Bank runs, information and contagion in the panic of 1893

Contagious bank runs, which spread to both solvent and insolvent banks, should not occur if bank-specific information is provided regularly to the banking public. By mitigating the information asymmetry between banks and depositors, information should restrict runs to insolvent banks. However, official bank statements collected from quarterly reports to local newspapers in Kansas demonstrate that runs did become contagious in the 1893 panic even in an information-rich banking system. Important differences between national and non-national banks were also found, which suggests the maturity of the regulatory system may have played an important role in the panic.     

Causes of bank suspensions in the panic of 1893

There are several competing theories explaining bank panics. Some argue that panics are driven by real shocks, asymmetric information, and concerns about insolvency. Others argue that bank runs are self-fulfilling, driven by illiquidity and the beliefs of depositors. This paper tests predictions of different theories using information uniquely available for the Panic of 1893. The results suggest that real economic shocks were important determinants of the nationwide scope of panic, however at the local level, liquidity concerns are found to be a more important trigger of bank panics.     

Drivers of technical efficiency in Malaysian banking: a new empirical insight

Restructuring and rationalisation of Malaysian banking in 2000 and the subsequent policy of deregulation and liberalisation adopted by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) have resulted in a significant transformation of Malaysian banking. Banks are now poised to play a pivotal role in the economic transformation of the economy as envisaged in the Financial Sector Blue Print 2011–20 of BNM. Using the data envelopment analysis technique, the technical efficiency of 19 commercial banks (8 domestic banks and 11 foreign banks) operating in Malaysia during 2005–12 is evaluated. Then, using bootstrap‐corrected efficiency scores, the drivers of bank efficiency were estimated using the Tobit regression approach. Results clearly show that three large domestic banks are not only more efficient than their counterparts, but are also more efficient than the foreign banks. Bank size and return on assets are found to be the significant drivers of technical efficiency of Malaysian banks. Capital adequacy and the advances to deposit ratio also have a role in driving technical efficiency. The results also indicate that banks that are more effective in managing credit risk, as reflected in a lower level of non‐performing assets as a percentage of total assets, and have lower levels of personnel expenses to total assets, are more efficient. The findings have significant implications at the individual bank level and also at the policy level.     

The Stability of the Japanese Banking System: A Historical Perspective

In this paper we study the stability of the Japanese banking system in the prewar period. First, we review the development of the Japanese banking system from the Meiji Restoration until the Second World War. It will be shown that government policy toward the banking industry changed drastically after the 1927 banking panic. Second, we examine the causes of bank closings in 1927. We test whether or not such bank closings were due to their unsound management, which was reflected in the structure of assets and liabilities and bank performance, using a qualitative model. Our empirical results conclude that bank closings occurred more for banks with unsound management and inefficient operations. J. Japan. Int. Econ., December 1993, 7(4), pp. 387–407. School of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University, 6-1 Nishiwaseda 1-chome, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160, Japan; and University of Tokyo, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan.     

What Drives Cost Efficiency of Banks in China?

This study uses stochastic frontier analysis to examine the factors that influenced cost efficiency of banks in China from 2005 to 2013. The results indicate that policy variables, such as the reserve requirement ratio, the interest rate spread and open market operations by the People's Bank of China, are effective in improving the cost efficiency of banks, but shadow banking variables may reduce cost efficiency. Among the various bank types, city commercial banks appear to be the most efficient and foreign banks are the least efficient. The present study suggests that policy‐makers can have a positive influence on bank cost efficiency by adjusting macro policy variables on different types of banks and by requiring more information on the shadow banking activities to improve monitoring.     

