Financial Markets and Economic Growth*

In this reprinting of the Nobel Prize‐winning financial economist's classic statement about the origins of financial crises, the Southeast Asian crisis of the late 1990s is attributed “not to too much reliance on financial markets, but to too little.” Like the U.S. economy a century ago, the emerging Asian economies did not then—and do not now—have well‐developed capital markets and remain heavily dependent on their banking systems to finance growth. But for all its benefits, banking is not only basically 19th‐century technology, but disaster‐prone technology. And in the summer of 1997, a banking‐driven disaster struck in East Asia, just as it had struck so many times before in U.S. history. During the 20th century, the author argues, the U.S. economy reduced its dependence on banks by developing “dispersed and decentralized” financial markets. In so doing, it increased the efficiency of the capital allocation process and reduced the economy's vulnerability to the credit crunches that have recurred throughout U.S. history. By contrast, Japan has not reduced its economy's dependence on banks, and its efforts to deal with its banking problems during the crisis of the late'90s served only to destabilize itself as well as its neighbors. Developing countries in Asia and elsewhere are urged not to follow the Japanese example, but to take measures aimed at developing financial markets and institutions that will either substitute for or, in some cases, complement bank products and services.     

Multinational banking and the international transmission of financial shocks: Evidence from foreign bank subsidiaries

Using bank-level data on 368 foreign subsidiaries of 68 multinational banks in 47 emerging economies during 1994–2008, we present consistent evidence that internal capital markets in multinational banking contribute to the transmission of financial shocks from parent banks to foreign subsidiaries. We find that internal capital markets transmit favorable and adverse shocks by affecting subsidiaries’ reliance on their own internal funds for lending. We also find that the transmission of financial shocks varies across types of shocks; is strongest among subsidiaries in Central and Eastern Europe, followed by Asia and Latin America; is global rather than regional; and becomes more conspicuous in recent years. We also explore various conditions under which the international transmission of financial shocks via internal capital markets in multinational banking is stronger, including the subsidiaries’ reliance on funds from their parent bank, the subsidiaries’ entry mode, and the capital account openness and banking market structure in host countries.     

INTERNATIONAL CORPORATE DIFFERENCES: MARKETS OR LAW?

Current differences in international corporate ownership and governance systems reflect primarily differences in the efficiency of capital markets, not differences in corporate law. Law is an output of this process, not an input. In countries where financial markets are more efficient, there is both less law and greater investor protection. Unlike nations in Asia and most of Europe, the U.S. and the U.K. have large and efficient capital markets, with no restrictions on cross-border capital flows. It is thus notsurprising that when American and English banks, mutual funds, and insurers are allowed by law to increase the concentration of their holdings, they don't do so. With efficient markets, there is no money to be made by holding undiversified blocks in public corporations. If public markets were inefficient, entrepreneurs would arrange for large blocks of stock (or take companies private), just as they grant powers of control to venture capitalists. The effect of law on corporate governance and ownership is far less pronounced in America than in Europe and Japan. Restrictions on U.S. banks aside, corporate law in the United States is “enabling”–that is, it lets people do largely what they want in organizing, managing, and financing the firm. Corporate law in Europe and Japan is much more “directory.” And there is a straightforward explanation for this difference: When capital markets are efficient, the valuation process works better, which in turn provides investors with stronger assurances of fairness. When markets are less efficient, some substitute must be found–law, perhaps, or the valuation procedures of banks. Thus, banks play larger corporate governance roles in nations with less extensive capital markets–and corporate law, as the European Union's company directives show, is more restrictive. European corporate law is today about as meddlesome and directory as U.S. law in the late 19th century, before U.S. capital markets became efficient.     

A Look Back at Merton Miller's “Financial Markets and Economic Growth”

The author begins by agreeing with Miller's characterization of the fragility of U.S. banks and of the shortcomings of the Asian model of bank finance‐driven growth. The article also expresses “emphatic agreement” with Miller's arguments that the protection of banks through deposit insurance, regulatory forbearance, and other forms of “bailout” have created costly moral‐hazard problems that encourage excessive risk‐taking. And the author endorses, at least in principle, Miller's main argument that the development of capital markets that do not require the direct involvement of banks should make economies if not less prone to financial crises, then at least more resilient in recovering from them. But having acknowledged the limitations of bank‐centered systems and the value of developing non‐bank alternatives for savers and corporate borrowers, the author goes on to point to the surprising durability of some banking systems outside the U.S.—notably Canada's, which has not experienced major problems since the 1830s. And even more important, the author views banks and capital markets not as “substitutes” for one another, but as mutually dependent “complements” whose interdependencies and interactions must be recognized by market participants and regulators alike.     

