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.     

Informal Credit,Usury, or Support? A Case Study for Vietnam

The informal credit market remains an important source of finance for the poor in Vietnam. Yet, little if anything is known about the impact of informal loans on poverty and inequality, and the Vietnamese government has no policies towards the informal credit market. In the present study paper, we found that the effect of credit from friends and relatives on per capita expenditure is positive but not statistically significant. Meanwhile, the effect of credit from private moneylenders on per capita expenditure is positive and statistically significant. Borrowing from private moneylenders increases per capita expenditure of households by around 15%. Further, it reduced the poverty incidence of borrowers by around 8.5 percentage points in 2006 and significantly decreases the poverty gap index and the poverty‐severity index. Borrowing from private moneylenders also reduces expenditure inequality, albeit at a very small magnitude.     

Dropouts,Defaulters, and Continuing Borrowers: Client Exit from Microfinance

High dropout rates are a problem faced by many microfinance institutions, with borrowers exiting after a few loans. The curiosity of dropouts is that, unlike defaulters, they repay their loans. To understand this I investigate differences across borrowers using data from Zimbabwe. I find that negative shocks are a significant predictor of dropout, but not of default, and that social networks are the most important correlate of on‐time repayment. The results show the importance of social networks in determining credit relationships.     

Information contents of collateral under heterogeneous borrower qualities on the bank loans market in China

We analyze the risk of default and provision of collateral for bank loans made to firms of varied credit qualities using a unique dataset obtained from a major state-owned commercial bank in China. Both high and low quality borrowers provide collateral more often than medium quality debtors do. Using models that explicitly incorporate heterogeneous borrower qualities, we find a positive relation between collateralization and risk of default for loans issued to debtors with low credit ratings. In contrast, collateral provided by debtors with high credit ratings is negatively associated with the risk of default. These results suggest that low quality borrowers may be required to provide collateral at the bank's request to mitigate moral hazard problem. On the other hand, high quality borrowers may provide collateral willingly to signal quality in order to mitigate adverse selection problem when competing for getting access to bank loans. Our findings shed new lights on different information contents of collateral on the bank loans market of China, and have important implications for banks in screening, contracting and monitoring the risk of commercial loans for clients with diverse credit qualities.     

The Determinants of Bank Rates in Local Consumer Lending Markets: Comparing Market and Institution-Level Results

Most previous studies of banking markets have given little attention to the potential competitive discipline provided by credit unions on consumer loan rates. After presenting a theoretical framework for understanding the impact credit unions should be expected to have, this article analyzes two pooled cross-section time-series samples—56 U.S. markets over the 1992-1998 period and 81 banks (within those markets) over the same period—with the focus on explaining bank rates for two types of consumer loans. Results confirm the previously observed role of market structure and strongly point to a significant role for credit unions in disciplining the exercise of market power by banks. At the institution level, where the impact of bank size, market share, and holding company status can be analyzed, the evidence supports both market power and scale economy rationales for bank loan pricing and hints at a multimarket contact influence.     

影响银行贷款质量因素的文献述评

贷款质量既是银行经营绩效的重要指标,也是一国金融银行体系总体健康程度的睛雨表,因此受到了政策制定者、银行管理层与学者的广泛关注和研究.本文从借款人的还款能力,借款人的还款意愿,融资约束,金融市场发育程度等四个角度综述了银行贷款质量的决定因素和形成机制,进一步探讨了银行贷款质量研究的未来可能发展方向.     

Strategic default,multiple installments,and the role of informal moneylender in microcredit contract

I model the role of strategic defaults and informal moneylenders on multiple-installment loan contracts offered by microfinance institutions (MFIs). The results show that a single-installment loan is not viable due to MFIs' vulnerability to strategic defaults and borrowers' lack of collateral. In contrast, a multiple-installment contract requires borrowers to borrow from the moneylender, who is immune to strategic default, in order to repay the MFI's early installments that are due before the project yields a return. Consequently, both default costs and borrowing costs increase and incentives to commit strategic default decline, making the multiple-installment contract profitable for MFIs.     

