The impact of taxation on bank profits: Evidence from EU banks

Using bank-level data for the period 1990–2005, we investigate to what extent European banks are able to shift their tax-burden forward. We examine the effects of corporate income tax (CIT) and value added tax (VAT) on pre-tax profits and their components, and find that both are shifted forward. The pass-through mainly involves total operating income, but as far as CIT is concerned it also affects loss provisions, with negative implications on stability of the banking systems.     

Accounting issues and the measurement of profits - English banks 1920-68

It is well known that banks in England did not publish their 'true' profits until 1969. This article discusses the problems encountered in establishing the banks' 'true' profits and capital for earlier periods from their published accounts and unpublished archival sources. Definitions of profits and capital are considered and the methods used by the authors elsewhere in the calculation of true profits, capital, and rates of return are described. A number of areas causing particular difficulty are identified and discussed in detail. The accounting practices followed by the banks are compared to more generally-used financial accounting practices.     

The internationalization of Australian banks

Since the 19th century, Australian banking has seen high inward and some outward flows of FDI. However, from the 1980s, Australian banks greatly expanded the scale of their FDI, their geographic scope and the range of products that they offered. This recent outward flow of FDI was the result of a complex and inter-related set of factors, including a push from a small and crowded Australian market and the pull of foreign wholesale and retail markets, that liberalization of trade and investment in financial services had made accessible. A combination of what Rugman (Inside the Multinationals: The Economics of Internal Markets, 1981, Croom Helm, London and Columbia University Press, New York) calls country-specific advantages (CFAs) and firm-specific advantages (FSAs), strongly influenced the ability of Australian banks to become successful MNBs. As the nature of international banking altered from the 1960s onwards, this overturned earlier forms of internationalization by Australian banks. Now banks had to acquire and absorb new knowledge to be able to operate effectively in new product and geographic markets.     

The role of investment banks in acquisitions

We compare acquisitions completed with and without investmentbank advice over the 1981 to 1982 period. We find that the choiceto use an investment bank depends on the complexity of the transaction,the type of transaction (takeovers versus acquisitions of assets),the acquiror's prior acquisition experience, and the degreeof diversification of the target firm. Although acquisitionannouncement returns are lower for firms using investment banks,this difference can be explained by differences in transactioncharacteristics. These results suggest that transaction costsare the main determinant of investment banking choice, followedby contracting costs and asymmetric information costs.     

The persistence of bank profit

This paper examines the intensity of competition in 65 national banking industries. Country-level dynamic panel estimates of the persistence of bank profit are reported and compared. Persistence of bank profit is interpreted as an indicator of the intensity of competition, and as such is found to be consistent with traditional structure-based and conduct-based competition indicators. Persistence is negatively related to the rate of growth in GDP per capita, and positively related to the size of entry barriers. Persistence tends to be weaker, and competition stronger, in countries where institutional development is more advanced and external governance mechanisms are strong.     

银行在全球并购中的角色

近年来,全球各国诸多产业都出现了明显的并购热潮。本文概述了1995年至2007年1月间完成的全球并购活动,通过比较银行作为并购方、被并购方及并购双方的信息,评估了银行在其间的重要作用。     

The procyclicality of loan loss provisions in Islamic banks

From a sample of Islamic banks around the world from 1997 to 2012, this paper examines whether loan loss provisioning in Islamic banks is procyclical. Our empirical findings highlight that loan loss provisioning in Islamic banks remains procyclical, although the ‘expected’ loan loss model (E-LLM) has been implemented for Islamic banks in several countries. A closer investigation further documents that Islamic banks also use loan loss provisions for discretionary managerial actions, especially related to capital management in which loan loss reserves and provisions are inflated when bank capitalization declines. Eventually, this paper highlights that higher capitalization can mitigate the procyclicality of loan loss provisions in Islamic banks. In other words, loan loss provisioning becomes countercyclical for Islamic banks with higher capitalization. This paper therefore casts doubts on the adoption of the E-LLM for Islamic banks to promote countercyclical effects, because the E-LLM may be influenced by managerial discretion, including opportunistic capital management using loan loss provisions that may undermine the importance of maintaining bank capitalization.     

The persistence of earnings per share

The persistence of innovations to accounting earnings per share, EPS, has important implications for equity valuation, yet it remains a largely neglected subject. This paper employs various empirical tests in order to measure the persistence of shocks to EPS for the S&P 500 index. Within the I(0)/I(1) paradigm the empirical evidence rejects the I(1) specification, supporting instead a trend-stationary representation. When fractional orders of integration are considered, the results indicate that the detrended series is long memory (d  >  0) and mean reverting (d < 1). The responses decay slowly to zero, albeit 50 quarters after an initial shock the responses remain significantly different from zero. Likewise, the variance ratio evidence suggests that the effect of a shock persists over time spans characteristic of the business cycle.