Categories and causes of bank distress during the great depression, 1929–1933: The illiquidity versus insolvency debate revisited

During the contraction from 1929 to 1933, the Federal Reserve System tracked changes in the status of all banks operating in the United States and determined the cause of each bank suspension. This essay analyzes chronological patterns in aggregate series constructed from that data. The analysis demonstrates both illiquidity and insolvency were substantial sources of bank distress. Periods of heightened distress were correlated with periods of increased illiquidity. Contagion via correspondent networks and bank runs propagated the initial banking panics. As the depression deepened and asset values declined, insolvency loomed as the principal threat to depository institutions.     

中国银行业结构性变迁(1897-1927年)

自清朝末年到南京国民政府成立之前,中国银行业在相对宽松的条件下成长起来。以政府控制下"官护"性质银行的兴办为起点,中国银行业在30年间相继出现官办银行、官商合办、商办官护、私人民营、民营股份制等组织形式,在南京国民政府垄断银行业之前,较为丰富的现代银行体系雏形初步建立。在这一进程中,中国银行业呈现出"单一——分散——集中"的结构性变迁特征,由最初单一化的"官护"银行为主发展为数量庞大、较为分散的行业结构,最终在银行间联合发展作用下实现中国银行部门的集中。同时,中国银行业在资本实力和业务经营等方面实现突破性发展。尽管这一时期仍处于发展的幼稚阶段,但这一关键的起步对之后中国银行业的发展具有积极的推动作用。另外,这一时期中国银行业通过集中、联合发展实现与外国在华银行和旧式钱庄的抗衡,以史为鉴,这对当下中国银行业的发展而言,具有一定的历史借鉴意义。     

International banking and transmission of the 1931 financial crisis

In May to July 1931, a series of financial panics shook central Europe before spreading to the rest of the world. This article explores the role of cross‐border banking linkages in propagating the central European crisis to Britain and the US. Using archival bank‐level data, the article documents US and British banks’ exposure to central European frozen credits in 1931. Central European lending was mostly done by large and diversified commercial banks in the US and by small and geographically specialized merchant banks/acceptance houses in Britain. Differences in the organization of international bank lending explain why the central European crisis disturbed few US banks but endangered many British financial institutions.     

银行分项监管对银行风险的影响——基于发展中国家数据的实证分析

基于43 个发展中国家357 家银行数据,运用系统GMM 方法,研究银行分项监管对银行风险的影响。其中,银行监管包括12 类分项监管,银行风险包括总体风险、信用评级风险和破产风险。回归结果显示：资本监管、内部管理监管、存款保险监管、信息披露监管和监管效率5 类分项监管均能降低3 类银行风险。其他分项监管能降低1 到2 类银行风险,即准入监管能够降低总体风险,增加信用评级风险;所有权监管会增加信用评级风险,降低破产风险;外部审计监管增加银行总体风险和破产风险,降低信用评级风险;流动性监管降低银行破产风险,对总体风险、信用评级风险不显著;资产分类和处置监管降低总体风险、信用评级风险,但增加破产风险;退出监管增加银行总体风险、信用评级风险,降低银行破产风险。本文的研究对我国加强银行监管,降低银行风险有很强的现实参考意义。     

Flight‐to‐safety and the credit crunch: a new history of the banking crises in France during the Great Depression†

Despite France's importance in the interwar world economy, the scale of the French banking crises of 1930–1 and their consequences have never been fully assessed quantitatively. The lack of banking regulation severely limited the availability of balance sheet data. Using a new dataset of individual balance sheets from more than 300 banks, this article shows that the crises were much more severe than previously thought, although they did not affect the main commercial banks. By reconstructing financial flows, this study shows that the fall in bank credit was mostly driven by a flight‐to‐safety by deposits, from banks to savings institutions and the central bank. The decrease in bank deposits due to bank runs was offset by an increase in deposits with savings institutions, with the central bank, and in cash hoarding, whereas the decrease in bank credit was not offset by an increase in loans from non‐bank financial institutions. In line with the gold standard mentality, cash deposited with savings institutions and the central bank was used to decrease marketable public debt and increase gold reserves, rather than pursuing countercyclical policies. Despite massive capital inflows and rising aggregate money supply, France suffered from a severe, persistent credit crunch.     

