Corporate investment and bank-dependent borrowers during the recent financial crisis

We use the recent financial crisis period to analyse the effect of bank credit tightening on firm investment. We derive a new set of credit tightening indexes from the ECB Bank Lending Survey. Combining these with annual balance sheet data from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Portugal, we exploit the heterogeneity in the dependence on bank finance of different industries to identify real effects of credit tightening. We show that in response to tightening, investment falls substantially more in bank-dependent industries.     

Bank loan announcements and borrower stock returns before and during the recent financial crisis

The impact of U.S. bank loan announcements on the stock prices of the corporate borrowers has been decreasing during the two last decades with estimated two-day cumulative abnormal returns slipping from almost 200 basis points in the beginning of the 1980s to close to zero by the turn of the Century. We estimate excess returns before and after the onset of the most recent financial crisis. We find that while prior to August 2007 returns were indeed close to zero, afterwards returns jump back up to around 200 basis points. We surmise that in a booming credit market the certification of corporate borrowers by banks started to play a lesser role, while during the crisis the banks’ role was revitalized. Consistent with this interpretation we find that after August 2007 excess returns increase especially for loans with a longer maturity, and for smaller, levered, less profitable or lowly rated firms.     

The EMU effects on asset market holdings and the recent financial crisis

This paper examines if there are significant integration effects from the establishment of European Monetary Union (EMU) and the introduction of euro on EMU and non-EMU equity and bond markets. This is done by looking at the holdings of these markets. We investigate to what extent these effects have been affected by the recent global financial crisis. This is done based on gravity model determining bilateral asset holding among the EMU countries, non-EMU European countries and the rest of world. This model can control for the effects of other economic (gravity-type) variables on the effects of the EMU on financial markets, like the size of the capital markets across countries, the geographical distance, information asymmetries etc. Ignoring these effects may exaggerate the actual EMU integration effects. The paper provides clear cut evidence that the establishment of the EMU had significant integration effects on equity and bond markets. It significantly increased the EMU bond and equity holdings by the EMU and non-EMU investors. These effects have become important since year 2001. However, they have considerably reduced after year 2007, due to the recent global financial crisis. Across the EMU countries, we have found that the strongest disintegration effects of the above crisis were observed for the peripheral countries of the EMU. These effects became evident before the start of the European debt crisis in early 2010.     

The recent financial crisis,start‐up financing and survival

We investigate the effects of the recent financial crisis on start‐up financing and survival using a dataset that covers all Belgian new business registrations between 2006 and 2009. We find that bank debt is the single most important source of funding, even for start‐ups founded during the crisis. However, start‐ups founded in crisis years use less bank debt and have a higher likelihood of bankruptcy, even after controlling for their creditworthiness. These effects are stronger for start‐ups that are more dependent on bank debt, such as start‐ups founded in bank dependent industries and start‐ups founded by entrepreneurs who are more likely to be financially constrained.     

Bank lending during the financial crisis of 2008

This paper shows that new loans to large borrowers fell by 47% during the peak period of the financial crisis (fourth quarter of 2008) relative to the prior quarter and by 79% relative to the peak of the credit boom (second quarter of 2007). New lending for real investment (such as working capital and capital expenditures) fell by only 14% in the last quarter of 2008, but contracted nearly as much as new lending for restructuring (LBOs, M&As, share repurchases) relative to the peak of the credit boom. After the failure of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, there was a run by short-term bank creditors, making it difficult for banks to roll over their short term debt. We find that there was a simultaneous run by borrowers who drew down their credit lines, leading to a spike in commercial and industrial loans reported on bank balance sheets. We examine whether these two stresses on bank liquidity led them to cut lending. In particular, we show that banks cut their lending less if they had better access to deposit financing and thus, they were not as reliant on short-term debt. We also show that banks that were more vulnerable to credit-line drawdowns because they co-syndicated more of their credit lines with Lehman Brothers reduced their lending to a greater extent.     

Foreign reserve management during the global financial crisis

This paper examines how countries managed their foreign currency reserves during the global financial crisis. Evidence based on changes in reserve stocks suggests that many governments, even those with high levels of pre-crisis reserves, were reluctant to use them during the crisis. As a consequence, a number of recent studies of cross-country experiences during the crisis find little evidence of a positive role for reserves in macroeconomic crisis-management. This paper examines whether this assessment of the non-role of reserves during the crisis is justified. While the reserve stock data indicates stable reserve levels for many countries during the crisis, distinguishing between reserve changes that occurred due to interest income and valuation changes on existing assets and asset purchases and sales, indicates that many emerging economies actively depleted reserves. Further, the data indicate that countries whose pre-crisis reserve levels were in excess of what can be explained by standard models of reserve accumulation were the most likely to sell reserve assets during the crisis.     

