The determinants of bank loan recovery rates

Using Moody’s Ultimate Recovery Database, we estimate a model for bank loan recoveries using variables reflecting loan and borrower characteristics, industry and macroeconomic conditions, and several recovery process variables. We find that loan characteristics are more significant determinants of recovery rates than are borrower characteristics prior to default. Industry and macroeconomic conditions are relevant, as are prepackaged bankruptcy arrangements. We examine whether a commonly used proxy for recovery rates, the 30-day post-default trading price of the loan, represents an efficient estimate of actual recoveries and find that such a proxy is biased and inefficient.     

Strategic loan defaults and coordination: An experimental analysis

This paper experimentally studies the impact of bank and borrower fundamentals on loan repayment. We find that solvent borrowers are more likely to default strategically when the bank’s expected strength is low, although loan repayment is a Pareto dominant Nash equilibrium. Borrowers are also less likely to repay when other borrowers’ expected repayment capacity is low, regardless of banks’ fundamentals. We show that changes in expectations about bank and borrower fundamentals change the risk dominance properties of the borrowers’ coordination problem, and that these changes subsequently explain strategic defaults. For the individual borrower, loss aversion and negative past experiences reduce repayment, suggesting that bank failure can be contagious in times of distress.     

TARP funds distribution and bank loan supply

This paper investigates the determinants of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds distribution to banks and the stimulus effect of TARP investments on credit supply in the economy. Using banks’ political and regulatory connections as instruments, this paper finds that TARP investments increased bank loan supply by an annualized rate of 6.36% for banks with below median Tier 1 capital ratios. This increase is found in all major types of loans and can be translated into $404 billion of additional loans for all TARP banks. On average, TARP banks employed about one-third of their TARP capital to support new loans and kept the rest to strengthen their balance sheets. Furthermore, there is little evidence that loans made by TARP banks had lower quality than those by non-TARP banks. In sum, this paper shows a positive stimulus effect of TARP on credit supply during the 2008–2009 financial crisis.     

Bank audit practices and loan loss provisioning

I empirically examine the evolution of loan loss accounting across banks that differ categorically by external auditing practice. Using a partial adjustment model, and a sample of 75,505 observations on affiliated banks, 1995–2009, I find evidence of convergence across audit categories in target ratios of provisions for loan losses to nonaccrual loans. This is consistent with a standardized method of accounting for “impaired” loans. I observe less convergence, on the other hand, in target ratios of provisions for loan losses to loans, which appears to accommodate a role for managerial discretion.     

Bank incentives and suboptimal lending decisions: Evidence from the valuation effect of bank loan announcements in Japan

Using a sample of bank loan announcements in Japan, we examine whether or not banks have incentives to engage in suboptimal lending that results in wealth transfer from the banks to the borrowing firms. We find that abnormal returns for borrowing firms are significantly positive, but those for lending banks are sometimes significantly negative. Furthermore, the announcement returns for borrowing firms are negatively related to those for lending banks, especially when poorly performing firms borrow from financially healthy (low-risk) banks. Our results suggest that the positive valuation effect of bank loan announcements for borrowing firms is mainly due to a wealth transfer from lending banks.     

How bank capital buffers vary across countries: The influence of cost of deposits,market power and bank regulation

This paper analyzes the bank and country determinants of capital buffers using a panel data of 1337 banks in 70 countries between 1992 and 2002. After controlling for adjustment costs and the endogeneity of explanatory variables, the results show that capital buffers are positively related to the cost of deposits and bank market power, although the relations vary across countries depending on regulation, supervision, and institutions. Their impact is the result of two generally opposing effects: restrictions on bank activities and official supervision reduce the incentives to hold capital buffers by weakening market discipline, but at the same time they promote higher capital buffers by increasing market power. Institutional quality has the two opposite effects. Better accounting disclosure and less generous deposit insurance, however, have a clear positive effect on capital buffers by both strengthening market discipline and making charter value better able to reduce risk-taking incentives.     

The impact of regulatory reforms on cost structure,ownership and competition in Indian banking

This paper evaluates the impact of financial sector reforms on the cost structure characteristics and on the ownership–cost efficiency relationship in Indian banking. It also examines the impact of reforms on the dynamics of competition in the lending market. We find evidence that deregulation improves banks performance and fosters competition in the lending market. Results suggest technological progress, once Indian commercial banks have adjusted to the new regulatory environment. This, however, does not translate in efficiency gains. There is also evidence of an ownership effect on the level and pattern of efficiency change. Finally, competition keeps building pace even in the re-regulation period and technological improvements are not hampered by the tightening of prudential norms.     

