BANK INTEREST MARGINS AND BUSINESS START-UP COLLATERAL: TESTING FOR CONVEXITY

The paper investigates the relationship between bank interest rate margins and collateral for loans issued to new ventures. The analysis finds a convex U‐shaped relationship. The results indicate that while provision of collateral initially reduces bank exposure to risk (through security, more optimal levels of capital and lower moral hazard among entrepreneurs) that beyond a point, the positive risk‐wealth association gives rise to greater risk taking propensity among entrepreneurs and ultimately higher interest rates. This indicates that a lender's pricing policy may even somewhat help to level the competitive playing field between ventures launched by higher and moderately wealthy entrepreneurs.     

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.     

Asymmetric quantile analysis of the Swedish mortgage price discovery process

Based on Swedish banking data we discover robust and significantly positive Asymmetric Price Transmission (APT) effects over all analysed regression quantiles of our mortgage interest rates, with even larger positive APT for the higher percentiles. The analysis was enabled through unique access to a Swedish bank's (SEB) own records of their true borrowing costs. Our central contribution is that there is a higher propensity for the bank to rapidly increase its mortgage interest rates for customers following an increase in its borrowing costs, compared with the propensity for the bank to decrease its customers’ mortgage rates subsequent to a corresponding borrowing cost decrease.     

Does the value-added tax Reform increase a firm’s collateral bank loans? Evidence from China

By leveraging the value-added tax (VAT) Reform as an exogenous event in China, we examine the impact of the tax cut on bank collateral loan on firms. Our findings suggest that (1) The Reform allows firms to deduct the tax of purchasing fixed assets that leads to a significant increase in the firm's collateral loan amounts. (2) The transmission mechanism is due to the increased level of corporate transparency and a lowered financial risk after the Reform. (3) The impact of the Reform on collateral bank loans is more pronounced for state-owned firms, large firms, firms far away from lenders and firms located in low financial development regions.     

银企关系对制造业中小企业贷款利率的影响研究——来自江苏徐州和广西柳州典型样本的证据

通过对江苏徐州和广西柳州典型样本的调研发现,在中小企业贷款中,实际上存在着"绑定效应",当中小企业在银行的贷款占自己资金缺口的比重较大时,出于风险控制和攫取更多剩余的目的,银行会提高贷款利率;当中小企业的融资渠道较多时,银行贷款利率反而因为中小企业的融资需求旺盛而提高。用中小企业与银行的合作年限、中小企业在该银行贷款比重等进行衡量的银企关系深度越强,中小企业银行贷款利率反而越高,而用中小企业在银行开办的其他业务数量来衡量的银企关系的广度越强,中小企业贷款的利率则会越低。     

How much does household collateral constrain regional risk sharing?

We construct a new data set of consumption and income data for the largest US metropolitan areas, and we show that the extent of risk-sharing between regions varies substantially over time. In times when US housing collateral is scarce nationally, regional consumption is about twice as sensitive to income shocks. We also document higher sensitivity in regions with lower housing collateral. Household-level borrowing frictions can explain this new stylized fact. When the value of housing relative to human wealth falls, loan collateral shrinks, borrowing (risk-sharing) declines, and the sensitivity of consumption to income increases. Our model aggregates heterogeneous, borrowing-constrained households into regions characterized by a common housing market. The resulting regional consumption patterns quantitatively match those in the data.     

我国银行信贷与房地产价格关系研究

文章对银行信贷与房地产价格之间的互动关系进行了完整的作用机制分析,并使用更细致和精确的数据建立VAR模型进行了实证研究。研究发现,银行信贷扩张与房地产价格上涨具有明显的相互推动和加强的作用。具体而言,房地产开发商贷款和个人购房贷款对房价都具有显著的正向影响,同时对来自房价冲击的响应也都是正向的。并且,在房价持续高速上升时期,房地产贷款规模对房价的影响力明显超过贷款利率。     

A MODEL OF SELF‐FULFILLING FINANCIAL CRISES*

This paper combines the structural weakness and the self‐fulfilling panic view to explain the cause of the East Asian crises. In this model economy, the diversification strategies induce conglomerate firms to overinvest. They accumulate losses due to their unprofitable sectors and then compensate by obtaining bank loans. Domestic banks, which borrow from foreign banks, lend money as long as the total amount of accumulated loans remains within the firms’ collateral value. The model shows that if the debt to collateral value ratio belongs to a certain range a self‐fulfilling crisis can occur due to the self‐fulfilling expectations of foreign investors.     

Dual Financial Systems and Inequalities in Economic Development

This paper analyzes the emergence and the evolution of a modern banking system, in a developing economy where banks coexist with informal credit institutions. Banks have a superior ability in mobilizing savings while informal lenders enjoy a superior information on borrowers. More specifically, banks cannot observe perfectly the behavior of borrowers; therefore the latter need to provide collateral assets in order to obtain bank loans. Physical collateral is not needed to borrow in the informal credit market: informal lenders can rely on social networks to obtain information on borrowers' behavior and invoke social sanctions to enforce repayment. The sustained growth path is associated with the successful development of the banking system that gathers savings on a large scale. However, informal lenders and other traditional credit institutions are necessary in the first stage of development when collateral is scarce. In this economy, the development of modern financial intermediaries is closely associated with the accumulation of collateral assets by entrepreneurs. This implies that the initial level of development as well as the initial distribution of wealth will determine the joint evolution of the real side of the economy and the financial system. Under certain conditions, two long-run steady-state equilibria exist: in the first one the economy stops growing and the banking system never successfully develops; in the second one the economy reaches a sustained growth rate and the informal sector asymptotically vanishes. The impact of the following policies is discussed: financial repression, micro-credit institutions and redistribution of assets.     

