Small‐Dollar Credit Lending: The Effect of Financial Burden on Personal Asset Misvaluation

Small‐dollar credit lenders offer consumers quick access to cash in the form of products, such as pawn loans. The consumers who tend to use these small‐dollar credit products are more likely to face financial burden and potential for default—particularly when loan‐to‐value ratios are high. However, the cognitive effects of financial burden can impair financial decision making. If financial literacy educators are to empower consumers, more consumer‐centric evidence is necessary to determine how small‐dollar credit consumers make decisions when purchasing loans. One critical decision consumers make is accepting how lenders value their assets in exchange for credit. Three lab studies assess how consumers facing financial burden value their own assets. We find that, due to cognitive constraints of financial burden, consumers can undervalue functional assets and overvalue symbolic assets. Importantly for financial literacy efforts, however, we show that framing a symbolic asset in terms of other‐benefit construal helps attenuate asset overvaluation.     

Credit Risk Assessment and Relationship Lending: An Empirical Analysis of German Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises*

We estimate a logit scoring model for the prediction of the probability of default by German small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) using a unique data set on SME loans in Germany. Our scoring model helps SMEs to gain knowledge about their default risk, which can be used to approximate their risk adequate cost of debt. This knowledge is likely to lead to a detection of hold‐up problems that German SMEs might be confronted with in their bank relationships. Furthermore, it allows them to monitor their bank’s pricing behavior and it reduces information asymmetries between lenders and borrowers. Finally, it can influence their future financing decisions toward capital market‐based financing.     

Basic analytics of multilateral lending and surveillance

I analyse the role of multilateral financial institutions in a world of global capital markets assuming that they have an informational advantage over private lenders in the market for sovereign debt. I show that the adverse selection problem in this market may be solved through certification if the multilateral agency does not care too much about borrower country welfare. However, with lending the private information of the agency will be revealed whatever its weighting of borrower welfare vs. private lenders' profits. Multilateral lending on concessional terms also alleviates the moral hazard problem — that investment in creditworthy borrowers is reduced as private lenders seek to avoid ex post default by constraining credit.     

Why discouraged borrowers exist? An empirical (re)examination from less developed countries

Using the fourth-round database of the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (2008/09 BEEPS), this study examines the determinants of discouragement in less developed countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The results show that whereas firms' opaqueness, demographic factors, and distance between lenders and borrowers better explain the discouragement due to tough loan prices and/or loan application procedures, firm risk and banking concentration explain the incidence of discouraged borrowers due to the fear of rationing. Innovator status, the legal protection of creditors and lenders in the event of default, and the coverage of information sharing instruments help explain discouragement in a transversal way.     

Banking relationship and default priority in consumer credit: Evidence from Thai microdata

Banks play an important role in consumer credit, and when borrowers face a decision on whether to default on mortgage or non-mortgage loans first, banking relationship may matter. Our study provides first evidence into the interplay between banking relationship and consumer default priority via credit bureau data of 1 million individuals in Thailand. We find that same-bank borrowers are less likely to default on mortgage loans first, and borrowers with longer banking relationship and lower switching cost are more likely to default on mortgage loans first (which is welfare-improving). Our results suggest that banking relationship can lead to better outcomes for defaulting borrowers even when switching cost is high.     

Public Export Credit Guarantees and Foreign Trade Structure: Evidence from Austria

Foreign trade is usually not based on cash transactions, but rather sales on credit are the rule. The resulting monitoring costs for lenders and the risk of default on accounts receivable are part of the costs associated with cross‐border goods transactions. Relative to domestic trade credit, cross‐border credit creates trade barriers due to differences in language, business practice, jurisdiction and payment enforceability between trading partners. Export credit insurance has long been a domain of public export credit agencies. Only since the early 1980s private insurance is gaining ground. Using disaggregated panel data for goods exports from Austria over the period 1996 to 2002, we show that public export credit guarantees have a less than proportional positive effect on international trade volume. They predominantly affect the country structure of foreign trade but leave the industry specialisation almost unchanged.     

Risk transfer versus cost reduction on two-sided microfinance platforms

Microfinance can be an important tool for fighting global poverty by increasing access to loans and possibly lowering interest rates through microlending. However, the dominant mechanism used by online microfinance platforms, in which intermediaries administer loans, has profound implications for borrowers. Using an analytical model of microlending with intermediaries who disburse and service loans, we demonstrate that profit-maximizing intermediaries have an incentive to increase interest rates because much of the default risk is transferred to lenders. Borrower and lender interest rate elasticities can serve as disciplining mechanisms to mitigate this interest rate increase. Using data from Kiva.org, we find that interest rates do not affect lender decisions, which removes one of these disciplining mechanisms. Interest rates are high, around 38% on Kiva. In contrast, on an alternative microfinance platform that does not use intermediaries, Zidisha, interest rates are only around 10%, highlighting the dramatic impact of intermediaries on interest rates. We propose an alternative loan payback mechanism that still allows microfinance platforms to use intermediaries, while removing the incentive to increase interest rates due to the transfer of risk to lenders.     