National culture and bank performance: Evidence from the recent financial crisis

We examine whether the prevailing national culture has been material in determining bank performance during the recent financial crisis. In this paper, we focus on three particular national culture dimensions: uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, and power distance. We expect banks from high uncertainty avoidance and power distance societies to perform relatively better during the recent financial crisis. On the other hand, banks in individualistic (collectivist) societies are likely to perform worse (better) during the crisis. Using an international sample of 3438 banks from 48 countries, we find support for our main conjectures. Specifically, we establish that uncertainty avoidance, collectivism, and power distance have a first order impact on bank performance during the crisis. Our results are robust to a battery of additional checks, including additional variables, alternative samples, and correcting for potential endogeneity.     

The performance of banks in the MENA region during the global financial crisis

This paper examines the impact of the global financial crisis on the banking sector in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as well as the main determinants of the profitability of both domestic and foreign banks. The empirical findings suggest that during the crisis the former outperformed the latter in that region. As for the determinants of profitability, size does not appear to play a role, whilst the liquidity ratio and net interest revenues seem to have a negative and positive effect respectively; GDP has a positive effect in the case of domestic banks.     

Need for pragmatic regulation of markets: the takeaway from the recent financial crisis

Despite being in an increasingly globalized economy with markets located far and wide, regulatory authorities across national boundaries, while focusing on their own market yards, had been in the dark about what had been happening in markets across borders. If leveraging opportunities and opaque markets drive participants to chase, unregulated, too few goods, it surely will prove unhealthy for interconnected markets and economies. Clearly, appropriate regulatory actions alone can prevent greed-driven individual and institutional participants from building up collective irrationality in markets. This paper discusses various takeaways from the worst economic recession post-Great Depression from a regulatory perspective.     

Intra-safe haven currency behavior during the global financial crisis

We investigate intra-safe haven currency behavior during the recent global financial crisis. We first assess which safe haven currency is the “safest”. We then use non-temporal threshold analysis to investigate whether intra-safe haven currency behavior changes as market uncertainty increases. We find that the JPY is the “safest” of safe haven currencies and that only the JPY appreciates as market uncertainty increases regardless of the prevailing level of uncertainty. Our results may have important implications for central banks optimizing their relative composition of international currency reserve holdings with respect to returns in USD terms and for foreign currency market investors in general.     

Individual investor perceptions and behavior during the financial crisis

Combining monthly survey data with matching trading records, we examine how individual investor perceptions change and drive trading and risk-taking behavior during the 2008–2009 financial crisis. We find that investor perceptions fluctuate significantly during the crisis, with risk tolerance and risk perceptions being less volatile than return expectations. During the worst months of the crisis, investors’ return expectations and risk tolerance decrease, while their risk perceptions increase. Towards the end of the crisis, investor perceptions recover. We document substantial swings in trading and risk-taking behavior that are driven by changes in investor perceptions. Overall, individual investors continue to trade actively and do not de-risk their investment portfolios during the crisis.     

Liquidity risk and stock performance during the financial crisis

We investigate whether and how ex-ante liquidity risk affects realized stock returns during the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 in international equity markets. We find that stocks with higher pre-crisis return exposure to global market liquidity shocks experience larger price reductions during the crisis period. Our findings provide further insight into the comprehensive picture of the effect of liquidity risk on asset prices, especially in an international context and under different market conditions.     

The interest rate pass-through in the Euro area during the global financial crisis

This paper uses panel vector autoregressive (VAR) models for euro area member countries to explore the widening of retail bank interest rate spreads that emerged in the course of the global financial crisis. We find that the interest rate pass-through was generally complete on impact before the outbreak of the financial crisis, but became significantly distorted in the period thereafter, which hampered the effectiveness of monetary policy. Empirical evidence suggests that the decrease in the interest rate pass-through can be related to a change in the structural parameters characterizing the economies and a substantial increase in the average size of structural shocks. DSGE model simulations show that an increase in the frictions that banks are subject to can explain the decrease in the retail bank interest rate pass-through.     

Information asymmetry of fair value accounting during the financial crisis

We examine whether US banks’ fair value net assets, measured according to the three-level hierarchy introduced in SFAS 157, are associated with information asymmetry during the 2008 financial crisis. Our results show that bid–ask spread, a proxy for information asymmetry, is positively associated with fair value net assets, and the degree of association is contingent upon the three-level hierarchy, with bid–ask spreads being lowest for Level 1 (the most transparent valuation inputs) and highest for Level 3 (the least observable). Also, there is some evidence that SFAS 157 led to a reduction in bid–ask spread, and we find that quarterly changes in Level 1 and Level 2 fair value net assets are significantly associated with changes in bid–ask spread in 2008 when the spread was rapidly rising, but not in 2009 when it was falling. Our findings suggest that the three-level hierarchy under SFAS 157 provides investors with useful information, and fair value is associated with uncertainty, as measured by bid–ask spread, before and during the financial crisis.     

