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.     

Customers and investors: A framework for understanding the evolution of financial institutions

Financial institutions are financed by both investors and customers. Investors expect an appropriate risk-adjusted return for providing financing and risk bearing. Customers, in contrast, provide financing in exchange for specific services, and want the service fulfillment to be free of the intermediary's credit risk. We develop a framework that defines the roles of customers and investors in intermediaries, and use it to build an economic theory that has the following main findings. First, with positive net social surplus in the intermediary-customer relationship, the efficient (first best) contract completely insulates the customer from the intermediary's credit risk, thereby exposing the customer only to the risk inherent in the contract terms. Second, when intermediaries face financing frictions, the second-best contract may expose the customer to some intermediary credit risk, generating “customer contract fulfillment” costs. Third, the efficiency loss associated with these costs in the second best rationalizes government guarantees like deposit insurance even when there is no threat of bank runs. We further discuss the implications of this customer-investor nexus for numerous issues related to the design of contracts between financial intermediaries and their customers, the sharing of risks between them, ex ante efficient institutional design, regulatory practices, and the evolving boundaries between banks and financial markets.     

On the Positive Role of Financial Intermediation in Allocation of Venture Capital in a Market with Imperfect Information

This paper develops a theory of financial intermediation that highlights the contribution of intermediaries as informed agents in a market with imperfect information. We consider a venture capital market where the entrepreneurs select the qualities of projects and their perquisite consumptions, about which the investors are imperfectly informed. It is shown that when all investors have positive search costs, the entrepreneurs are induced to offer the unacceptable inferior projects (“lemons” only), and the investors will not enter the venture capital market, but put their funds in other low return investments–an undesirable allocation of resources. Beginning with an initial undesirable situation, the financial intermediaries may evolve as informed agents that induce a Pareto-preferred allocation, leading the investors to a higher welfare state. We focus our analysis on the existence of intermediation equilibra when the market for intermediation services is competitive. The distribution of returns on projects, the fees charged by intermediaries, and the fraction of institutional holdings are all endogenous in equilibrium. It is shown that (i) there cannot be a competitive intermediation equilibrium with very high institutional holdings, and (ii) in other cases multiple equilibra may exist, but the one with the highest institutional holdings dominates the others in a Pareto sense.     

行业特征、金融加速与企业债务融资

在政策择优供给、产业转型升级的关键阶段,考察特定行业的企业债务融资及其宏观、微观层面的影响因素,对于资金、资源的行业优化配置意义重大。本文以我国2003~2017年沪深A股上市公司为样本,检验企业受到货币政策冲击时行业特征对其银行债务获取的影响。研究发现,对于行业劳动力越密集、行业竞争越激烈的企业,货币政策紧缩对于债务融资的不利影响会被显著削弱。进一步研究发现,行业劳动要素在货币政策紧缩时引起的企业债务融资效应随着行业资本密集度的下降而增强;对于产出是耐用品的行业,货币政策的企业债务融资效应与产品市场竞争较弱的行业一致。本文是对货币政策传导机制下金融加速分析的拓展,补充了货币政策行业债务融资效应的经验证据。     

现代金融中介理论视角下的我国金融体系模式选择

现代金融中介理论表明,商业银行等金融中介与经济增长之间存在密切的相关性。金融中介在促进经济增长的同时,也面临着许多复杂问题。本文从现代金融中介理论的视角出发,对银行导向型金融体系与市场导向型金融体系进行了国际比较,并从融资关系、风险管理、信息生产、公司治理等角度进行对比分析,得出在中国现实的环境下中介与市场发挥着不同作用,但金融中介的优势明显。因此,我国应选择以金融中介为主、资本市场为辅的金融体系,并加紧推出金融机构的混业经营模式。     