Manipulation of profits in Italian publicly-funded healthcare trusts

ABSTRACT

This paper examines earnings management in state-funded Italian healthcare trusts. Italy is unique in requiring trusts to have balanced budgets by law. Small negative and positive deviations from a balanced budget had quite different consequences. The authors found no evidence of accounting manipulation when trusts posted small losses. However, trusts were found to manipulate discretionary accruals, provisions and non-operating expenses to reduce small positive deviations from zero-profit.     

Sources of momentum profits in international stock markets

This paper examines the sources of momentum profits of countries exhibiting and not exhibiting momentum and compares the differences in the underlying factors determining momentum profits between these two groups of countries. We find remarkable differences in the decomposed components between these two groups of countries. Countries exhibiting momentum show that the cross‐sectional dispersion in unconditional mean returns dominates the negative contribution from the component reflecting the intertemporal behaviour of asset returns. However, this is not the case in countries exhibiting no momentum. Furthermore, countries with greater relative contribution from the cross‐sectional variance in unconditional mean returns tend to have greater momentum profits. Our results may support risk‐based explanations for the momentum phenomenon rather than behavioural finance‐based explanations.     

银信合作叫停之后

就在信托公司等待股指期货放行之际,监管层叫停2万亿元银信合作业务的哨声,给市场增添了许多紧张气息。     

视频智能分析技术在银行的应用

随着计算机、通信、音视频编解码、流媒体等技术的日趋成熟,在安防市场巨大的需求推动下,视频监控技术正向着数字化、网络化、智能化的方向发展,视频监控由目视解释转变为自动解释是视频监控技术的飞跃,也是安防技术发展的必然结果。视频智能分析技术是指利用计算机自动分析、理解视频画面的内容,     

中资银行掀"出海"并购潮

近几年，轰轰烈烈的中国企业海外并购系列剧不断上演，昭显了中国企业在海外的强势出击。目前，中资银行也开始将目光转向海外市场     

Proprietary trading losses in banks: do banks invest sufficiently in control?

This paper analyzes management and control issues linked to the employment of traders who engage in proprietary trading activity for their employer (a bank). The bank can invest in control and monitoring of these traders, and the paper evaluates the profitability of such investments. We find that the investment in control is distorted due to interfering market microstructure effects. The bank is inclined to underinvest in control of its traders because traders who are not too closely monitored generate extra liquidity in the market. Bank supervision might be needed, therefore, to correct for such effects. We evaluate the effectiveness of the value-at-risk capital adequacy requirement proposed by the Bank for International Settlements, and find that this approach correctly targets the banks that are the most vulnerable, i.e. those that are the most at risk of underinvesting in its control and monitoring systems.      

The economic woman in Africa

A common theme in traditional African cultures is that God made women the custodians of fire, water, and earth (the elements). Modern African cultures are still based on this belief. African women are responsible for firewood collection, water fetching, and food production. However, there are 2 distinct types of African women that are beginning to evolve as the influences of Western culture begin to set in. Westernized African women are those women who have completed at least 2 years of post secondary school training in a Western educational setting. When these women return to their native cultures, rather than taking positions of power and influence like their male colleagues, they end up working as clerks, telephone operators, and teachers. These Westernized African women rarely return to rural areas to take on the role of custodian of the elements. In cases where modernization does reach the rural areas, women are commonly excluded. Tractors are driven by men, dams and water systems are designed and built by men, trees are cut down by men, trees are cut down by men, and men make the furniture. Technology is having a marginalization effect upon the women of Africa similar to the Westernization of African women. This is not to say that Western education is something to be avoided; however, policies must be put in place to tap this great resource instead of holding it back. Rural women need to gain access to the technology that will help ease their burdens and they must be allowed into planning and decision making process since, after all, they are the custodians of the elements.     

现代商业银行信用风险评估方法及其对我国商业银行的启示

文章通过介绍现代商业银行信用风险评估方法 ,从中揭示对我国商业银行风险管理问题的有益启示 ,以资我国商业银行风险管理参考。     

风险调整后的资本收益率在我国商业银行信用风险管理中的应用研究

本文重点对风险调整后的资本收益率理论在我国商业银行的应用进行了研究。阐述了该理论的应用条件以及在当前我国部分商业银行已取得内部评级法阶段性研究成果但相关资本管理制度尚不健全的条件下如何从单个客户入手实现风险一收益平衡的管理模式,并论述了这一管理模式将给我国商业银行信用风险管理带来的深刻变革。