The information content of Eonia swap rates before and during the financial crisis

Before August 2007, implied forward rates in the overnight interest swap rates closely reflected market expectations about the future path of the Eonia, and therefore, about the future course of the ECB’s monetary policy stance. Nevertheless, this link was weakened considerably during the most acute episode of the financial crisis. Using the expectations hypothesis of the term structure as a benchmark model for the determination of the overnight interest swap rates, we find that after May 2010 the monetary transmission mechanism was partially restored when the ECB implemented various ‘unconventional measures’ in response to the financial crisis. On the contrary, liquidity and credit risks are still present in unsecured deposit markets, distorting the pricing and transmission of the ECB monetary policy stance along the Euribor rates. These results should be of interest for regulators, financial institutions, and researchers in European money markets.     

金融危机时期的信用卡行销方略

美国金融海啸席卷全球.虽然中国投入巨额资金及时救市,但从经济规律预计,国内市场信心恢复尚需时日.对于正从圈地时代步入耕地时代的信用卡行业来说,因经济波动引起的风险加大、收益减少将不可避免,但以危机中危与机并存的哲学,只要深刻把握消费者需求,即便在金融危机时期亦可积累客户忠诚及品牌美誉,待景气好转便可迅速获益.     

The regulatory response to the financial crisis

There are numerous aspects concerning financial regulation which the current financial turmoil has high-lighted. These include: (1) the form of deposit insurance; (2) bank solvency regimes, ‘prompt corrective action’; (3) Central Banks’ money market operations; (4) commercial bank liquidity risk management; (5) procyclicality of CARs (and mark-to-market); lack of counter-cyclical instruments; (5) boundaries of regulation, conduits, SIVs and reputational risk; (6) crisis management: (a) within countries, e.g. UK Tripartite Committee; or (b) cross-border, how to allocate the burden of cross-border defaults? This paper describes how the crisis exposed regulatory failings, drawing largely on UK experience, and suggests remedies.     

Conditional conservatism and trade credit during the global financial crisis

We investigate conditional conservatism and firms’ access to trade credit during the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. Previous studies argue that suppliers prefer conservative customers because of information asymmetry in production networks; we extend this line of research by focusing on trade credit during the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, a period that was characterized by a credit supply shock. We first document a positive association between conditional conservatism and firms’ access to trade credit both before and after the onset of the crisis, which indicates suppliers’ demand for conditional conservatism. Meanwhile, the association between conditional conservatism and trade credit experienced a significant decline following the onset of the crisis, and this only held when suppliers and customers had frequent transactions or were in close proximity, when transacted goods were standardized rather than differentiated, when customers were financially constrained and had high bargaining power, and when suppliers had sufficient liquidity. It implies that, when information asymmetry along the supply chain was low and customers had strong bargaining power, liquid suppliers increased their tolerance to less conservative customers, and they were even willing to grant trade credit to the less conservative customers that were financially constrained. Overall, this study adds to previous literature by demonstrating suppliers’ multifaceted demand for conditional conservatism.     

Corporate investment during the financial crisis: Evidence from China

China's growth model suggests that the 2008 financial crisis may have affected the Chinese economy differently from what one observes in mature market economies. In this paper, we examine how Chinese corporate investment responded to the financial crisis by using 1689 listed nonfinancial firms during Q12006–Q32010. We document that (1) the overall impact of the financial crisis on Chinese corporate investment is negative; (2) among three channels conveying the effect of the financial crisis, namely, the demand channel, the financial constraints channel, and the uncertainty channel, the demand channel dominates; (3) financial assets held by a nonfinancial firm are important in explaining the firm's fixed investment behaviour; (4) as compared to non-state firms, state-controlled firms are less affected by the financial crisis and more active in engaging in financial assets investment; and (5) foreign ownership can be seen as a buffer against the negative effect of the financial crisis and foreign-involved Chinese firms are less active in financial assets investment as compared to domestic firms.     

Trade credit and company performance during the 2008 financial crisis

We investigate whether the 2008 financial crisis had an impact on companies’ trade credit, and whether changes in trade credit mitigated the crisis’s impact on firm profitability. We document that the availability of trade credit decreased, and that this decline is more pronounced, the higher the companies’ pre‐crisis reliance on short‐term debt. We further report evidence that the redistribution hypothesis holds during crisis periods. Finally, we show that the crisis had a negative impact on company performance, but that this impact was lower (greater) for firms that report an increase in trade receivables (payables) in crisis compared to pre‐crisis periods.