Alternative forms of deposit insurance: Pricing and bank incentive issues

This paper derives formulas for a deposit insuring agency's liability (and hence a fair value deposit insurance premium) and the equilibrium value of bank equity, considering a wide variety of factors affecting individual bank risk. Both fixed rate and variable rate (risk-sensitive) insurance systems are analyzed. Consideration is made as to whether the deposit insuring agency makes direct payments to depositors or arranges mergers following bank closings. The effect of these various policy choices on banks' incentive for risk taking is also analyzed.     

State-contingent regulatory mechanisms and fairly priced deposit insurance

This paper presents a model of incentive compatible bank regulation under moral hazard and adverse selection. We derive a wide range of simple and conceptually implementable mechanisms that can solve each type of incentive problem separately and also achieve the first-best outcome – but only when regulatory instruments involve ex post pricing that is contingent on the bank's performance relative to the market. An important feature of these mechanisms is that they do not involve a subsidy to the bank. When the regulator faces both moral hazard and adverse selection simultaneously, we identify the conditions under which the same mechanism can achieve the first-best solution.     

Private deposit insurance,deposit flows,bank lending,and moral hazard

We examine the role of private unlimited deposit insurance as a complement to federal deposit insurance for deposit flows, bank lending, and moral hazard during a crisis. We find that banks whose deposits are federally and privately fully insured obtain more deposits and expand lending, in contrast to banks whose deposits are only federally insured. We also document that privately insured banks remain prudent in the loan origination process during the subprime crisis. Our results offer novel insights into depositor and bank behavior in the presence of multiple deposit insurance schemes with differential design features. They also illustrate how private sector solutions incentivize prudent bank behavior to strengthen the financial safety net.     

The spread of deposit insurance and the global rise in bank asset risk since the 1970s

We construct a new measure of deposit insurance generosity for many countries, empirically model the exogenous international influences on the adoption and generosity of deposit insurance and use a novel econometric method to explore the causal chain from the expansion of deposit insurance generosity to increased overall lending, increased lending to households, increased banking system leverage, and more severe and frequent banking crises. Greater deposit insurance generosity robustly produces greater overall lending relative to bank assets and more lending to households relative to both bank assets and GDP, and results in higher banking system leverage. Our estimates, however, are not conclusive regarding whether greater deposit insurance generosity resulted in greater total loans relative to GDP or in more frequent or severe banking crises.     

A model of reserves, bank runs, and deposit insurance

A model is presented in which demand deposits backed by fractional currency reserves and public insurance can be beneficial. The model uses Samuelson's pure consumption-loans model. The case for demand deposits, reserves, and deposit insurance rests on costs of illiquidity and incomplete information. The effect of deposit insurance depends upon how, and at what cost, the government meets its insurer's obligation — something which is not specified in practice. It remains possible that demand deposits and deposit insurance are a distortion, and reserve requirements serve only to limit the size of this distortion.     

Implicit deposit insurance and deposit guarantees: Characteristics of Australian bank risk premia

This paper examines the hypothesis that CD issue yields of Australian banks incorporate a premium that reflects bank risk. Our empirical analysis of Australian banks' CD premiums suggests the data is consistent with this hypothesis and hence supports the view that CD holders do not perceive their deposits as being risk-free. Nor do we find any statistically significant difference between the premiums paid by private banks with implicit deposit insurance vis-a-vis those paid by government-owned banks with explicit government guarantees.     

Charter value,minimum bank capital requirement and deposit insurance pricing in equilibrium

This paper shows that leaving insolvent banks with large enough charter values open can be optimal and derives normative bank closure/reorganization policies based on the liquidation value of assets and the charter value. The charter value of a bank is broadly defined as the value that would be foregone due to a closure. Our simulations of risk taking show that an optimal forbearance for an insolvent bank with a large enough charter value alleviates the moral hazard problem. This is because increasing the risk raises the probability of losing the charter value, although it generates a moral hazard gain.     