资本资产定价模型的扩展及其在保险中的应用

传统的资本资产定价模型是在一系列过于严格化、理想化的条件下建立起来的。针对现实资本市场情况,通过对资本资产定价模型的应用条件的部分修改,如增加保险公司存在违约风险、交易费用和税收的条件,并且讨论交易费用分别为固定值和保费的函数时的情形以及税收分为固定值和变量的情形,对保费定价问题进行模型扩展。理论推导结果显示,在存在违约风险情况下,保险公司所收保费应该更低;承保费用越少,所需保费就越少;存在税负条件下的公平保费与税收水平有关。     

The Higher Cost of Follow-Up Loans

This paper uses unique data and looks at the interest margin for follow-up finance vis-à-vis first round-finance. Applying data for asset values, we examine the substitution between collateral and interest margins. Consistent with the theories of Bester (1985), Besanko and Thakor (1987) and the empirical evidence of Cressy (1996b), we find that a trade-off between collateral and interest margins exists. Our main result indicates that follow-up finance is more expensive for loans but not for overdrafts. We suggest that a relatively fixed asset base (Land and Buildings), as seen in higher security to loan values, raises the price and risk of successive financial increments. This explains the higher relative cost of follow-up finance to borrowers.     

ARBITRAGE‐FREE BILATERAL COUNTERPARTY RISK VALUATION UNDER COLLATERALIZATION AND APPLICATION TO CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS

We develop an arbitrage‐free valuation framework for bilateral counterparty risk, where collateral is included with possible rehypothecation. We show that the adjustment is given by the sum of two option payoff terms, where each term depends on the netted exposure, i.e., the difference between the on‐default exposure and the predefault collateral account. We then specialize our analysis to credit default swaps (CDS) as underlying portfolios, and construct a numerical scheme to evaluate the adjustment under a doubly stochastic default framework. In particular, we show that for CDS contracts a perfect collateralization cannot be achieved, even under continuous collateralization, if the reference entity’s and counterparty’s default times are dependent. The impact of rehypothecation, collateral margining frequency, and default correlation‐induced contagion is illustrated with numerical examples.     

The Choice between Bank Debt and Trace Credit in Business Start-ups

This paper investigates the choice between bank debt and trade credit in business start-ups. While trade credit is more expensive than bank debt, suppliers tend to follow a more lenient liquidation policy when client firms encounter financial distress. As a result, suppliers are more willing to renegotiate the outstanding debt or grant additional debt whereas banks are more likely to liquidate borrowers upon default. Given the risky nature of business start-ups, we argue that the entrepreneur’s choice of debt instruments reflects these differences in liquidation policy between lenders and is thus determined by the venture’s failure risk, the entrepreneur’s private control benefits that are lost upon liquidation and the liquidation value of firm assets. Using unique data on 325 first-time business start-ups, we find that firms in industries with high historical start-up failure rates and entrepreneurs who tend to highly value private benefits of control use less bank debt. These effects are especially prevalent in start-ups where assets have a high liquidation value and thus banks are more likely to liquidate the venture following default. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Do Binary Collateral Outcome Variables Proxy Collateral Levels? The Case of Collateral from Start-ups and Existing SMEs

This paper is designed to test whether the factors which affect the decision to collateralise business loans affect the level of collateralisation in the same manner. If the level of collateralisation does matter, the provision of collateral becomes more than a goodwill gesture to placate banks and more a device to ameliorate the risk of lending. We use a thitherto unseen dataset from a U.K. retail bank comprising 4,618 transfers and start-ups (TS group) who applied for business loans and overdrafts between January 1998 and January 2000. The control sample comprised 9,596 existing businesses from the same period. Our unique dataset permits an analysis of this kind for the first time because it contains a continuous variable for collateral unlike previous studies. Existing businesses exhibit a higher frequency (binary outcome) and level (tobit outcome) of collateral than the businesses who are start-ups or have transferred from another bank only when distortions within the data are not controlled for. These distortions negate the value of binary collateral variables. Factors such as business type and loan purpose are useful at explaining the likelihood of a borrower having his loan collateralised and the level of collateralisation for borrowers who provided collateral or not.     

