Does corruption hamper bank lending? Macro and micro evidence

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of corruption in bank lending. Corruption is expected to hamper bank lending, as it is closely related to legal enforcement, which has been shown to promote banks’ willingness to lend. Nevertheless the similarities between the consequences for bank lending of law enforcement and corruption are misleading, as they consider only judiciary corruption. Corruption can also occur in lending and may then be beneficial for bank lending via bribes given by borrowers to enhance their chances of receiving loans. This assumption may be validated particularly in the presence of pronounced risk aversion by banks, resulting in greater reluctance on the part of banks to grant loans. We perform country-level and bank-level estimations to investigate these assumptions. Corruption reduces bank lending in both sets of estimations. However, bank-level estimations show that the detrimental effect of corruption is reduced when bank risk aversion increases, even leading at times to situations wherein corruption fosters bank lending. Additional controls show that corruption does not increase bank credit by favoring only bad loans. Therefore, our findings show that while the overall effect of corruption is to hamper bank lending, it can alleviate firm’s financing obstacles.     

Securitisation and the bank lending channel

The dramatic increase in securitisation activity experienced in Europe in the years following the introduction of the euro has altered the liquidity, credit and maturity transformation role traditionally performed by banks. We claim that the changing role of credit intermediaries due to securitisation has also modified the effectiveness of the bank lending channel and banks’ ability to grant loans. We use a novel database of securitisation activity and a large sample of European banks and find that the use of securitisation shelters banks’ loan supply from the effects of monetary policy. Securitisation activity has also strengthened banks’ capacity to supply new loans. This capacity, however, depends on business cycle conditions and, notably, on banks’ risks positions. The recent credit crisis is instructive in this respect.     

Enterprise restructuring and bank competition in transition economies

We investigate how bank competition affects the efficiency of credit allocation, using a model of spatial competition. Our analysis shows that bad loans are more likely the larger the number of banks competing for customers. We study further how many banks will be active if market entry is not regulated. Free entry can induce too much entry and thus too many bad loans compared to the social optimum. Finally we analyse how bank competition affects the restructuring efforts of firms. We find that restructuring has positive externalities which give rise to multiple equilibria, with either much or little restructuring activity.
JEL classification: D43, G21, G34, L13, P31, P34.     

Market discipline in the Brazilian banking industry: an analysis for the subordinated debt holders

Market discipline is a regulatory mechanism which has as its main task the punishment of bad risk management by financial institutions. Subordinated debt holders are considered by the literature as the most propitious private agent to discipline the financial institutions. The key to prove the existence of market discipline is to show the relationship between banks’ asset prices and its respective risks. The main objective of this article is an empirical analysis of the relation between credit risk (ratings and accounting information) and debentures return for the Brazilian case. The results denote a weak presence of market discipline in Brazil.     

Cost economies,efficiency and productivity growth in the Chinese banking industry: evidence from a quarterly panel dataset

This article examines cost economies, productivity growth and cost efficiency of the Chinese banks using a unique panel dataset that identifies banks’ four outputs and four input prices over the period of 1995–2001. By assessing the appropriateness of model specification, and making use of alternative methodologies in evaluating the performance of banks, we find that the joint-stock commercial banks outperform state-owned commercial banks in productivity growth and cost efficiency. Under the variable cost assumption, Chinese banks display economies of scale, with state-owned commercial banks enjoying cost advantages over the joint-stock commercial banks. Consequently, our results highlight the ownership advantage of these two types of banks and generally support the ongoing banking reform and transformation that is currently taking place in China.     

我国商业银行 X-效率研究

从我国商业银行效率角度出发分析了我国商业银行的规模效率、范围效率和X-效率,表明我国商业银行总体效率不高。以2005～2013年的数据为例,并运用数据包络分析方法（DEA）对我国商业银行的X-效率进行实证分析,考察了其间的差异。通过多元回归论述了影响我国商业银行X-效率的因素主要有银行产权结构、金融创新、资产配置、资产质量、资本充足率、人力资源配置。提出深化产权制度改革、提高人力资源管理水平、降低不良贷款率、促进技术创新的建议。     

Banks’ efficiency and credit risk analysis using by-production approach: the case of Iranian banks

This article uses a by-production approach that integrates credit risk to monitor bank efficiency. The method overcomes the possible misspecification issues of the commonly assumed weak disposability (WDA) of undesirable outputs. In addition, our measure extends the classic by-production approach by including statistical aspects through subsampling techniques. We have also provided an algorithm to correct related infeasibilities. Using this approach, we investigate the performance of Iranian banks and credit risk management in the sector for the period 1998–2012. Non-performing loans (NPLs) have been used as an undesirable output and proxy for credit risk in our models. Based on our empirical results, although the banks generally exhibited efficiency improvements over time, their credit risk performance deteriorated considerably after the regulatory changes introduced in 2005. These findings confirm that credit quality can be monitored more actively across Iranian banks.     

