Is There Excess Capacity in Rural Banking Markets?

The literature indicates that it is difficult to identify and quantify the degree of excess capacity in banking. Economic theory indicates that there are at least three indicators of excess capacity in banking: (a) low loan-to-asset ratios, (b) low profitability and (c) high per unit operating expense relative to some norm. If excess capacity exists, it will be easiest to identify, through these indicators, at small rural banks. This paper finds significant evidence of excess capacity at rural Colorado banks using univariate analysis; simultaneous equations analysis reinforces this conclusion. It appears that the “excess capacity effect”outweighs the “market power effect”in these rural banking markets.     

Can Relationship Banking Survive Competition?

How will banks evolve as competition increases from other banks and from the capital market? Will banks become more like capital market underwriters and offer passive transaction loans or return to their roots as relationship lending experts? These are the questions we address. Our key result is that as interbank competition increases, banks make more relationship loans, but each has lower added value for borrowers. Capital market competition reduces relationship lending (and bank lending shrinks), but each relationship loan has greater added value for borrowers. In both cases, welfare increases for some borrowers but not necessarily for all.     

Are Competitive Banking Systems More Stable?

Using the Panzar and Rosse H-statistic as a measure of competition in 45 countries, we find that more competitive banking systems are less prone to experience a systemic crisis and exhibit increased time to crisis. This result holds even when we control for banking system concentration, which is associated with higher probability of a crisis and shorter time to crisis. Our results indicate that competition and concentration capture different characteristics of banking systems, meaning that concentration is an inappropriate proxy for competition. The findings suggest that policies promoting competition among banks, if well executed, have the potential to improve systemic stability.     

Islamic Banking: How Has It Expanded?

We investigate the determinants of the pattern of Islamic bank expansion around the world using country-level data for 1992-2006. The analysis illustrates that income per capita, share of Muslims in the population, and economic integration with Middle Eastern countries are linked to the development of Islamic banking. Interest rates have a negative impact, while the quality of institutions is not found to be significant. The September 11, 2001, attacks were not a major factor in the expansion of Islamic banking, but they coincided with rising oil prices. Islamic banks also appear to be complements to, rather than substitutes for, conventional banks.     

Relationship Banking: What Do We Know?

This paper briefly reviews the contemporary literature on relationship banking. We start out with a discussion of the raison d'être of banks in the context of the financial intermediation literature. From there we discuss how relationship banking fits into the core economic services provided by banks and point at its costs and benefits. This leads to an examination of the interrelationship between the competitive environment and relationship banking as well as a discussion of the empirical evidence. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: G20, G21, L10.     

Concentration of Banking Relationships in Switzerland: The Result of Firm Structure or Banking Market Structure?

Switzerland is one of the countries with the highest concentration of bank–customer relationships. The present paper seeks to find out whether this can be explained by the structure of Swiss firms or by the organization of the Swiss banking market. Using survey data from small and medium-sized enterprises in 1996 and 2002, we examine the influence of firm-, loan-, and bank-specific variables on the number of banking relationships. We find that firm and industry structure have the largest explanatory power, while banking market structure and conduct play a minor role. Relationship lending by state-owned cantonal banks and small regional banks tends to enhance the concentration of banking relationships.

Banking risk and regulation: Does one size fit all?

Using data for more than 200 banks from 21 OECD countries for the period 2002–2008, we examine the impact of bank regulation and supervision on banking risk using quantile regressions. In contrast to most previous research, we find that banking regulation and supervision has an effect on the risks of high-risk banks. However, most measures for bank regulation and supervision do not have a significant effect on low-risk banks. As banking risk and bank regulation and supervision are multi-faceted concepts, our measures for both concepts are constructed using factor analysis.     