The impact of banking regulations on banks' cost and profit efficiency: Cross-country evidence

This paper uses stochastic frontier analysis to provide international evidence on the impact of the regulatory and supervision framework on bank efficiency. Our dataset consists of 2853 observations from 615 publicly quoted commercial banks operating in 74 countries during the period 2000-2004. We investigate the impact of regulations related to the three pillars of Basel II (i.e. capital adequacy requirements, official supervisory power, and market discipline mechanisms), as well as restrictions on bank activities, on cost and profit efficiency of banks, while controlling for other country-specific characteristics. Our results suggest that banking regulations that enhance market discipline and empower the supervisory power of the authorities increase both cost and profit efficiency of banks. In contrast, stricter capital requirements improve cost efficiency but reduce profit efficiency, while restrictions on bank activities have the opposite effect, reducing cost efficiency but improving profit efficiency.     

The effects of loan portfolio concentration on Brazilian banks’ return and risk

This paper tests whether diversification of the credit portfolio at the bank level leads to better performance and lower risk. We employ a new high frequency (monthly) panel data for the Brazilian banking system with information at the bank level for loans by economic sector. We find that loan portfolio concentration increases returns and also reduces default risk; the impact of concentration on bank’s return is decreasing on bank’s risk; there are significant size effects; foreign and state-owned banks seem to be less affected by the degree of diversification. An important additional finding is that there is an increasing concentration trend after the breakout of the recent international financial crisis, specially after the failure of Lehman Brothers.     

Asymmetric information effects on loan spreads

This paper estimates the cost arising from information asymmetry between the lead bank and members of the lending syndicate. In a lending syndicate, the lead bank retains only a fraction of the loan but acts as the intermediary between the borrower and the syndicate participants. Theory predicts that asymmetric information will cause participants to demand a higher interest rate and that a large loan ownership by the lead bank should reduce this effect. In equilibrium, however, the asymmetric information premium demanded by participants is offset by the diversification premium demanded by the lead. Using shifts in the idiosyncratic credit risk of the lead bank's loan portfolio as an instrument, I measure the asymmetric information effect of the lead's share on the loan spread and find that it accounts for approximately 4% of the total cost of credit.     

Bank loan loss accounting treatments,credit cycles and crash risk

Banks that follow conditional conservatism in their loan loss accounting treatments benefit from a reduction in crash risk. The key discretionary loan loss accounting channels are provisions and allowances. We show that conditional conservatism reduces crash risk of small banks during periods of credit contraction and boom. Interestingly, for large banks, crash risk is not reduced by more conservative accounting even for those with higher levels of opacity. Hence regulation prompting for more conservative bank loan loss accounting does not present a significant opportunity to limit systemic effects arising from abrupt price declines in the stocks of large banks.     

Corporate leverage and the collateral channel

We investigate whether and how corporate leverage depends on the structure of corporate assets. Based on a large panel dataset of US firms from 1990 to 2010, we show that property, plant and equipment are important drivers of the collateral channel, while inventories and receivables are less important. The collateral channel is more pronounced for firms that have to rely on banks and trade creditors to raise debt finance, but it has become weaker for these firms after the start of the financial crisis. Our study provides new evidence on the cross-sectional and time-varying importance of the collateral channel for corporate leverage.     

The effects of firm-initiated clawback provisions on bank loan contracting

Although firm-initiated clawbacks reduce accounting manipulation, they also induce managers to engage in suboptimal activities (e.g., reduce research and development (R&D) expenses) to achieve earnings targets. To assess the effectiveness of clawback provisions, we examine their impact from debtholders' point of view. We find that banks use more financial covenants and performance pricing provisions in the loan contracts and decrease interest rates after firms initiate clawbacks. Moreover, we also find that loan maturity increases and loan collateral decreases subsequent to clawback adoption. Taken together, our findings indicate that firm-initiated clawback provisions enhance financial reporting quality, thereby reducing the information uncertainty that financing providers face.     

Bank capital buffer and portfolio risk: The influence of business cycle and revenue diversification

The relationship between macroeconomic developments and bank capital buffer and portfolio risk adjustments is relevant to assess the efficacy of newly created countercyclical buffer requirements. Using the U.S. bank holding company data over the period 1992:Q1–2011:Q3, we find a negative relationship between the business cycle and capital buffer. Our results offer some support for the Basel III agreements that countercyclical capital buffer in the banking sector is necessary to help the performance of the real economy during recessions. We find a robust evidence of inverse relationship between business cycle and bank default risk. Our analysis provides evidence of diversification benefits. The probability of insolvency risk decreases for diversified banks and banks with high revenue diversity achieve capital savings.     