Efficiency and Risk in Commercial Banks – Hybrid DEA Estimation

Abstract

The hybrid DEA model can solve the difference between radial inputs and non-radial inputs and evaluate efficiency. This is a pioneering study that uses the hybrid DEA model, evaluating the proportionate inputs with a radial measure and the non-proportionate inputs with a non-radial measure, in order to examine the impact of non-performing loans (NPLs) on the efficiency of Taiwan's banking sector from 2006 to 2010. In summary, this research demonstrates the following: (1) Only nine banks remained in the top efficiency list during these years: China Development Industrial Bank, Mega International Commercial Bank, Chinatrust Commercial Bank, Cathay United Bank, Bank of Kaohsiung, Industrial Bank of Taiwan, Taiwan Cooperative Bank, Land Bank, and Bank of Taiwan. (2) Risk is an important factor that should be taken into consideration when evaluating banking efficiency. (3) From the hybrid DEA model, we find that most of the inefficient banks have an inefficiency factor caused primarily by too many NPLs (risk). (4) The efficiency of Taiwan's large-scale banks is significantly better than the small-scale bank. By looking at the inefficiency index, the large-scale bank's inefficiency is caused by NPLs. For the small-scale bank, both radial variables and non-radial variables have equal importance in improving its efficiency.     

Quantitative easing and Japanese bank equity values

One of the primary motivations offered by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) for its quantitative easing program—whereby it maintained a current account balance target in excess of required reserves, effectively pegging short-term interest rates at zero—was to maintain credit extension by the troubled Japanese financial sector. We conduct an event study concerning the anticipated impact of quantitative easing on the Japanese banking sector by examining the impact of the introduction and expansion of the policy on Japanese bank equity values. We find that excess returns of Japanese banks were greater when increases in the BOJ current account balance target were accompanied by “non-standard” expansionary policies, such as raising the ceiling on BOJ purchases of long-term Japanese government bonds. We also provide cross-sectional evidence that suggests that the market perceived that the quantitative easing program would disproportionately benefit financially weaker Japanese banks. J. Japanese Int. Economies 20 (4) (2006) 699–721.     

Bank consolidation and competitiveness: Empirical evidence from the Korean banking industry

The Korean government consolidated several banks following the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997–1998 to stabilize the financial market and to improve international competitiveness. This process has brought sound capital reserves, assets and profitability to the banking industry. However, due to the resulting increase in market concentration, this process has also produced concerns about the monopolistic and oligopolistic power of the banks. Recently, the growing concern within the government is the weakening of bank competition due to the sharp increase in market concentration. This study reviews and examines the status of bank consolidation and the competitive structure of the banking industry. The degree of competitiveness in the banking industry is analyzed using the Panzar and Rosse model with a non-structural approach and data from 1992 to 2007 (before the beginning of the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis). This time span is divided into a pre- and a post-bank consolidation period. The estimation results indicate that monopolistic competition in the market exists but that the competitiveness of the banks has improved with the increased market concentration. This finding contradicts previous beliefs regarding the increased risk and lower competition derived from a concentrated financial system.     

Financial collapse: 1933

Financial collapse in the winter of 1933, culminating in the bank holiday of early March, was a climactic event. It ended the downswing phase of the great depression. It produced widespread losses to depositors and owners of bank capital, which, soon after, led to the establishment of the Securities and Exchange Commission, separation of commercial and investment banking, federal deposit insurance, and other landmark financial legislation. It put an end to the gold standard in the U.S., followed in a few years by the remaining adherents of that standard.Presidential Address presented at the Fiftieth International Atlantic Economic Conference, October 15–18, 2000, Charleston, South Carolina. This paper is based on the author's own work,A History of the Federal Reserve [forthcoming, chap. 5].     