“走出去”对企业融资约束的影响——基于“一带一路”倡议准自然实验的证据

本文基于“一带一路”倡议这一准自然实验,使用双重差分法,以中国2007-2017年A股上市企业为样本,实证检验了“走出去”对企业融资约束的影响。研究发现,参与“一带一路”倡议的企业与未参与的企业相比,融资约束水平有所上升。该效应对处于重点对接省份的参与企业可能更为明显。与国有企业相比,参与“一带一路”倡议的私人企业的融资约束有所上升,而且处在重点对接行业和省份的参与“一带一路”倡议的民营企业融资约束更有可能上升。从机制上看,由于观察周期尚短和其它因素的限制,企业参与“一带一路”倡议以后,其在信贷资源获取、利润率和生产率等方面还未体现出优势来。从政策来讲,为更好地支持国家的“一带一路”倡议,需要进一步拓宽思路对企业形成更有效的金融支持,以提高“一带一路”建设的可持续性。     

The Value of Reputation in Corporate Finance and Investment Banking (and the Related Roles of Regulation and Market Efficiency)

This article explores the roles of reputation, efficient capital markets, and capital market regulation in preserving and creating economic value. Each of these three mechanisms serves as a substitute for the other two, with each playing a role in maintaining the credibility and reliability of markets. While efficient markets and effective regulation are market-wide phenomena that affect all firms, reputation is a firm-specific corporate asset. Companies develop reputational capital by treating customers and counterparties fairly (while forgoing the temptation to achieve short-term profits at their expense). At the same time, companies seeking access to the capital markets but lacking a reputation must typically employ reputational intermediaries. Investment banks, credit rating agencies, accounting firm s, law firms, and organized stock exchanges have all served as reputational intermediaries at various times during the last 200 years. One contributor to the recent financial crisis was a kind of experimentation by some reputational intermediaries with an opportunistic and two-tiered “customer differentiation” strategy in which some customers were treated very well, while others were treated with little or no regard for their legitimate expectations as to how they would be treated. This strategy has proved to be a failure, imposing significant costs on those organizations as well as their customers. The available substitutes for reputation, capital market effciency and effective regulation, did not provide sufcient offsetting protection for investors. While the two-tiered “customer differentiation” strategy has failed, the central message of the economic theory of reputation remains intact. This message is that a company's reputation is a valuable asset that must be preserved to ensure the future of the organization. For all financial intermediaries that rely heavily on their reputations when selling their products and services, the author recommends large and continuous investment in maintaining those reputations. For investment banks in particular—a group whose reputations have held up reasonably well—the author suggests that they continue to view their role as reputational intermediaries as a core part of their businesses.     

The Economics of Insurance Intermediaries

This article analyzes the economic functions of independent insurance intermediaries (brokers and independent agents), focusing on the commercial property–casualty insurance market. The article investigates the functions performed by intermediaries, the competitiveness of the market, the compensation arrangements for intermediaries, and the process by which policies are placed with insurers. Insurance intermediaries are essentially market makers who match the insurance needs of policyholders with insurers who have the capability of meeting those needs. Intermediary compensation comprises premium‐based commissions, expressed as a percentage of the premium paid, and contingent commissions based on the profitability, persistency, and/or volume of the business placed with the insurer. Empirical evidence is provided that premium‐based and contingent commissions are passed on to policyholders in the premium. However, contingent commissions can enhance competitive bidding by aligning the insurer's and the intermediary's interests. This alignment of interests gives insurers more confidence in the selection of risks and thus helps to break the “winner's curse” and encourages insurers to bid more aggressively. Independent intermediaries also help markets operate more efficiently by reducing the information asymmetries between insurers and buyers that can cause adverse selection.     

政府补贴和国有参股对参与PPP企业外部融资的影响

政府补贴和国有资本参股是政府参与PPP(政府和社会资本合作)的两种主要方式。本文借助一个资本具有外部性的一般均衡模型来分析这两种方式对企业外部融资的影响机制,并进行经验验证。理论分析发现,国有参股的担保效应增加了项目公司对高杠杆的需求,提升了金融中介发放贷款的意愿,使金融中介接受更低的借款利率。政府补贴不影响项目公司与金融中介之间的借贷合约。项目公司外部融资所受影响会进一步传导至参与PPP的企业。因此,国有参股增加稳态时的企业杠杆率,降低借款利率;政府补贴则不影响杠杆率和利率。实证部分通过整合2014-2018年财政部PPP项目库数据和2010-2018年上市公司财务数据,借助PSM-DID分析发现,国有参股程度显著降低参与PPP项目的上市公司的借贷成本并提升其杠杆率,但政府补贴支出没有明显作用,印证了模型结论。此外,市场化程度更高的地区,国有参股程度对参与企业外部融资的影响程度更小。本文研究对PPP模式下如何减少政府债务风险以及控制债务风险向企业转移具有一定的参考意义。     

