Debtfarism and the Violence of Financial Inclusion: The Case of the Payday Lending Industry

The official development literature is replete with studies about the alleged benefits of financial inclusion in reducing poverty in the global South. Few analyses have sought to critically explore advanced forms of financial inclusion in the global North, particularly with regard to the highly lucrative and controversial payday lending industry in the USA. This article fills this void by examining the political economic landscape of payday lending in Ohio. In contrast to the mainstream literature, our analysis suggests that the payday lending industry is not a natural feature of the market that has led to universal benefits for all. Instead, we argue that payday lending not only benefits private creditors at the expense of the working poor, but also that the latter have been made to rely on these expensive loans to meet basic subsistence needs largely through the structural violence of labor market restructuring and neoliberal forms of governance, such as workfarism and ‘debtfarism.’     

Channels of restructuring in privatized Czech companies1

The main contribution of this paper to the literature on restructuring in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe is the analysis of productivity‐growth effects for different channels of restructuring. It examines a panel of 737 voucher‐privatized Czech companies in the first years after the transfer of ownership (between 1993 and 1998). The results indicate that asset sales and employee incentives serve as restructuring channels through which productivity of the privatized companies increases. The analysis also indicates that capital expenditures, labour shedding and CEO replacements are not significantly correlated to productivity growth. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that the availability of bank loans is positively associated with productivity growth, but not for less profitable firms. This provides some evidence in support of soft budget constraints accommodated via bank lending.     

P2P网络借贷市场对资本市场的风险溢出效应

构建Copula-GARCH模型,并利用2013—2016年中国P2P网络借贷市场、股票市场和债券市场的日收益率数据,实证研究了P2P网络借贷市场对资本市场的风险溢出效应。结果显示:P2P网络借贷市场与股票市场之间存在"跷跷板"效应,与债券市场之间呈现出较弱的联动效应;P2P网络借贷市场与股票市场和债券市场的上、下尾部相关性均很弱,风险溢出效应不显著。结论表明:在确保金融系统稳定的同时,中国可以适度发展P2P网络借贷行业。     

Is the Lending Channel of Monetary Policy Dominant in Australia?

The transmission process of monetary policy is a longstanding macroeconomic issue. The lending view is that a monetary tightening affects aggregate demand by shifting the supply schedule of bank loans left. The contraction of bank loans does not necessarily mean a shift of the supply schedule. Therefore, testing the lending view requires the identification of the shifts of the demand and supply schedules in the bank loan market. This paper employs an original approach, finding that the lending channel is not dominant in Australia. The paper also examines features of Australian banks' behaviour which make the lending channel less dominant.     

融资融券与企业产品市场竞争

本文探究融资融券对上市公司产品市场竞争行为的影响。通过理论分析与实证检验,本文发现融资融券政策的实施促进了标的企业产品市场竞争行为,但是由此带来的潜在的过度竞争问题可能导致企业整体绩效有所下降。本文还发现融资融券的政策效果主要集中于融资交易强度较高、或股价信息敏感度较低的公司。本文的研究结果表明,我国融资和融券交易发展的不对称性放大了资本市场对公司正面信息的奖励效应,可能促使公司在产品市场过度竞争,降低了整体绩效,而个股股价信息敏感度的提高有助于缓解上述问题。     

中小企业信贷市场的监控研究——基于信息和产品差异化模型

中小企业信用缺损成为中小企业陷入融资困境并制约其发展的重要原因,但中小企业信贷市场风险高,对中小企业信贷市场的监控便成为研究的重要课题.银行监控中小企业信贷市场的有效途径之一是对借主的事前监控.构建监控模型和产品差异化模型在于银行利用资源在发放贷款之前监测企业,通过银行获取信息或者在市场力(产品差异化)投资模型的分析表明两种选择产生不同的预测,即银行加大分支机构和人力资本的投入,有利于提高信息获取的范围以及信息获取的准确性,但对市场力增长不显著;银行对借主资金交易的管理有利于提高借贷风险控制能力.     

Transactions,credit, and central banking in a model of segmented markets

A segmented markets model is constructed in which transactions are conducted using credit and currency. Goods market segmentation plays an important role, in addition to the role played by conventional segmentation of asset markets. An important novelty of the paper is to show how the nonneutralities of money and their persistence depend on the nature of goods market transactions and on the arrangements for clearing and settlement of consumer credit. The model permits open market operations, daylight overdrafts, reserve-holding, and overnight lending and borrowing, allowing the consideration of a rich array of central banking arrangements and their implications.     