LARGE BANK STOCKHOLDERS IN GERMANY: SAVIORS OR SUBSTITUTES?

This article challenges Mark Roe's suggestion that the prevalence of the widely held public corporation in the U.S. may not have been inevitable because U.S. laws prevented financial institutions from playing the monitoring role assumed by large German banks. The differences between Germany and the U.S. in the importance of trading markets and the role of banks as monitors can be explained in large part by actions of German banks that blocked the development of German capital markets and provided big banks with informational advantages over other traders.
Markets are likely to be more effective monitors than large banks because of the banks' conflicts of interest as creditors as well as underwriters and market-makers for German firms. Moreover, there is more diversity in the ownership structure of U.S. corporations than the current governance debate would suggest. In the U.S. there are many publicly owned companies that are either closely held or have reverted to private ownership through LBOs. This in turn suggests that U.S. capital markets have devised means for bringing about concentrated stock ownership in those cases where large stockholder monitoring is likely to be more efficient.
Thus, to the question what is likely to happen to U.S. corporate ownership structure if remaining legal constraints on stock ownership by U.S. banks are relaxed, the answer this article offers is "not much." Indeed, if one considers increasing U.S. institutional ownership together with recent SEC attempts to liberalize shareholder communications, there appears to be a striking trend toward a new concentration of voting power–one that may ultimately rival that of the German banks.     

DEBT, FOLKLORE, AND CROSS-COUNTRY DIFFERENCES IN FINANCIAL STRUCTURE

Conventional wisdom has long held that, in relationship-based economies such as Japan and Germany, corporations are able to borrow more than U.S. companies, which in turn reduces their cost of capital and gives them a competitive edge. But such folklore does not stand up to scrutiny. In Japan and Germany, large businesses do not borrow more than U.S. companies–and, in fact, judging from coverage ratios, German companies (as well as U.K. companies) seem to borrow considerably less than their international competitors.
The article also reports that, in countries where financial markets are "transparent," the development of the banking sector has little additional impact on the growth of "financially dependent" industries. That is, although industries that require a lot of external finance grow faster in countries where the bank credit-to-GDP ratio is high, the growth rates of such industries are much more correlated with the level of accounting standards (with high standards serving as a proxy for well-developed capital markets) than with a strong banking system.     

Potential Competitive Effects of Basel II on Banks in SME Credit Markets in the United States

We examine the likely competitive effects of implementation of Basel II capital requirements on banks in the market for credit to SMEs in the U.S. Similar competitive effects from Basel II may occur for other credits and financial instruments in the U.S. and other nations. We address whether reduced risk weights for SME credits extended by large banking organizations that adopt the Advanced Internal Ratings-Based (A-IRB) approach of Basel II might significantly adversely affect the competitive positions of other organizations. The analyses suggest only relatively minor competitive effects on most community banks because the large A-IRB adopters tend to make very different types of SME loans to different types of borrowers than community banks. However, there may be significant adverse effects on the competitive positions of large non-A-IRB banking organizations because the data do not suggest any strong segmentation in SME credit markets among large organizations. JEL classification: G21, G28, G38, L51     

Dwarf banks

This study examines the business model and the viability of very small commercial banks in emerging market context. Using a unique sample of 141 Russian banks with less than a $10 million in assets, I trace performance, survival, recapitalization and growth patterns of these dwarf banks in response to the sharp increase in the minimum capital requirements. I find that dwarf banks are, on average, low-risk financial intermediaries that perform simple operations and have significantly higher survival rates in local markets with poor economic and banking services outreach characteristics. I also find that the average dwarf banks withstand the regulatory capital shock surprisingly well by securing fresh capital injection followed by a twofold asset size increase. The results of this study contribute to the literature on the relationship between the small bank business model, local banking markets characteristics and long-term viability. They also provide new evidence on the expected and unexpected outcomes of the “too small to survive” regulatory intervention into the banking market size structures.     

Taper Tantrum and Emerging Equity Market Slumps

In the post-global financial crisis period, the central banks of the advanced economies pursued unconventional monetary policies, such as the United States (U.S.) Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing (QE). Those policies and their unwinding may significantly affect cross-border capital flows and thus destabilize the financial systems of emerging markets. For example, emerging markets experienced substantial financial instability during the taper tantrum triggered by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s May 2013 announcement of the potential unwinding of QE. In this article, we examine the spillovers from the taper tantrum on emerging markets more rigorously by using econometric analysis to empirically assess the effect on equity markets in emerging markets. Our central finding that virtually all emerging-market equity markets were affected by the taper tantrum highlights the need for emerging-market authorities to remain vigilant about the effects of advanced-economy monetary policies on their financial stability.     