金融政策与经济低碳转型——基于增长视角的研究

在“碳中和”目标背景下,本文基于经济“增长”视角,从理论上分析金融政策在经济低碳转型中能够发挥的作用。我们构建了一个包含清洁(绿色)与非清洁(非绿色)生产部门、定向技术进步、金融约束与金融政策的内生增长模型。通过基于模型的理论证明与数值模拟,我们发现:(1)清洁部门相对非清洁部门更强的金融约束会推迟经济低碳转型过程、导致环境恶化,绿色金融政策能够缓解清洁部门的金融约束。(2)绿色金融政策能够增加清洁部门的产量,在一定条件下,还能促进经济实现低碳转型并阻止环境恶化。(3)通过金融政策推动经济低碳转型,相比部分财政政策具有成本效益优势;两类政策存在组合搭配的空间。(4)在疫情冲击后加大绿色金融政策力度,将有益于实现“绿色复苏”,并有可能以相对平时更低的成本,加快“碳达峰”与经济低碳转型的进程。     

金融发展、产业升级与跨越中等收入陷阱——基于新结构经济学的视角

本文在引入结构转型的内生增长理论框架下,重点考察了金融发展(包括金融深化和金融结构)对于产业升级促进作用的动态变化。研究发现,给定一国的发展阶段,不仅存在最优技术进步方式和最优产业结构,还存在一个对于金融深化程度的“最低要求”,低于这一临界值的国家将难以实现下一阶段的产业升级。另一方面,产业升级对金融深化程度的要求并非一成不变,而是随着经济发展呈现出先快速上升、在达到中等收入水平后缓慢递减的特征。在资本积累相对有限的约束条件下,中等收入国家要实现经济增长方式从模仿驱动转向创新驱动,需要首先实现金融深化程度的提升,并推动金融结构转型和制度完善,以实现对创新型产业的有效金融支持,否则很可能陷入“模仿陷阱”,长期徘徊在中等收入水平。本文从新结构经济学的视角,为金融发展与经济发展之间关系的动态变化提供了理论基础,并揭示出跨越中等收入陷阱是一个产业升级、金融发展和制度完善“三位一体”的转型过程。     

Leaning Against the Wind: Debt Financing in the Face of Adversity

We offer evidence of a new stylized feature of corporate financing decisions: the tendency of managers to rely more on debt financing when earnings prospects are poor. We term this “leaning against the wind” and consider three possible explanations: market timing, precautionary financing, and “making the numbers.” We find no evidence in favor of the first two hypotheses, and provisionally accept the making the numbers hypothesis that managers who are under pressure due to unrealistically optimistic earnings expectations by analysts and deteriorating real opportunities will rely more heavily on debt financing to boost earnings per share and return on equity.     

Integration of Lending and Underwriting: Implications of Scope Economies

Informational scope economies provide a cost advantage to universal banks offering “one‐stop shopping” for lending and underwriting that enables them to “lock in” their clients' subsequent business. This market power reduces universal banks' incentive, relative to that of specialized investment banks, to apply costly underwriting efforts; consequently, universal banks are less successful in selling their clients' securities. Our results suggest that an integrated financial services market is less innovative than one with specialized intermediaries. Our analysis also identifies economy, intermediary, and firm characteristics that motivate either the integration or segmentation of bank lending and underwriting.     