A ridge bootstrap method for analyzing APT effects on the mortgage loan market

Significantly positive asymmetric price transmission (APT) effects are concluded on the Swedish mortgage loan market. This finding was established based on unique banking data in combination with our newly developed econometric method which is insensitive to the banks' variations in liquidity and capital costs. It is established that there is a higher propensity for the bank to rapidly and systematically increase its fixed mortgage interest rates for customers subsequently to an increase in its borrowing costs, compared with the propensity for the bank to decrease its customers' mortgage rates subsequently to a corresponding borrowing cost decrease.     

On the profitability of commercial banks: the Sri Lankan case

This study determines the factors affecting the profitability of licensed commercial banks (LCBs) in Sri Lanka, including the effect of the prolonged conflict which ended in 2009. Using an error correction model together with data for the period 2006–2014 of 10 major LCBs, the results reveal that, in the short run, capital and liquidity have a positive effect on bank profitability and default loans, interest margin (IM), operating cost, and interest rates (IRs) have a negative effect. In the long run, bank profitability is significantly impacted by default loans, IM, real GDP, inflation, IRs, capital, operating cost, and conflict. The ending of the prolonged conflict has significantly contributed to improved bank performance.     

Regulating Exclusion from Financial Markets

We study optimal enforcement in credit markets in which the only threat facing a defaulting borrower is restricted access to financial markets. We solve for the optimal level of exclusion, and link it to observed institutional arrangements. Regulation in this environment must accomplish two objectives. First, it must prevent borrowers from defaulting on one bank and transferring their resources to another bank. Second, and less obviously, it must give banks the incentive to make sizeable loans, and to honour their promises of future credit. We establish that the optimal regulation resembles observed laws governing default on debt. Moreover, if debtors have the right to a "fresh start" after bankruptcy then this must be balanced by enforceable provisions against fraudulent conveyance. Our optimal regulation is robust, in that it can be implemented in a way that does not require the regulator to have information about either the borrower or lender. Our results isolate the way in which specific institutions surrounding bankruptcy–namely rules governing asset garnishment and fraudulent conveyances–support loan markets in which borrowers have no collateral.     

Fixed versus variable rate loans under regret aversion

This paper examines the optimal mix of fixed and variable rate loans of a competitive bank facing funding cost uncertainty, where the bank is not only risk averse but also regret averse. Regret aversion is characterized by a utility function that includes disutility from having chosen ex-post suboptimal alternatives. We show that a negative spread between fixed and variable rate loans is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the dominance of variable rate loans over fixed rate loans. If the bank optimally extends both fixed and variable rate loans, the total amount of loans depends neither on the bank's regret aversion nor on the funding cost uncertainty. The bank, however, optimally lends less should it be forced to assume the entire funding cost uncertainty by exclusively extending fixed rate loans. Finally, using a two-state example, we show that the bank optimally extends more (less) fixed rate loans than in the case of pure risk aversion if the high (low) marginal cost of funds is more likely to prevail. Regret aversion as such plays a crucial role in determining the bank's optimal choice between fixed and variable rate loans.     

Ein ökonometrisches Quartalsmodell für den monetären Sektor der österreichischen Wirtschaft

Summary This paper describes the development of a quarterly econometric model for the monetary sector oft the Austrian economy. The model consists of 8 behavioural equations and 3 definitions. The equations were estimated by OLS using absolute differences on an annual basis of quarterly time series data. The sample period covers 44 quarters (1^st quarter of 1960 to 4^th quarter of 1970).Behavioural equations were estimated for three components of bank reserves: net free reserves, borrowing from the central bank and short-term net foreign position. The instruments of central bank policy (discount rate, minimum reserve requirements and open market operations), changes in net foreign assets of the central bank and bank deposits constitute important determinants of these reserve components. Central bank borrowing and net foreign assets appear to be planned aggregates, whereas net free reserves have a more residual character. A further equation explains banks' net investment in long-term fixed-interest securities (bonds). Another group of equations was estimated for non-banks' demand for money (defined in the wide sense). Separate equations exist for currency, demand deposits and (private) saving deposits (no satisfactory explanation could be found for time deposits). These monetary aggregates are determined as usual by income variables (the distribution of disposible income between wage and non-wage income) and by the interest rate (effective interest rate of newly issued bonds). Several additional variables improved the degree of explanation. Finally, total bank loans were found to be determined by fixed and inventory investment and by loans from abroad.These structural equations form a linear recursive system which can be solved via reduced form. In order to study the properties of the model several tests were performed. The dynamic solution (values generated by the model were used for lagged endogenous variables) shows that errors do not cumulate in the course of time. As an, example of multiplier analysis the effects of a change in the net foreign reserve assets of the central bank on several endogenous variables are considered. Policy simulations are run for the cases of changes in the discount rate, in minimum reserve requirements and disposible income (e. g. as a result of a change in income tax rate).From the satisfactory results of these tests we conclude that our model represents the structure of the Austrian monetary sector quite well.