Premium setting and bank behavior in a voluntary deposit insurance scheme

This study analyzes the effect of premium rates on banks’ incentives to join a deposit insurance scheme and their incentives to invest in risky projects under a voluntary deposit insurance scheme. We find that in order to maximize social welfare, the insurance agency must either set the premium rate to be low so as to attract all banks to join the insurance scheme, or not to have the deposit insurance at all. However, the low premium rate in the voluntary scheme does not balance the budget of the deposit insurance. We also show that in the compulsory deposit insurance scheme, however, it is possible to impose an optimal premium rate that can balance the insurance agency’s budget and achieve the highest social welfare. The results also present the dominance of the compulsory scheme over the voluntary scheme in terms of maximizing social welfare and balancing the budget.

The effect of bank ownership and deposit insurance on monetary policy transmission

In this paper we develop a theoretical model with a representative bank whose ownership is shared between state and private sector. The bank faces a risk of failure and provides private and public explicit deposit insurance. Banks owned to a larger extent by the government are more able to counteract a restrictive monetary policy because of their capacity to raise additional volume of deposits. Therefore, the greater the state’s share in the bank ownership, the less the impact of a monetary tightening on the level of loan supply.     

Information reusability,competition and bank asset quality

This paper explains the recent decline m bank asset quality using the notion of information reusability. Banks are viewed as information processors; they exist because of their advantage in extracting the surplus associated with the reusability of borrower-specific information. It is shown that a bank's incentive to screen loan applicants, and hence maintain the quality of its assets, depends on the surplus this screening can produce, which in turn depends on information reusability. Two recent changes in banks' operating environment are increased competitition and greater temporal volatility in borrower credit risks. The former has directly reduced banks' informational surplus while the latter has impaired information reusability. Hence screening expenditures have been reduced and the diminution of screening has lowered the quality of bank assets. It is also shown that an increase in deposit insurance premia has an effect similar to that of narrowing interest spreads and therefore will result in reduced asset screening and impaired asset quality.     

Capital regulation,deposit insurance and bank risk: International evidence from normal and crisis periods

In this paper, we examine the impact of capital regulation on bank risk and the moderating role of deposit insurance on the relationship between capital regulation and bank risk during both normal and crisis periods. Using an international sample of banks from 111 countries, our results show that stringent capital regulation reduces bank default risk, in general, during normal growth period, and this effect is not conditioned by the existence of explicit deposit insurance. Further, stringent capital regulation in place during the pre-crisis period reduces bank default risk during the crisis period, and this effect is stronger for countries with explicit deposit insurance during the pre-crisis period. These results have important policy implications to design the optimal bank regulations.     

Bank asset management and financial insurance

We have recently witnessed an increasing interaction between banking and insurance. Banks which are concerned about their risk level are insuring some of their loans with specialized underwriters. Some banks are also becoming involved in the role of providing special insurance packages to their stockholders or depositors. A comparative analysis of bank and insurance asset management models shows a high degree of complementarity. This complementarity suggests an increasing interdependence and a growth of financial exchanges between banking and insurance industries.     

Financial crisis and bank executive incentive compensation

We study the executive compensation structure in 14 of the largest U.S. financial institutions during 2000–2008. We focus on the CEO's purchases and sales of their bank's stock, their salary and bonus, and the capital losses these CEOs incur due to the dramatic share price declines in 2008. We consider three measures of risk-taking by these banks. Our results are mostly consistent with and supportive of the findings of Bebchuk, Cohen and Spamann (2010), that is, managerial incentives matter — incentives generated by executive compensation programs are correlated with excessive risk-taking by banks. Also, our results are generally not supportive of the conclusions of Fahlenbrach and Stulz (2011) that the poor performance of banks during the crisis was the result of unforeseen risk. We recommend that bank executive incentive compensation should only consist of restricted stock and restricted stock options — restricted in the sense that the executive cannot sell the shares or exercise the options for two to four years after their last day in office. The above incentive compensation proposal logically leads to a complementary proposal regarding a bank's capital structure, namely, banks should be financed with considerably more equity than they are being financed currently.     

Capital shocks, bank asset allocation, and the revised Basel Accord

In contrast to the 1988 Basel Accord (Basel I), the revised risk-based capital standards (Basel II) propose regulatory capital requirements based on credit ratings. This paper develops a theoretical model to analyze how banks will adjust their low and high credit risk commercial loans under the proposed newer standard. Capital-constrained banks respond to an adverse capital shock by reducing high credit risk loans, while under certain circumstances, low credit risk loans may actually increase. When compared to Basel I, it is shown that high-risk loans are reduced more under Basel II, but whether a bank reduces total lending more under Basel I or under the revised standards depends on a complex interaction of factors.     