Debt dilution in 1920s America: lighting the fuse of a mortgage crisis

The idea that real estate could have contributed to banking crises during the Great Depression has been downplayed due to the conservatism of mortgage contracts at the time. For instance, loan‐to‐value ratios often did not exceed 50 per cent. Using newly discovered archival documents and data from 1934, this article uncovers a darker side of 1920s US mortgage lending: the so‐called ‘second mortgage system’. As borrowers often could not make a 50 per cent down payment, a majority of them took second mortgages at usurious rates. As theory predicts, debt dilution, even in the presence of seniority rules, can be highly detrimental to both junior and senior lenders. The probability of default on first mortgages was likely to increase, and commercial banks were more likely to foreclose. Through foreclosure they would still be able to retrieve 50 per cent of the property value, but often after a protracted foreclosure process. This would have put further strain on banks during liquidity crises. This article is thus a timely reminder that second mortgages, or ‘piggyback loans’ as they are called today, can be hazardous to lenders and borrowers alike. It provides further empirical evidence that debt dilution can be detrimental to credit.     

Foreign bank lending and information asymmetries in China: Empirical evidence from the syndicated loan market

This paper considers whether information asymmetries affect the willingness of foreign banks to participate in syndicated loans to corporate borrowers in China. We analyze how ownership concentration, which influences information asymmetries in the relationship between the borrower and the lender, exerts an impact on the participation of foreign banks in syndicated loans granted to Chinese borrowers in the period 2004–2009. We observe that greater ownership concentration of the borrowing firm does not positively influence participation of foreign banks in the loan syndicate. We conclude that information asymmetries are not exacerbated for foreign banks relative to local banks in China.     

宏观经济与银行不良贷款量相关性的实证分析

不良贷款和信贷风险一直是影响着金融市场稳定发展和经济增长的核心问题,牵系着国家经济命脉。后金融危机时代,我国信贷高增长引致了银行不良资产大量积聚的潜在风险。本文试图从宏观经济视角出发,分析影响不良资产形成的诸多因素,研究商业银行不良贷款的现状,并预测在全球经济逐渐回暖的背景下可能出现的变化趋势。     

An Examination of Entry and Competitive Performance in Rural Banking Markets

This article explores the change in the level of competition in rural banking markets after the deregulation that occurred following passage of the Riegle‐Neal Act of 1994. Using an empirical model that utilizes both the number of banks and the value of deposits in a cross‐section of 278 rural markets, we decompose the impact of the entry of new banks into resulting changes in per capita demand and the costs/profits of local banks in 1994 and 2004. The results support the view that local banking markets have become more competitive since the mid‐1990s.     

Factors affecting bank loan quality: a panel analysis of emerging markets

This study investigates the factors affecting the loan quality of banking sector in seventeen emerging and developing markets using quarterly panel dataset covering period of 2010–2019 and utilising feasible generalised least square methodology. Our empirical analysis suggests that inflation and lending rates negatively affect the banks’ loan quality measured by non-performing loans. On the contrary, economic growth and capital adequacy show a positive impact on banks’ loan quality. The inclusion of the ratio of net open position in foreign exchange to capital and its’ lagged values, as an additional factor, has marked out this research from other studies. Our results reveal that the ratio has a significant negative impact on loan quality in banking. This finding, as it was also seen in Asian crises of 1997, indicates that the higher the ratio net open position in foreign exchange to capital cause moral hazard problem leading to the higher non-performing loans in banking sectors.

     

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.     

Crisis in the Russian mortgage market through the lens of financial accelerator theory

This paper analyzes the influence of the economic crisis on the Russian mortgage market from the position of the financial accelerator theory. It shows that the level of financial stability of banks and borrowers on the eve of the crisis was determining the dynamics of their development and solvency during the crisis. The “flight to quality” effect, which is inextricably connected to the financial accelerator mechanism, showed that the largest domestic banks and credit organizations that were controlled by nonresident companies and mainly specialized in mortgages were in the most advantageous position in the mortgage market. In regions, this effect manifested itself through a reduction in mortgage lending for borrowers registered in other regions and an increase in the number of credit provided by Moscow banks.     