Capital regulation, bank competition, and financial stability

We analyze capital requirements if banks compete for loans and deposits. Banks and firms are subject to a risk-shifting problem. The ambiguous effect of competition on banks’ risk-taking translates into an ambiguous effect of capital requirements on financial stability.     

Deregulation, market power and risk behaviour in Spanish banks

This paper provides empirical evidence on the effects of regulatory changes in the market power of Spanish banks. It also analyses the response of banks, in terms of risk-taking behaviour, as a result of a reduction in economic profits. We find that liberalisation measures have increased competition and eroded banks’ market power. We observe that banks with lower charter values tend to have lower equity-assets ratios (lower solvency) and to experience higher credit risk. The last evidence is new in the literature and calls for strengthening regulatory concerns about credit risk management by banks in situations of increased competition.     

Deregulation, consolidation and banks efficiency in Singapore: Evidence from event study window approach and Tobit analysis

A three-year window analysis together with the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach is employed to investigate the effects of mergers and acquisitions on the Singapore banking groups’ efficiency. The results suggest that the merger has resulted in a higher Singapore banking groups’ mean overall efficiency. We do not find evidence of more efficient acquirers compared to the targets and that the acquiring banks’ mean overall efficiency tends to improve from the merger with a more efficient bank. The Tobit regression results suggest that bank profitability has positive impact on bank efficiency, whereas poor loan quality has negative influence on bank performance. (JEL: G21, D24) All findings, interpretations, and conclusions are solely those of the authors’ and do not necessarily represent the views of the institutions to which they belong. We would like to thank the anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions. The remaining errors are of our own.     

Bank asset quality & monetary policy pass-through

The funding mix of European firms is weighted heavily towards bank credit, which underscores the importance of efficient pass-through of monetary policy actions to lending rates faced by firms. Euro area pass-through has shifted from being relatively homogenous to being fragmented and incomplete since the financial crisis. Distressed loan books are a crisis hangover with direct implications for profitability, hampering banks ability to supply credit and lower loan pricing in response to reductions in the policy rate. This paper presents a parsimonious model to decompose the cost of lending and highlight the role of asset quality in diminishing pass-through. Using bank-level data over the period 2008–2014, we empirically test the implications of the model. We show that a one percentage point increase in the impairment ratio lowering short run pass-through by 3%. We find that banks with severely impaired balance sheets do not adjust their loan pricing in response to changes in the policy rate at all. We derive a measure of the hidden bad loan problem, the NPL gap, which we define as the excess of non-performing loans over impaired loans. We show that it played a significant role in the fragmentation of euro area pass-through post-crisis.     

Risk externalities in a payments oligopoly

I discuss the role to be played by central banks in payment systems by way of an oligopoly model of a payments market where firms exert negative risk externalities upon each other. A central bank participating actively in this market is modelled as benign in two ways: exerting less externalities than other banks and maximizing welfare rather than profit. Because other banks react strategically to the central bank’s presence due to its low externalities, there is a risk that it backfires, with these other banks’ taking more risky positions than if the central bank were not there. The proper role of the central bank may actually be to stay out.     

Screening, cross-border banking, and the allocation of credit

The author analyses competition among banks when banks can use creditworthiness tests that generate (imperfect) information about borrowers. When banks can strategically adjust the test characteristics by investing resources in the screening technology, he shows that credit markets are not easily contestable. An increase in the intensity of competition may have few effects on incumbents» conduct and overall market shares. Moreover, conditions are provided under which screening efforts are reduced by competition. In such situations the quality of the overall loan portfolio declines and the economy incurs higher aggregate risk due to the lower quality of banks» information production. The welfare gains from integrating fragmented loan markets can actually be negative.     