Deposit insurance, bank regulation, and financial system risks

Empirical evidence is presented to show that in modern times banks can hedge liquidity shocks but could not do so prior to FDIC insurance. However, the government's limitations in properly pricing FDIC insurance are leading to many current examples of moral hazard. A model is presented to show that if insurance premiums are set to be “actuarially fair,” incentives for banks to take excessive systematic risks remain. Motivated by empirical evidence that money market mutual funds also can hedge liquidity shocks, I consider an alternative government insurance system that mitigates distortions to risk-taking yet preserves liquidity hedging and information synergies.     

Deposit interest rates, asset risk and bank failure in Croatia

Financial deregulation, while beneficial in the long-term, seems to be linked to instability. Intense competition for deposits appears to be an ingredient in instability. We examine the aftermath of deregulation in Croatia, which included rapid growth of both deposits and deposit interest rates, followed by numerous bank failures.

Using panel regression techniques, we find evidence of “market-stealing” via high deposit interest rates. We connect high deposit interest rates to bank failure using logit models. High deposit interest rates were a reliable signal of risk-taking. When supervisory capabilities and powers are weak, deposit interest rate regulation may be worth considering.     

The effect of industry consolidation and deposit insurance reform on the resiliency of the U.S. bank insurance fund

We examine the effects of structural change in the U.S. banking industry, as well as key regulatory changes, including recently enacted deposit insurance reform legislation, on the resiliency of the FDIC-administered bank insurance fund (BIF) by estimating and comparing the probability of BIF insolvency over time. We do this using a Markov-switching model that relies on historical patterns of BIF disbursements to define the probability of switching among three “states” of the banking industry's financial health. Monte Carlo simulations are then performed to project the financial condition of the BIF over a 50-year period. Our results indicate that the insolvency risk to the bank insurance fund has increased significantly due to industry consolidation, and is mainly due to the concentration of deposits in the 10 largest U.S. banking companies. We also find that recent deposit insurance reforms will cause only a marginal reduction in the risk of BIF insolvency. The increased risk associated with a more concentrated industry structure simply dominates the reform effect.     

Portfolio choices and VaR constraint with a defaultable asset

We consider a Constant Elasticity of Variance (CEV) model for the asset price of a defaultable asset showing the so-called leverage effect (high volatility when the asset price is low). We show that a VaR constraint re-evaluated over time induces an agent more risk averse than a logarithmic utility to take more risk than in the unconstrained setting.     

The impact of bank regulations, supervision, market structure, and bank characteristics on individual bank ratings: A cross-country analysis

We use country level data and bank level data from 71 countries and 857 banks to investigate the impact of bank regulations, supervision, market structure, and bank characteristics on individual bank ratings. The results indicate that less cost efficient banks, with higher than average levels of provisions relatively to their income, and lower liquidity tend to have lower ratings. Larger and more profitable banks tend to obtain higher ratings. Higher equity to assets ratio results in higher ratings only when we do not control for bank supervision and regulations. Capital requirements, restrictions on bank activities, official disciplinary power, explicit deposit insurance scheme, higher deposit insurer power, liquidity and diversification guidelines, entry requirements, fraction of entries denied, and economic freedom have a significant impact on ratings in all of our specifications. Disclosure requirements and foreign banks entry have a significant impact on ratings only when we simultaneously control for the regulatory environment and the market structure, while auditing requirements have a significant impact only when we control for the regulatory environment alone. Finally, banks in developed countries are assigned higher ratings. However, this impact disappears when we include the regulatory and supervision variables in the models.     

Risk-based capital standards, deposit insurance, and procyclicality

This article shows that risk-based deposit insurance premiums generate smaller procyclical effects than do risk-based capital requirements. Thus, Basel II's procyclical impact can be reduced by integrating risk-based deposit insurance. If deposit insurance is structured as a moving average of contracts, its procyclical effects can be decreased further. Empirical illustrations of this are presented for 42 banks over the period 1987 to 1996. The results confirm that lengthening the contracts' maturities intertemporally smooths premiums but raises the average premium level needed to compensate the insurer for greater systematic risk. The distribution of risk-based premiums across banks is skewed.