THE ROLE OF FINANCIAL RELATIONSHIPS IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN CORPORATE FINANCE

The American corporate financing system, unlike that of most other countries, has not been organized around a set of “universal banks” that perform a variety of functions for their clients. Indeed, the distinguishing feature of American financial history is the number and variety of financial intermediaries, and their relationships with corporations (and one another). Besides commercial banks, there are investment banks, insurance companies, venture capitalists, commercial paper dealers, mutual funds, and many others. The economic role of such intermediaries is to reduce market frictions such as “asymmetric information” and “agency problems” that otherwise raise the cost of outside capital for U.S. companies. This article views the changing menu of such intermediaries and their networks as the driving force behind the evolution of American corporate finance. U.S. financial history is seen as a series of institutional and financial innovations designed in large part to work around costly restrictions on relationships–particularly, limits on the scale and scope of U.S. banks–that do not exist in most other countries. In terms of its success in reducing the information and control costs of corporate finance, the history of the American financial system includes periods of significant progress as well as major reversals. Three relatively successful periods– the early 19th-century in New England, the “incipient” universal banking of the 1920s, and modernday financial capitalism–are separated by periods of drastic reductions in the menu of financial relationships– particularly the Great Depression and its 20-year aftermath. Besides new financial claims like preferred stock and new intermediaries such as venture capitalists, another important innovation is new forms of cooperation among intermediaries– especially among banks, venture capitalists, trusts, pensions, and investment banks–that have enabled the U.S. financial system to provide some of the key advantages of universal banking systems. Some of the largest U.S. commercial banks today can be viewed as positioning themselves to play a central coordinating role in these new coalitions of intermediaries. In so doing, they may become the platform for a distinctively American universal banking system.     

中美商业银行股利分红比较研究

随着资本市场的不断发展,我国证券监管部门和投资者越来越重视上市公司的股利分红问题,尤其是在我国经济中扮演着＂心脏＂角色的银行业的分红问题。然而在我国商业银行中不科学的股利分配现象还普遍存在,如股利支付率低、分红频率不高等。因次,分析我国商业银行的股利分配政策,无论对于银行业本身还是资本市场的发展都具有重要意义。本文通过对比分析中美两国上市商业银行股利分配的差异,探究其原因,并在借鉴美国成熟资本市场的经验下,提出了通过税收政策引导资本市场、推进利率市场化、改变银行盈利模式、建立多元化股权结构等措施完善我国商业银行分红情况的政策建议。     

Does the Presence of Big Banks Influence Competition in Local Markets?

This paper examines whether the biggest organizations in the banking industry influence competition differently than their smaller rivals. Big bank financial strength, multimarket links, diversified operations, status as too big to fail, economies of scale and scope, and in some cases, weak incentives to be aggressive may result in big banks affecting competition in a given local market differently than would be suggested by market shares and other structural measures. Understanding the influence of big banks on competition has important implications for antitrust policy toward bank mergers. Empirical results reveal that, in rural markets where big banks operate, competition may be reduced, thereby enabling all banks in those markets to earn greater returns. The presence of a big bank is associated with an approximately 0.09 percentage point effect on a bank's return on assets, which represents about a 7.7% performance advantage for firms that face big banks over firms that do not. The relationship between big banks and profitability holds only when banks are classified as big if they are both very large and regionally prominent. The presence of banks that possess only one of these characteristics does not appear to substantially influence competition. Finally, no clear and consistent patterns of variation are found in the relationship between the profitability of small banks and the presence of big banks. The number of big banks, the market shares of big banks, and the level of concentration in markets with big banks do not strongly influence the relationship.     

Dependence patterns among Asian banking sector stocks: A copula approach

Asian banks have recorded 22 banking crisis between 1945 and 2008 and its total share of years in a banking crisis since 1945 is 12.4%, the highest compared to all regions. Interestingly, most of the financial institutions in the region remained largely unscathed during the recent global financial crisis, mainly due to their strong liquidity and capital buffers. Yet, given the episodes of past crisis, the rapid increase in regional corporations and cross-border flows in the region, as well as the paramount importance of the banking sector in the Asian region, it is interesting to study how the banking sectors in the various economies co-move with each other. Against this backdrop, we examine the dependence structure between banking sectors in the region using copula functions. Several findings are documented. First, average dependence generally remain at moderate levels, though dependence between the banking sectors of the developed Asian markets are relatively higher than the emerging markets. Second, we find evidence of asymmetric dependence, suggesting that banking sector returns co-movement varies in bearish and bullish markets. Third, our results show a mild increase in the bivariate dynamic correlations during crisis periods, indicating very limited risk of contagion. Our results provide significant implications for portfolio managers and policymakers.     