Systemically important banks: an analysis for the European banking system

In this paper we perform an empirical analysis to identify systemically important banks by a few individual bank characteristics that are easy to observe in practice. This analysis builds on a new method to construct measures of systemic relevance of individual institutions that are consistent with a risk analysis at the level of the banking system, taking correlations in bank asset returns into account. We derive asset return correlations for a sample of European publicly traded banks from market data and construct two risk measures: incremental value at risk and conditional expected shortfall. Incremental value at risk quantifies the individual contributions of banks to the system’s Value-at-Risk. Conditional expected shortfall measures the increase in the expected system wide deposit insurance liability that would follow from the default of an institution. The analysis of hypothetical defaults of institutions is performed consistently with the observed distribution of asset returns by using the conditional distribution. Both measures are then analyzed in a panel regression where individual characteristics are used to explain incremental value at risk and conditional expected shortfall.     

网络银行的安全策略及应用研究

网络银行是银行通过互联网为客户提供金融服务的平台,是电子商务在银行业的具体应用,它代表了现代商业银行业务的发展方向。如何解决网络银行的安全性问题是目前国际国内的一个重要的研究课题。本文对目前流行的网络安全认证机制进行了分析和研究,对工商银行和民生银行在网络银行上采用的安全措施、对策以及各自的特点进行了分析和对比,最后提出我们对提高网络银行安全性的建议以及对未来网络银行应用的展望。     

金融生态环境渐入佳境

作为城市金融功能定位,济南的视野已经不再仅仅局限于本市,至少是山东省和环渤海经济圈了。以黄河中下游为轴线,沪宁以北、京津以南、西安以东的合围区域内,济南市相对于其他大中城市,金融资源最为丰富,企业获取资金的便捷程度最高,外地贷款余额的比重已经超过30%。这表明济南作为区域金融中心具备了初步的影响力。     

Paying back to borrow more: Reputation and bank credit access in early America

The birth of commercial banking in New England after the American Revolution provides an important case to examine banking development under asymmetric information. Similar to credit markets in developing countries today, bank borrowers of early America usually had little or no collateral. This paper uses a unique data set based on loans between 1803 and 1833 for Plymouth Bank to examine bank lending policies in the absence of collateral. Empirical evidence suggests that borrowers with little collateral established their credit-worthiness through repeated interaction with banks.     

Resolving the puzzle of the underissuance of national bank notes

Much of the puzzle of underissuance of national bank notes can be resolved for the period 1880–1900 (the period when detailed, bank-level data are available) by disaggregating, taking account of regulatory limits, and considering differences in banks’ opportunity costs cross-sectionally and over time. Banks with poor lending opportunities issued more, within regulatory limits. Banks tended to issue more when bond yields (the backing for notes) were high relative to lending opportunities. The profitability of note issuance was insufficient to attract entrants primarily or mainly for the purpose of note issuance. The observed lack of a general relationship between note issuance and reserve demand is inconsistent with the view that redemption costs from note issuance explain low note issuance in general. However, some variation in the propensities of urban banks to issue notes is associated with variation in reserve demand costs associated with the note issues of those banks. Generally, however, note issuance enjoyed economies of scope with deposit banking, including reduced costs of reserve requirements.     

Capital Structure and Bank Performance: Empirical Evidence from Ghana

The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of capital structure on profitability of commercial banks in Ghana. The study used a sample of 21 commercial banks over the period 2000–2014 using panel corrected standard errors and two‐stage least‐squares estimation approaches. The results show that bank capital structure measured as capital‐to‐asset ratio is a robust and positive driver of bank performance (profitability) measures (return on assets and net interest margin). Additionally, the results further indicate that share of customer demand deposit positively affects bank profitability. The positive relationship between the capital‐to‐asset ratio and performance provides support for the bank capitalization policy implemented by the Bank of Ghana. Also, the findings provide evidence in support of the recent upsurge in bank short‐term deposit mobilization strategies and promotions by commercial banks in the country to enhance their deposit base.