Interest Rate Pass-Through: Empirical Results for the Euro Area

Abstract. This paper empirically examines the interest rate pass‐through at the euro area level. The focus is on the pass‐through of official interest rates, approximated by the overnight interest rate, to longer‐term market interest rates, which, in turn, are a proxy for the marginal costs for banks to attract deposits or grant loans, and therefore passed through to retail bank interest rates. Empirical results, on the basis of a (vector) error‐correction and vector autoregressive model, suggest that the pass‐through of official interest to market interest rates is complete for money market interest rates up to three months, but not for market interest rates with longer maturities. Furthermore, the immediate pass‐through of changes in market interest rates to bank deposit and lending rates is found to be at most 50%, whereas the final pass‐through is typically found to be close to 100%, in particular for lending rates. Empirical results for a sub‐sample starting in January 1999 show qualitatively similar findings and are supportive of a quicker interest rate pass‐through since the introduction of the euro. It is shown that the difference between the adjustment speed of bank deposit and lending rates (typically around one versus three months since the common monetary policy) can to a large extent significantly be explained by credit risk considerations.     

André Gorz: Freedom,Time and Work in the Post-Industrial Economy

This article assesses the thinking behind what is perhaps the single most important attempt to depoliticise monetary policy making in postwar Britain prior to the Bank of England Act 1998 – the introduction of the minimum lending rate (MLR) in October 1972. Drawing on recently released primary sources it argues that the MLR was devised to ‘defuse’ the political implications of Bank Rate policy and thereby shield the government from the consequences of frequent upward shifts in interest rates. MLR is considered as an experiment in ‘governing through the market’ and it is argued this has implications for how postwar monetary policy is viewed and how state/market relations are analysed, empirically and theoretically, within IPE.     

市场规模结构、竞争程度与小微 企业关系型贷款*

本文研究了银行业竞争度与小微企业关系型贷款之间的关系，以及市场规模结构对该关系的影响。信息假说认为，由于信息不对称和代理问题，垄断增加了银行内部化关系型贷款的收益，关系型贷款与竞争度之间呈负相关。然而，越来越多的研究对信息假说提出了质疑。本文在数理推导的基础上，采用江苏省县域地区352家小微企业2011-2015年非平衡面板数据，运用Fractional Logit模型进行实证分析。研究结果表明：市场规模结构是决定竞争度与关系型贷款之间关系的重要因素，当信贷市场中大银行的市场份额占比较大时，银行竞争的加剧对关系型贷款是不利的；当市场中小银行的市场份额占比较大时，竞争的加剧有利于关系型贷款的发放。以往研究对于市场规模结构的忽视可能是导致不同研究结论存在巨大差异的重要原因。本文在此基础上，提出了完善金融基础设施等相关政策建议。     

The Theory of the Second Best and the Competitive Equilibrium Model

We study the international transmission of bank liquidity shocks from multinational, Islamic, bank-holding companies to their subsidiaries. Based on a total sample of 120 Islamic and conventional bank subsidiaries, we test whether foreign bank lending for Islamic and conventional banks is determined by different factors. We estimate a model that includes subsidiary and parent bank characteristics as well as host and home country variables. Our empirical findings show that lending is negatively affected by the fragility of conventional parent banks' subsidiaries. Nevertheless, we show that parent Islamic banks do not significantly affect lending by subsidiaries. Finally, we examine the market discipline regarding the transmission of liquidity shocks. We also find that reduction in foreign Islamic bank lending is stronger for those that are dependent on the interbank market. We establish that the depositors react to a deterioration of bank performance and punish their institutions by withdrawing their money. We show that market discipline has a more important role for Islamic banks, whereas liquidity needs determine the change in conventional banks.     

The Problems of Transition, EU Enlargement, and Globalization

This paper examines how far the restructuring process toward a market system has proceeded in Transition Economies since the collapse of Communist regimes more than a decade ago, how ready these economies are for admission into the European Union, and how the globalization of the world economy is affecting them. The paper also presents a model of the restructuring process and of international trade during the restructuring process.     

Macroeconomic Fluctuations and Bank Lending: Evidence for Germany and the Euro Area

Abstract. This paper analyzes the dynamic response of loans to the private sector and of economic activity to aggregate supply, demand and monetary policy shocks in Germany and the euro area based on a standard macroeconomic VAR using sign restrictions to identify the structural shocks. The main results of this analysis are that (i) with the exception of the response to the supply shock in Germany, the response of loans to the three macroeconomic shocks is rather weak and in most cases insignificant; (ii) the 2000–05 credit slowdown and weak economic performance in Germany were primarily driven by adverse supply shocks; and (iii) the marked slowdown in credit creation in Germany over this period actually represents a realignment of the outstanding stock of loans with its deterministic level. In order to assess the role of bank lending in the transmission of macroeconomic shocks, we further perform counterfactual simulations and analyze the dynamic responses of German loan subaggregates in order to test the distributional implications of potential credit market frictions. These exercises do not indicate that credit market frictions play an amplifying role in the transmission of macroeconomic fluctuations.     