Macroeconomic stability or financial stability: How are capital controls used? Insights from a new database

While the traditional objectives of capital controls were to address macroeconomic stability risks, a new “externalities view” has emerged prescribing their use to contain financial stability risks. In this context, our understanding of whether capital controls are used in practice to mitigate macroeconomic or financial stability remains limited. Using a novel database on high-frequency capital account regulations for 47 advanced and emerging economies from 2008 to 2020, this paper empirically assesses this question. Our main findings are that: (a) in emerging markets there is a strong association of capital controls on inflows to mitigate risks to macro stability but not financial stability risks; (b) in advanced economies there is a robust association between capital controls on inflows to lean against the buildup of financial stability but not macro stability risks; (c) banking sector flows, but not aggregate capital flows, are strongly associated with tightening capital controls on inflows in emerging markets; and (d) pooling advanced and emerging economies attenuates regression estimates and would lead to concluding that capital controls have weak association with both financial and macro stability motives. Our results can be rationalized by the greater capital flows, more volatile business cycles and stronger interaction between business and financial cycles in emerging markets, and the deeper asset markets found in advanced economies.     

Financial Flexibility,Bank Capital Flows,and Asset Prices

In our parsimonious general‐equilibrium model of banking and asset pricing, intermediaries have the expertise to monitor and reallocate capital. We study financial development, intraeconomy capital flows, the size of the banking sector, the value of intermediation, expected market returns, and the risk of bank crashes. Asset pricing implications include: a market's dividend yield is related to its financial flexibility, and capital flows should be important in explaining expected returns and the risk of bank crashes. Our predictions are broadly consistent with the aggregate behavior of U.S. capital markets since 1950.     

风险分担机制变迁、银行经营模式转型与银行安全

经济全球化过程中,金融市场横向风险分担机制侵蚀了银行中介跨期风险分担机制;一部分资金从银行中介转移到金融市场,致使商业银行传统盈利模式遭受冲击。银行必须从传统的存贷款经营模式转变为参与金融市场和衍生工具交易的、提供综合金融服务的现代经营模式。在这一转型过程中,如果转型过快或者银行不能适应变化,银行体系则可能积累大量风险,并导致银行危机。实证检验结果显示,风险分担机制变迁显著增加了银行危机的概率。     

Financial System Reform in Kazakhstan from 1993 to 2006 and Its Socioeconomic Effects

Voluminous theoretical and empirical literature examines the relation between financial-sector development and economic growth. However, previous studies have largely ignored progress in former Soviet Central Asian republics engaged in transition from socialist command economies to market economies. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature by considering Kazakhstan's experience with financial-sector liberalization and the socioeconomic effects of these reforms. We summarize the prereform economic circumstances prevailing in Kazakhstan, outline the major characteristics of its postcommunist financial system, and provide a detailed chronicle of financial-sector reform measures from 1993 to 2006. The paper focuses on the evolution of Kazakhstan's banking structure, policies adopted by the National Bank of Kazakhstan, and the approach taken to the privatization of state banks, as well as the steps taken to improve bank accounting standards and banking supervision. The development path of nonbank financial institutions and capital markets is also examined. We consider the outcomes of financial-sector reforms and their effects on the economy as a whole.     

The effect of banking crisis on bank-dependent borrowers

We provide causal evidence that adverse capital shocks to banks affect their borrowers’ performance negatively. We use an exogenous shock to the U.S. banking system during the Russian crisis of Fall 1998 to separate the effect of borrowers’ demand of credit from the supply of credit by the banks. Firms that primarily relied on banks for capital suffered larger valuation losses during this period and subsequently experienced a higher decline in their capital expenditure and profitability as compared to firms that had access to the public-debt market. Consistent with an adverse shock to the supply of credit, crisis-affected banks decreased the quantity of their lending and increased loan interest rates in the post-crisis period significantly more than the unaffected banks. Our results suggest that the global integration of the financial sector can contribute to the propagation of financial shocks from one economy to another through the banking channel.     

Will the U.S. bank recapitalization succeed? Eight lessons from Japan

During the financial crisis that started in 2007, the U.S. government has used a variety of tools to try to rehabilitate the U.S. banking industry. Many of those strategies were also used in Japan to combat its banking problems in the 1990s. There are also a surprising number of other similarities between the current U.S. crisis and the recent Japanese crisis. The Japanese policies were only partially successful in recapitalizing the banks until the economy finally started to recover in 2003. From these unsuccessful attempts, we derive eight lessons. In light of these eight lessons, we assess the policies the U.S. has pursued. The U.S. has ignored three of the lessons and it is too early to evaluate the U.S. policies with respect to four of the others. So far, the U.S. has avoided Japan's problem of having impaired banks prop up zombie firms.