The liquidity of bank assets and banking stability

This paper shows that an increased liquidity of bank assets, paradoxically, increases banking instability and the externalities associated with banking failures. This is because even though higher asset liquidity directly benefits stability by encouraging banks to reduce the risks on their balance sheets and by facilitating the liquidation of assets in a crisis, it also makes crises less costly for banks. As a result, banks have an incentive to take on an amount of new risk that more than offsets the positive direct impact on stability.     

The asymmetric behavior and procyclical impact of asset correlations

This paper examines the behavior of asset correlations with the market returns in the asymptotic single risk factor (ASRF) approach of the Basel II accord on regulatory capital requirement. Over a sample period from 1988 to 2007, we find that asset correlations are positively related to firm size, but negatively related to firm default probability. Asset correlations are also industry specific, as firms in media, transportation, pharmaceutical, and semiconductor industries exhibit higher asset correlations than those in retail and consumer staples. Most importantly, asset correlations are asymmetric and have a procyclical impact on the real economy after controlling for these effects. They tend to rise during economic downturns, but decline during economic upturns. The average magnitude of the rise is larger than that of the decline. These findings suggest that asset correlations may be underestimated during economic downturns, and may provide policy implications for the capital requirement framework.     

Corporate ownership structure and bank loan syndicate structure

Using a novel data set on corporate ownership and control, we show that the divergence between the control rights and cash-flow rights of a borrowing firm's largest ultimate owner has a significant impact on the concentration and composition of the firm's loan syndicate. When the control-ownership divergence is large, lead arrangers form syndicates with structures that facilitate enhanced due diligence and monitoring efforts. These syndicates tend to be relatively concentrated and composed of domestic banks that are geographically close to the borrowing firms and that have lending expertise related to the industries of the borrowers. We also examine factors that influence the relation between ownership structure and syndicate structure, including lead arranger reputation, prior lending relationship, borrowing firm informational opacity, presence of multiple large owners, laws and institutions, and financial crises.     

Systemically important banks and financial stability: The case of Latin America

This paper addresses the issue on how bank size and market concentration affect performance and risks in 17 Latin American countries between 2001 and 2008. The objective is to evaluate whether a too-big-to-fail behavior has been present in the region. Surprisingly, we do not find evidence to support a higher fragility of large Latin American banks. Our results show that systemically important financial institutions appear to outperform others in terms of both cost and profit without the need of taking more risks. This result holds even in concentrated markets, i.e., where there are few dominant banks and many others with small size in relation to the market. A highly unequal banking market in terms of assets, however, is detrimental for the performance of smaller banks and it also decreases stability of the whole system. We conclude that regulators should deal with market concentration by reducing the size gap between large and small banks, instead of dealing specifically with systemically important banks.     

Information asymmetry and self-selection bias in bank loan announcement studies

Event-study driven research has produced a consensus that loans are unique relative to other financial contracts. But these studies assume that small samples of loan announcements adequately represent the loan population. We find that loan announcements are rare and driven by factors such as information asymmetry and perceived materiality. We show that the sample used by Billett, Flannery, and Garfinkel (1995) fails to represent the loan universe and that significant abnormal announcement returns are confined to their smallest firms. Our sample, which better represents the loan population, produces an abnormal return insignificantly different from zero. The findings suggest that self-selection bias affects extant loan announcement research and do not support the views that loans are a special form of finance or that private and public debt differ in significant ways. Were all loans to be announced, the average abnormal return would likely be insignificant.     

Bank resilience to systemic shocks and the stability of banking systems: Small is beautiful

Utilising a novel empirical approach and an extensive sample of listed European banks, we identify which bank characteristics offer a shelter from systemic shocks and compare the relative effects of several hypothetical prudential rules on a bank’s risk exposure. While the results show that restrictions on a bank’s leverage ratio and the imposition of liquidity requirements, as in the Basel III Accord, may improve the resilience of a bank to systemic events, they also demonstrate that bank size, the share of non-interest income and asset growth (none of which are at the centre of the new regulatory landscape) are key determinants of a bank’s risk exposure. In particular, the introduction of a cap on bank absolute size appears the most effective tool, ceteris paribus, to reduce the default risk of a bank given systemic events. Furthermore, in spite of the integration process of the financial industry in Europe, the analysis presented here shows that such a cap should be country-specific with smaller economies requiring smaller banks. Finally, we show that the strengthening of individual bank stability obtained via size restrictions is accompanied by a reduction of the contribution to systemic risk for banks which are relatively large compared to the domestic economy.