EMU and the transmission of monetary policy: evidence from business lending rates

This paper analyses the pass-through of money market rates to short-term and long-term business lending rates in the four largest euro area countries. The main findings of the paper are (1) that since the start of EMU loan rates appear to have become more responsive to money market rate changes in France, Italy and Spain, but not in Germany, and (2) that German loan rates are significantly more sluggish than loan rates in the other three large euro area countries. I also test for non-linear pass-through based on an asymmetric error-correction model but do not find much evidence of non-linearity in euro area interest rate pass-through.The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily represent the views of the Deutsche Bundesbank.     

Economic efficiency and social insurance reforms in China

This study discusses efficiency issues related to social insurance provisions and their implications for the newly established three-pillar pension system and three-tier health insurance system in China. It shows that these new systems can be improved substantially through some restructuring to reduce efficiency losses. The discussion of efficiency consequences focuses on correction for market failure and alternative mechanisms for financing and providing social insurance benefits. Alternative methods for financing the transition are also discussed.     

市场开放、地方财税竞争与产业结构调整*——基于我国省级面板数据的实证研究

平衡“稳增长”与“调结构”的关键与核心在于“供给侧结构性改革”的产业结构优化形成方面。本文系统分析了市场开放与地方财税竞争对产业结构调整的影响机制,并采用2003—2014年中国29个省、市、自治区面板数据进行了实证检验。结果显示：市场开放显著推进了产业结构调整,但国际市场开放和国内市场开放作用力的大小存在地区差异,东部地区国内市场开放的作用力更大,中部与西部地区则相反。地方财税竞争一方面有利于产业结构高级化,另一方面抑制了产业结构合理化。本文进一步考察发现,地方财税竞争会削弱市场开放对产业结构合理化促进的效力。产业结构转型过程中存在“拉弗效应”,结构性减税只要与产业结构调整方向保持一致,就能在增加财税收入的同时优化产业结构。地方财政支出在一定程度上推动了产业结构高级化,但是,其中的经济建设性支出会扭曲资源配置,抑制产业结构合理化。地方税收政策对产业结构调整存在显著的结构效应,所得税相比商品税更趋于优化产业结构。这些研究结论对于深化市场开放、矫正地方政府竞争行为、实施财税体制改革等具有重要的政策启示。     

Social heterogeneity and local bias in peer-to-peer lending – evidence from China

This paper investigates the presence of local bias in the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending market and explores the social heterogeneous factors that may affect the formulation of the investor's local bias. We find that local biases are commonly present among investors. Investors have a 9.3% higher probability and put 105% more money in lending to local borrowers. We also find that overinvesting in local loans is correlated with higher default risk, lower recovery rate, and lower realized return, suggesting the underperformance of these locally biased investors. By taking advantage of the diverse local culture and institutional features in China, we further show that social heterogeneity, including geography, language, and social trust, affects the degree of local biases in the P2P lending market. We propose two debiasing techniques from the P2P platforms’ perspective.     

The Number of Bank Relationships of SMEs: A Disaggregated Analysis of Changes in the Swiss Loan Market

This paper investigates changes in the number of bank relationships of small and medium-sized enterprises in Switzerland from 1996 to 2002. It differentiates between overall bank relationships and lending relationships and disaggregates the loan market with respect to firm sizes, industries and banking groups. On average, bank lending declined, and the concentration of lending relationships increased. The changes seem to have been driven by demand and supply for medium-sized firms, but only by supply for micro and small firms. Supply-side reductions resulted from a merger and changes in credit risk management by major banks. We find evidence of increasing specialization of larger banks on transaction lending and of smaller and regional banks on relationship lending.     

Inside the bank lending channel

This paper tests cross-sectional differences in the effectiveness of the bank lending channel. The results, derived from a comprehensive sample of Italian banks, suggest that heterogeneity in the monetary policy pass-through exists. After a monetary tightening the decrease in lending is lower for well-capitalized banks that are perceived as less risky by the market and are better able to raise uninsured deposits. Liquid banks can protect their loan portfolio against monetary tightening simply by drawing down cash and securities. The presence of internal capital markets in bank holding companies also contributes to insulate monetary shocks. Bank size is never relevant.     

Sovereign Debt without Default Penalties

We develop a theory of sovereign borrowing where default penalties are not implementable. We show that when debt is held by both domestic and foreign agents, the median voter might have an interest in serving it. Our theory has important practical implications regarding (a) the role of financial intermediaries in sovereign lending, (b) the effect of capital flows on price volatility including the possible overvaluation of debt to the point that the median voter is priced out of the market, and (c) debt restructuring where creditors are highly dispersed.