What patents are used as collateral?—An empirical analysis of patent reassignment data

Only anecdotal evidence exists that ventures use patents as collateral to access debt financing. In this paper, we use a novel dataset on patent reassignments with a security interest to explore quantitatively what patents are used as collateral. We analyze characteristics of patents to disentangle whether it is the technology underlying a patent or the patent's exclusion right per se matters for collateralization. We do find empirical support only for technology-related characteristics, suggesting that lenders use patents to collateralize high-quality technology that can, in case of default, be redeployed to ventures in similar technology fields. On the other hand, patent-related characteristics like scope, which are, in general, related to patent value and are particularly important for non-practicing entities, do not matter.     

Objective measures as a predictor of late payments by high‐risk borrowers

Manufactured homes (also known outside the US as prefabricated homes) are a viable housing option for low‐income buyers, but traditional mortgages are not available for purchase of manufactured homes because of a perception of higher risk of default among purchasers of manufactured homes. Research suggests that creditscoring models which incorporate objective data such as income, debt‐to‐income ratio and credit history result in an accurate and objective predictive tool to estimate likelihood of late payments and default among traditional home buyers. This study showed that these same models can be applied similarly to purchasers of manufactured homes. A Tobit model was developed to evaluate which factors most accurately predict default and late payment behaviour among borrowers who purchased a manufactured home. The model showed that when decomposed into the probability of making a late payment and number of late payments, credit score and income are both significant predictors in both sets of borrowers of both the probability of making a late payment and the number of late payments. The higher the credit score, the less likely the borrower is to make a late payment.     

Incentives for Loan Repayments: Evidence from a Randomized Field Study

This field experiment tests an innovative approach for helping automobile loan borrowers make their loan payments on time. Borrowers were randomly assigned to a loan with an interest rate reduction after three on‐time payments; borrowers assigned to this loan show fewer late payments compared to a control group. While the financial incentive of the interest rate reduction was small, the offer of a rate reduction appears to result in borrowers attending to due dates. This result illustrates that lenders can use simple mechanisms to encourage more positive repayment patterns among borrowers with a history of late payments.     

Protecting Minority Homeowners: Race,Foreclosure Counseling and Mortgage Modifications

Millions of minority homeowners are at risk of losing their homes as a result of the housing crisis due to mortgage foreclosure and home repossession. One consumer‐oriented policy response to this crisis is mortgage default counseling for borrowers. This study examines the rate at which minority borrowers seek default counseling and the resulting correlation between counseling and the probability that a borrower obtains a modification of his/her original mortgage contract terms. The results suggest that African Americans are more likely to be counseled, relative to Whites. However, Latinos or other non‐White groups are no more or less likely to be counseled. The probability of loan modifications among counseled African Americans is also higher than other counseled borrowers. These results suggest that counseling policies and the public subsidy of default counseling may be one approach for promoting consumer financial well‐being of these households, but also suggest counseling efforts might be better designed for other minority groups. These results also have implications for the application of counseling to other mortgage decisions, such as refinance .     

Risk management with weighted VaR

This article studies the optimal portfolio selection of expected utility‐maximizing investors who must also manage their market‐risk exposures. The risk is measured by a so‐called weighted value‐at‐risk (WVaR) risk measure, which is a generalization of both value‐at‐risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES). The feasibility, well‐posedness, and existence of the optimal solution are examined. We obtain the optimal solution (when it exists) and show how risk measures change asset allocation patterns. In particular, we characterize three classes of risk measures: the first class will lead to models that do not admit an optimal solution, the second class can give rise to endogenous portfolio insurance, and the third class, which includes VaR and ES, two popular regulatory risk measures, will allow economic agents to engage in “regulatory capital arbitrage,” incurring larger losses when losses occur.     

Valuing Seller‐Defaultable Options

This study analyzes seller‐defaultable options that allow option writers to have a free‐will right to default, along with some prespecified default mechanisms. We analytically and numerically examine the pricing, hedging, defaulting, and profitability of the seller‐defaultable options, considering three possible scenarios for seller default. Analyzing the essential implications of seller‐defaultable options, we show that the option price is positively correlated with the default fine, underlying asset price, and volatility. The seller‐defaultable option's Greeks appear more complicated than those of the plain vanilla options. The likelihood of sellers defaulting increases with the underlying asset price, interest rate, volatility, and maturity time. Subject to the default mechanism, the buyers’ trading involves a trade‐off between profits and costs. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 33:129–157, 2013     

What risks do corporate bond put features insure against?

Corporate bond prices are known to be influenced by default and term structure risk in addition to non‐default risks such as illiquidity. Putable corporate bonds allow investors to sell their holdings back to the issuer and may thus provide insurance against all of these risks. We first document empirically that embedded put option values are related to proxies for all three. In a second step, we develop a valuation model that simultaneously captures default and interest rate risk. We use this model to disentangle the reduction in yield spread enjoyed by putable bonds that can be attributed to each risk. Perhaps surprisingly, the most important reduction is due to mitigated default or spread risk, followed by term structure risk. The reduction in the non‐default component is present but rather small.