“走出去”对企业融资约束的影响——基于“一带一路”倡议准自然实验的证据

本文基于“一带一路”倡议这一准自然实验,使用双重差分法,以中国2007-2017年A股上市企业为样本,实证检验了“走出去”对企业融资约束的影响。研究发现,参与“一带一路”倡议的企业与未参与的企业相比,融资约束水平有所上升。该效应对处于重点对接省份的参与企业可能更为明显。与国有企业相比,参与“一带一路”倡议的私人企业的融资约束有所上升,而且处在重点对接行业和省份的参与“一带一路”倡议的民营企业融资约束更有可能上升。从机制上看,由于观察周期尚短和其它因素的限制,企业参与“一带一路”倡议以后,其在信贷资源获取、利润率和生产率等方面还未体现出优势来。从政策来讲,为更好地支持国家的“一带一路”倡议,需要进一步拓宽思路对企业形成更有效的金融支持,以提高“一带一路”建设的可持续性。     

Product Market Competition and Financial Decisions During a Financial Crisis

We find that in the presence of the “flight to quality” during the 2007‐2008 financial crisis, firms that depended less on external financing (or internal finance dependent (IFD) firms) prior to the crisis were able to secure additional financing and increased investments, while external finance dependent (EFD) firms significantly contracted their external financing and investments. IFD firms’ increased investments during the crisis were associated with higher market share growth, while EFD competitors lost their market share. The results indicate that firms’ financial decisions during the financial crisis are interrelated with their product market dimensions.     

Why firm access to the bond market differs over the business cycle: A theory and some evidence

This paper presents a theory of firm access to the bond market in which information gathering agencies are valuable but alter the relative cost of bond financing across firms and over the business cycle. The theory builds on the assumption that information frictions prevent these agencies from rating firms correctly all of the time. As a result, the cost of bond financing becomes dependent on the state of the economy and the “quality” of the signal provided by these agencies’ ratings. In addition, when the mix of bond issuers becomes riskier, as happens in recessions, bond financing becomes more expensive for mid-quality firms. Bond financing may even become more expensive to all firms, in which case mid-quality firms will be affected the most. The analysis of the bonds issued in the last two decades by American firms shows that split ratings, our proxy for the “quality” of the rating agencies’ signal, do not affect the relative cost of bond financing across firms in expansions, but they do increase the relative cost of this funding source for mid-credit quality issuers in recessions.     

Automation versus Intermediation: Evidence from Treasuries Going Off the Run

This paper examines the choice of trading venue by dealers in U.S. Treasury securities to determine when services provided by human intermediaries are difficult to replicate in fully automated trading systems. When Treasury securities go “off the run” their trading volume drops by more than 90%. This decline in trading volume allows us to test whether intermediaries' knowledge of the market and its participants can uncover hidden liquidity and facilitate better matching of customer orders in less active markets. Consistent with this hypothesis, the market share of electronic intermediaries falls from 81% to 12% when securities go off the run.     

Portfolio separation for stockholder owned depository financial intermediaries

The conditions leading to separation of asset composition and financing decisions for depository financial intermediaries have received considerable attention in the literature. Although research to date provides useful insights into the issue of separation, none analyze separation from the point of view of shareholder approval. In this paper a single-period model of investor behavior is developed and analyzed based on market equilibrium. The impetus for the existence of intermediaries is random cash payments of investors and liquidation costs. The conditions for shareholder unanimity and optimal rules for intermediary decisions are derived. The optimality conditions are then analyzed for separation.     

AGGREGATION ACROSS HETEROGENEOUS DEPOSITORY INSTITUTIONS

Financial models usually proceed “as if” aggregation across heterogeneous financial intermediaries suppresses little information. The presumption is that the relevant set of relative yields remains essentially constant over time across intermediaries. Drawing on the fact that objective functions differ across intermediaries, we present theoretical evidence and data that question standard practice and suggest proceeding “as if” such differences exist and matter.     

The growth in equity market size and trading activity: An international study

This paper presents new evidence on the role of macroeconomic and institutional factors in equity market development and on the sources of equity market growth. Using panel data on 33 countries, I find that development of financial intermediaries and trade openness are positively associated with equity market size, and that development of financial intermediaries is also positively associated with the level of activity in equity markets. Government consumption is negatively associated with equity market activity. I construct a direct estimate of the effect of institutional factors on equity market development that compares a country's actual level of development to a hypothetical “best-practice” country having the same macroeconomic fundamentals as the original country. I show that the level of equity market development of an average country is around 30% below its maximum potential. There are wide differences in institutional characteristics across countries and over time, and Canada, the United States, and Singapore possess the most shareholder-friendly institutional frameworks that foster larger and more active equity markets. It appears that institutional improvements and changes in financial technology have provided the major impetus for the phenomenal expansion of global equity markets.