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Die Verfasser danken Herrn Professor Dr.E. Streissler für zahlreiche Anregungen.     

Sovereign risk,interbank freezes,and aggregate fluctuations

This paper shows how spillovers from sovereign risk to banks׳ access to wholesale funding establish a bank-sovereign nexus. In a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium set-up, heterogeneous banks give rise to an interbank market where government bonds are used as collateral. Government borrowing under limited commitment is costly ex ante as bank funding conditions tighten when the quality of collateral drops. These spillovers, by impeding interbank intermediation, lower the penalty from defaulting due to an interbank freeze during a recession and propagate aggregate shocks to the macroeconomy. The model is calibrated using Greek data and is capable of reproducing stylized facts from the European sovereign debt crisis. In an application, we show that the ECB׳s non-standard financing operations mitigate the adverse feedback mechanism.     

Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island

The paper reports that no statistically significant empirical relationship can be shown between total bank credit and the US broad money supply in the period after 1995. It argues that the growing prevalence of non-bank deposits in the form of mutual money market funds and asset securitization are the main culprits for this result. Prior to financial liberalization, the connection between total bank credit and broad money supply was simple enough: new bank deposits were created when banks made loans and were extinguished when loans were paid back. In banks' consolidated balance sheet, total deposits made up total liabilities and were basically equal to the broad money supply. However, in the age of financial liberalization not all deposits bank loans created returned as deposits, whether in banks or non-banks, as deposits could be swapped for non-deposit liabilities without a corresponding draw down on the asset side. Moreover, loans could be extinguished in banks' balance sheets through asset securitization.     

The dynamic of bank lending channel: Basel regulatory constraint

This article analyzes the impact of monetary policy on bank behavior under the Basel I regulatory framework using a dynamic model with monopolistic competition. There are two main objectives. First, we theoretically predict the dynamic model of bank lending channels under the Basel I regulatory constraint. Second, we empirically analyze the situation in Malaysia by using panel data on 23 commercial banks in the period of 1999 to 2007 by using General Method of Moments. The empirical results show that market rates on loans and policy rates are important influences on average rates of banks' loans. This has an implication that Malaysian banks have the power to set their own prices on loans as they are influenced by the change in the market rate and policy rate. We also have proven that the previous period of spread risk weighted loans and securities is statistically significant and correlated with the average loan rate, whereas risk weighted securities is also statistically significant and correlated with the average time deposit rate in both periods. This shows that the role of risk-weighted assets under the Basel I is important in influencing the optimal rates on loans and time deposits.     

我国农业上市公司的政治关联与融资便利性

本文以社会资本理论为切入点，实证分析政治关联对我国农业上市公司获取银行信贷融资及其期限结构的影响。以1996—2010年间在沪深两地上市的农业企业为样本，以董事长是否现在或曾经担任政府官员、人大代表、政协委员来判断政治关联。检验结果发现，农业上市公司的政治关联与银行贷款数量显著正相关；政治关联所带来的融资便利性，更多表现为获取银行的短期贷款。研究表明，政治关联作为一种特殊的社会资本，能够作为非正式制度帮助农业企业获得银行信贷支持。     

Insights on endogenous money and the liquidity preference theory of interest

It is argued that the debate between “structuralist” and “horizontalist” has long been obscured because of inadequate treatment, in both approaches, of the credit-money supply and of the total money supply. As a result, endogenous money models still have serious limitations today. On the one hand, the bank loan markup and the loan interest rate are exogenous in the horizontalist model, which supposes that they do not depend on the money/liquidity market conditions (as if bank loans did not compete with the existing liquidity). On the other hand, although interest rates are endogenous in the structuralist model, they result from inappropriate treatment of the loan supply and money/liquidity supply. This article aims to remove these shortcomings. It offers a theoretical framework and formal modeling where the creditworthy demand for loans determines the bank loan supply, given the central bank refinancing interest rate, while the total supply and demand for liquidity-money determines the markup and the market rate of interest in accordance with Keynes’s liquidity preference theory. In this framework, the post Keynesian theory of endogenous money and Keynes’s “verticalist” view prove to be analytically complementary.     

Lending conditions in EU: The role of credit demand and supply

We analyse the bank lending activity after the financial crisis and focus on bank-specific supply factors. Using a rich microeconomic dataset from Bankscope and macroeconomic shocks data, we employ OLS and 2SLS fixed effects models with banking controls, macroeconomic shocks and institutional quality. The banks’ loan-rate spreads increased despite the recent policy of low interest rates and quantitative easing. We use the bank asset quality as instruments to capture exogenous changes in loan supply. The empirical evidence shows that loan-rate spread and through this the supply of loans is negatively affected by a low asset quality and capital ratios.