Asia’s contagious financial crisis and its impact on Korea

Asian countries have, from 1965 to the early 1990s, shown remarkable growth performance. The recent financial crisis, however, has brought disastrous effects on these growing economies. The region has been suffering from high inflation, massive unemployment, and large drops in growth rates. The major cause of the crisis can be attributed to the international financial markets. International financial institutions lent without serious examination of the borrowers’ ability to repay. In this regard, the ratings agencies were also responsible for the worsening of the crisis. Their ratings did not give correct signals to the lenders. The borrowers’ speculative activities and their subsequent failures were a direct cause that led to the crisis. A second cause lies in the structural problems in these economies. There are still covert dealings between government officials and businesses, and these economies lack transparency. These deficiencies greatly distort allocation of resources in the economies. There should be a global risk-management system to prevent such a crisis from happening again. This risk-management system would give an early warning signal. Creditors should coordinate their efforts to resolve the liquidity crisis in the Asian countries. Coordinated loans and partial forgiving of debts will be helpful to both debtors and creditors.     

Raiffeisenism abroad: why did German cooperative banking fail in Ireland but prosper in the Netherlands?

Why did imitations of Raiffeisen's rural cooperative savings and loans associations work well in some European countries, but fail in others? This article considers the example of Raiffeisenism in Ireland and in the Netherlands. Raiffeisen banks arrived in both places at the same time, but had drastically different fates. In Ireland they were almost wiped out by the early 1920s, while in the Netherlands they proved to be a long‐lasting institutional transplant. Raiffeisen banks were successful in the Netherlands because they operated in niche markets with few competitors, while rural financial markets in Ireland were unsegmented and populated by long‐established incumbents, leaving little room for new players, whatever their institutional advantages. Dutch Raiffeisen banks were largely self‐financing, closely integrated into the wider rural economy, and able to take advantage of economic and religious divisions in rural society. Their Irish counterparts were not.     

Credit ratings and information asymmetry on the Chinese syndicated loan market

We study whether local credit ratings alleviate information asymmetry inherent in the fast growing Chinese market by examining the syndicate structure of loans issued by Chinese borrowers in 2003–2011. Despite the common criticism regarding the quality of Chinese credit ratings, our results suggest that they serve an important role in reducing information asymmetry in the market between corporate insiders and outside borrowers.     

Impact of the Emerging Financial Holding Company Model on Small Business Borrowers' Financial Welfare: Contemporary Evidence from Nigeria Based on the Monti‐Klein Approach

This study exploits the adequacy of the Monti‐Klein model to analyse the banking firms' lending behaviour and uses the geometric lag analytic model to detect the lifespan of bank conglomeration impacts on small business financial welfare. We find that, although the impact of emerging conglomerate banks on lending to small businesses is significantly negative (δ = ?0.6897; p < 0.01), the effect reverses to a pre‐conglomerate positive status within one year. Hence, bank conglomeration does not negatively affect the financial welfare of small business borrowers in the long run. Contrary to the widespread belief and fear, the negative effects are not permanent. Large banks are feared to have no time for mid‐sized businesses. We find, however, that mere increases in size, as may be caused by economic or internal growth, do not pose a threat to small businesses. Large‐sized banking firms positively and significantly correlate with small and predictable risks (δ = 1.7935; p < 0.01). Hence, contrary to what regulators fear, there is no real issue surrounding the idea that building diversifying banks will influence small business loans negatively. What matters is the means through which large banks emerge. Therefore, regulators ought to exercise caution so that they do not discourage their emergence.     

我国的信贷资源配置是有效的吗——基于我国上市公司投资效率视角的经验证据

作为我国企业最主要的资金来源,信贷资金在我国的国民经济中扮演着极其重要的角色,因此信贷资源配置质量的高低无疑将对我国的经济发展产生重要影响。本文以我国上市公司为研究对象,从企业投资效率的角度研究了我国的信贷资源配置效率问题。本文发现,处于过度投资状态的企业获得了更多的长期贷款;而且过度投资程度越大,它们获得的长期贷款越多。进一步的研究结果表明,企业的过度投资或投资不足的程度越大,企业价值越低。上述结果表明,我国的信贷市场是低效的,更多的信贷资源流向了处于过度投资状态的企业,而这类企业的价值较低,说明我国银行的资源配置功能较差。本文的研究丰富了信贷配给研究领域的文献,同时也为我国银行的信贷决策和我国的银行改革提供了参考依据。     

民间资本主发起设立村镇银行的风险与防范

允许民间资本主发起设立村镇银行,可以更快地推进农村金融服务空白问题的解决,可以更好地满足农村资金需求,可以规范民间信贷行为,但也会引发过度竞争、关联贷款、过度关注经济效益、监管力量不足、管理经验不足等风险。因此,在允许民间资本主发起设立村镇银行的同时,需要建立相应的风险化解机制。