转债融资: 中国的证据

基于我国的金融环境,将银行背景董事的来源分为五大行和非五大行两种类型,以此考察不同来源的银行背景董事对可转债融资的影响是否存在差异。研究发现：来自五大行的银行背景董事对可转债融资申请是否被证监会审核通过不会产生显著影响,而来自非五大行的银行背景董事具有显著的正面影响,但是,在可转债融资后的经营业绩上,两者都不会产生显著的积极影响。这表明银行背景董事的作用,主要来自于非五大行的银行背景董事,并且,发挥的作用有限,仅体现了其咨询功能,而非监督功能。     

Bank fund reallocation and economic growth: Evidence from China

This paper examines bank fund reallocation and regional economic growth based on 1991–2005 provincial-level data of four state-owned commercial banks of China that practice fund reallocation nation-wide. We find no correlation between bank fund reallocation and regional economic growth or between bank loans and regional economic growth. We find, however, a positive association between bank deposits and growth. It appears economic growth leads financial development in China, not the other way around. Furthermore, as China’s market-oriented reforms deepen, fund reallocation and loans start to manifest positive effects on growth even though the banks are government owned.     

Income Diversification and Bank Performance: Evidence from Italian Banks

Using annual data from Italian banks, we study the link between non-interest revenues and profitability. We find that income diversification increases risk-adjusted returns. Our results provide econometric evidence consistent with current studies on EU banks, but do not support findings on the U.S. experience. In our view, the differences depend primarily on the relative importance of local banks: we find that the relation is stronger at large banks. In addition, we find that there are limits to diversification gains as banks get larger. Small banks can make gains from increasing non-interest income, but only when they have very little non-interest income share to start with. The source of non-interest income is less important than its level.

会计稳健性与银行借款契约——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

会计稳健性在银行借款契约中居于重要地位。借款人采用高水平的稳健性可以帮助银行降低风险,相应地,银行会提供一定的优惠作为回报。使用手工收集的2000-2007年中国A股上市公司的单笔银行贷款为研究数据,我们对上述问题进行了实证检验。结果发现,企业的会计稳健性越强,企业获得的每笔贷款金额越大,贷款期限越长,贷款的利率越低。另外,我们发现在法制环境越好,优惠政策越多,政府干预越少的地区,上述关系更为显著。     

Bank Concentration and Firm Investment: Empirical Evidence from India

This paper investigates the impact of bank concentration on firm-level investment across firm groups classified according to size, investment destination, and debt maturity structure. Using data of 302 manufacturing firms for the period 2000-2009, we show that elevated financial constraints are associated with small and medium-size enterprises and firms that are dependent on short-term debt and exhibit high levels of sensitivity of investment to cash flow. Our empirical finding confirms that bank concentration exerts a positive impact on firms' financial constraints on investment. This effect is more pronounced for small firms and firms dependent on short-term debt. However, our results are indifferent to domestic versus foreign investing firm groups.     

Return and Maturity Relationships for Treasury Auctions: Evidence from Turkey

The relationship between the interest rate and the maturity of newly issued bonds provides information on the debt dynamics of an economy as well as on the sustainability of its debt. Such information is crucial especially for countries that have debt‐rollover concerns due to financial stress and/or macroeconomic instability. This study investigates the relationship between treasury auction maturity, which also dictates the debt maturity, and auction interest rates. When the Turkish treasury auction data from 1988 to 2004 are analysed, a reciprocal linkage between auction interest rates and maturities can be observed, especially for the 1995–2000 period, when there were chronic high inflation, high political uncertainty, high public deficits and unsuccessful attempts at stabilisation. This suggests that under an adverse shock, the Treasury decreases the auction maturity in order not to increase interest rates too much. A change in this reciprocal relationship is also reported for the post‐2001 era, which is characterised by decreasing inflation, higher political stability, lower public deficits and successful stabilisation attempts.