Which Factors Affect Bond Underwriting Fees? The Role of Banking Relationships

The question of which factors are relevant in determining bond underwriting fees is empirically investigated by analysing 2,202 bond issues completed by European firms during the 1993 – 2003 period. Four major results emerge from the analysis. First, the introduction of the single currency in 1999 has generated an increase in competition among banks, and, as a result, a reduction in underwriting fees. Second, a strong relationship with the issuer's main bank reduces the level of underwriting fees. Third, new issuers are charged with lower underwriter fees relative to firms that have completed issues without building any strong relationship with a bank. Fourth, higher reputation banks charge lower underwriting fees. The implications of these findings are also discussed.     

How Does Cross‐Border Activity Affect EU Banking Markets?

Cross‐border activity in the EU is widely viewed as a necessary condition for the implementation of a single banking market and therefore as a positive factor for the enhancement of competition and cost performance in the region. In this paper, we analyse the relevance of this view by investigating whether cross‐border activity really promotes competition and cost efficiency in EU banking markets. We also consider the potential role of a bank's mode of entry by comparing existing domestic banks that foreign banks take over (mergers and acquisitions) with new branches created by foreign banks, often through subsidiaries (greenfield operations). We consider the impact of cross‐border banks on cost efficiency (measured by the stochastic frontier approach), profitability (assessed through return on assets) and competition (measured by the Lerner index). We find that greenfield banks enhance cost efficiency and competition, while mergers and acquisitions hamper competition and cost efficiency. Therefore, our results suggest that EU authorities should promote only greenfield banks rather than all cross‐border entries.     

Is creative accounting dead?

Because it has been seen as a short‐sighted way for local authorities to escape from the Government's expenditure controls, creative accounting now has a bad reputation. However, creativity will be needed in accounting, as in every other aspect of management, if local authorities are to stand a chance of facing up to the challenges of the 1990s.     

Is momentum really momentum?

Momentum is primarily driven by firms' performance 12 to seven months prior to portfolio formation, not by a tendency of rising and falling stocks to keep rising and falling. Strategies based on recent past performance generate positive returns but are less profitable than those based on intermediate horizon past performance, especially among the largest, most liquid stocks. These facts are not particular to the momentum observed in the cross section of US equities. Similar results hold for momentum strategies trading international equity indices, commodities, and currencies.     

Is recovery risk priced?

Recovery risk to explain corporate debt premia has not received much attention so far, most likely due to the difficulties around decomposing the expected loss. We exploit the fact that differently-ranking debt instruments of the same issuer face identical default risk but different default-conditional recovery rates. This allows us to isolate implied recovery under the T-forward measure without any of the rigid assumptions employed by prior studies. We find a pronounced systematic component in recovery rates for which investors should receive a premium. Comparisons to physical realizations show that the premium is quite time-stable and similar for different debt seniorities.     

Is Chapter 11 Efficient?

The efficiency of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process is examined by estimating the impact of Chapter 11 filings on the operating performance of bankrupt firms. We control for firm‐level heterogeneity in prefiling characteristics using matching methods to select benchmark firms comparable to filing firms. We compare bankrupt firms’ operating performances with those of matched nonbankrupt firms. Our results challenge the contention that Chapter 11 is an inefficient, debtor‐friendly mechanism that rehabilitates economically nonviable firms. We demonstrate that firms that file under Chapter 11 perform no worse and, if anything, better than comparable nonfiling firms.     

Is PIN priced risk?

Several recent papers assume that private information (PIN), proposed by Easley et al. [2002. Is information risk a determinant of asset returns? Journal of Finance 57, 2185–2221; 2004. Factoring information into returns. Working Paper, Cornell University], is a determinant of stock returns. We replicate Easley et al. (2002) and show that while PIN does predict future returns in the sample they analyze, the effect is not robust to alternative specifications and time periods. There is no evidence that PIN factor loadings predict returns or that PIN factor returns reflect future GDP growth. PIN exhibits no association with implied cost of capital derived from analysts’ earnings forecasts. Overall, our findings cast doubt on whether PIN reflects information risk systematically priced by investors.