中国商业银行成本效率实证研究

基于随机前沿法原理,利用超越对数成本函数模型,本文评估了中国14家主要商业银行在1998—2003年间的成本效率情况,并按考虑贷款产出质量的2003年成本效率情况对各银行排序。实证研究结论为(1)中国商业银行总体的成本效率并不很差;(2)国有商业银行成本效率处于上升趋势,股份制商业银行则保持波动攀升趋势;(3)贷款产出质量对中国商业银行的成本效率有明显的负面影响,在考虑产出质量时,国有商业银行成本效率明显落后于股份制商业银行。     

The Bank Lending Channel and Monetary Policy Rules: Evidence from European Banks

There exist two main channels of the monetary transmission mechanism: the interest rate and the bank lending channel. This paper focuses on the latter, which is based on the central bank’s actions that affect loan supply and real spending. The supply of loans depends on the monetary policy indicator, which, in most studies, is the real short-term interest rate. The question investigated in this paper is how the operation of the bank lending channel changes when this short-term indicator is allowed to be endogenously determined by the target rate the central bank sets through a monetary rule. We examine the effect that a rule has on the bank lending channel in European banking institutions spanning the period 1999–2009. The expectations concerning inflation and output affect the decision of the central bank for the target rate, which, in turn, affect private sector’s expectations —commercial banks— by altering their loan supply.     

SOME NEW EVIDENCE ON COMPETITION IN PAYDAY LENDING MARKETS

A critical question in the policy debate about payday lending is whether other financial institutions can plausibly provide attractive and lower‐priced substitutes for standard payday loans. I present several new pieces of evidence addressing the question, focusing on whether credit unions, which are often held as the strongest potential competitors to payday lenders, do (or might) viably compete in the payday loan market. National payday loan offerings by credit unions show that very few credit unions currently offer payday loans. Credit union industry reports suggest that those credit unions offering such loans seem unwilling or unable to undercut substantially the prevailing prices set by payday lenders. Those industry reports also reveal that lower‐priced credit union loans generally ration riskier borrowers out of the market by imposing greater restrictions on approval and repayment; risk‐adjusted prices for credit union payday loans may not be lower at all. Survey evidence suggests that most current payday borrowers prefer higher‐priced but less restrictive standard payday loans to lower‐priced but more restrictive alternatives offered by credit unions. The combined demand‐ and supply‐side evidence suggests that one should not expect credit unions (or by extension banks) to offer lower‐priced, higher‐quality alternatives for consumers who currently use payday loans. (JEL G2, L0, L5)     

The Presence of Multinational Banks and the Supply and Quality of Credit in Emerging Economies

Barriers to entry for multinational banks (MNBs) have been reduced in many countries. This paper studies the effect of the presence of MNBs on the supply and quality of credit in emerging economies. This study uses data from the Bank for International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund. The results indicate that the credit supply declines in response to increased competition from MNBs. However, the adverse effect of MNBs on the credit supply is less pronounced when the presence of MNBs is larger. The paper also provides some tentative results on the effect of MNBs on the quality of loans. The results suggest that banks shift their portfolios away from loans as a result of increased international financial competition, thereby reducing default risk, which is also reflected in a negative relationship between MNB presence and the chance of a banking crisis occurring.     

Regional bank efficiency and its effect on regional growth in “normal” and “bad” times

The financial crisis affected regions in Europe in a different magnitude. This is why we examine whether regions which incorporate banks with a higher intermediation quality grow faster in “normal” times and are more resilient in “bad” ones. For this purpose, we measure the intermediation quality of a bank by estimating its profit and cost efficiency while taking the changing banking environment after the financial crisis into account. Next, we aggregate the efficiencies of all banks within a NUTS 2 region to obtain a regional proxy for financial quality in twelve European countries. Our results show that relatively more profit efficient banks foster growth in their region. The link between financial quality and growth is valid in “normal” and in “bad” times. These results provide evidence to the importance of swiftly restoring bank profitability in euro area crisis countries through addressing high non-performing loans ratios and decisive actions on bank recapitalization.     

Industrial loans and market structure

Based on the observation that financing is one of the main obstacles to create new firms, this paper deals with the interactions between the market structure of both the banking sector and the borrowing industries. We consider that firms’ installation costs are financed by means of industrial loans from specialized banks. With endogenous entry in banking activity as well as in the borrowing industry, we find that a natural oligopoly emerges in both sectors if the entry cost in the industrial sector is small enough, relative to the banks’ entry cost.     

Over-the-counter loans,adverse selection,and stigma in the interbank market

We study a model of interbank credit where physical and informational frictions limit the opportunities for intertemporal trade among banks and outside investors. Banks obtain loans in an over-the-counter market (involving search, bilateral matching, and negotiations over the terms of the loan) and hold assets of heterogeneous quality that in turn determine their ability to repay those loans. When asset quality is not observable by outside investors, information about the actions taken by a bank in the loan market may influence prices in the asset market. In particular, under some conditions, borrowing from the central bank can be regarded as a negative signal about the quality of the borrower?s assets and banks may be willing to borrow in the market at rates higher than the one offered by the central bank.