Dissecting Foreign Bank Lending Behavior During the 2008–2009 Crisis

This paper analyzes the lending behavior of foreign‐owned banks during the recent global crisis. Using bank‐level panel data for 51 countries, the paper explores the role of affiliate and parent financial characteristics, host location, as well as the impact of parent geographic origin and reach on foreign banks’ credit growth. Overall, the analysis finds robust evidence that foreign banks curtailed the growth of credit relative to other banks, independent of the host region in which they operate. Banks from the United States reduced loan growth less than other parent banks. Neither the global nor regional reach of parent banks influenced the lending growth of foreign affiliates. Parent capitalization and not parent funding explained the behavior of foreign bank credit growth during the global crisis. However, funding did affect the lending behavior of domestic and foreign banks in host countries, with those relying more heavily on deposits suffering a smaller decline in bank lending. Although not the focus of the paper, we also find that government‐owned banks played a countercyclical role in all regions.     

Foreign bank penetration and the lending channel in emerging economies: Evidence from bank-level panel data

This paper examines the main implications of recently increasing foreign bank penetration on bank lending as a channel of monetary policy transmission in emerging economies. Using a dynamic panel model of loan growth, we investigate the loan granting behavior of 1273 banks in the emerging economies of Asia, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe during the period from 1996 to 2003. Applying the pooled OLS, system GMM, and panel VAR estimators, we find consistent evidence that foreign banks are less responsive to monetary shocks in host countries, as they adjust their outstanding loan portfolios and interest rates to a lesser extent than domestic private banks, independent of their liquidity, capitalization, size, efficiency, and credit risk, and although there exists a bank lending channel in the emerging economies, it is declining in strength due to the increased level of foreign bank penetration. We also explore possible driving factors for the different responses of foreign and domestic banks to monetary policy shocks by investigating foreign banks’ different behavior during banking crises and tranquil periods, the effects of mode of entry to host countries, the home-country effects, and the response of foreign banks from OECD countries vs. all foreign countries including non-OECD countries. We suggest the access of foreign banks to funding from parent banks through internal capital markets as the most convincing explanation.     

CHOOSING THE RIGHT FINANCIAL SYSTEM FOR GROWTH

Well‐functioning financial systems promote economic growth by channeling funds from those who save to those who invest in the productive capacity of economies. What are the main features of a well functioning system? Are well developed capital markets essential to the process? Or are commercial banks and other “private” sources of capital capable of bringing about the same levels of growth and prosperity? In this article, the authors use information about the financial systems of a large number of both developed and developing countries to examine various relationships between a country's financial structure and its overall economic performance. Perhaps most important, the authors report a significantly positive correlation, using data for 34 countries, between the size of a country's financial system—measured by the total of commercial bank assets, equity market capitalization, and bonds outstanding—and economic development (as measured by GDP per capita). At the same time, the authors also provide evidence that banks (or loans) and capital markets (or securities) are complements, not substitutes, in promoting economic development, and that the presence of foreign‐owned banks (though not state‐owned banks) has a positive association with growth. In other words, both private banks and capital markets are likely to play important, though different roles in channeling funds from savers to investors.     

Syndicated Leveraged Loans During and After the Crisis and the Role of the Shadow Banking System

In an article published in this journal in 1998, Nobel laureate Merton Miller argued that one of the best weapons available to national economies in their defense against the macroeconomic effects of banking crises is the availability of non‐bank financial institutions and products—or what we now refer to as the “shadow banking system.” Although Miller may have exaggerated the independence of bank‐ and market‐based sources of financing, the author argues that events during and after the recent crisis have shown Miller's claims about the importance of non‐bank investors in the provision of credit to be fundamentally correct. Critics of securitization and the shadow banking system tend to focus on the subprime mortgage story in which the sudden re‐pricing of credit risk and the resulting disappearance of investment demand for ABCP, private‐label mortgage‐related ABS, and ABS CDOs created unexpected and significant downward price pressure on those asset types. But the leveraged loan market tells a very different story. In contrast to the near complete disappearance of private mortgage securitizations, the extraordinary recovery of the U.S. syndicated leveraged loan market demonstrates that the relation between commercial and shadow banking has proved to be a highly productive and resilient one—and very much a two‐way street. When leveraged loans and CLOs experienced problems from 2007 through 2009 due primarily to the widespread liquidity and credit market disruptions that affected essentially all structured credit products, institutional investors in leveraged loans disappeared and the leveraged loan primary market imploded. But when institutional participants recognized the value of the underlying asset—corporate loans—and regained confidence in shadow‐banking products, leveraged lending by banks recovered quickly and dramatically. This outcome is viewed as vindicating Professor Miller's statement about the benefits of shadow markets and securitization— namely, the role of non‐bank investors in diversifying the risk of credit creation while at the same time improving the price discovery process in different markets. The recent history of the U.S. leveraged loan market demonstrates that shadow banking system participants play a critical role in meeting the total demand for such loans, and that the ebbs and flows from institutional leveraged loan markets are strongly connected with the health and integrity of the underlying leveraged bank loan market.     

Does Macro‐Prudential Regulation Leak? Evidence from a UK Policy Experiment

The regulation of bank capital as a means of smoothing the credit cycle is a central element of forthcoming macro‐prudential regimes internationally. For such regulation to be effective in controlling the aggregate supply of credit it must be the case that: (i) changes in capital requirements affect loan supply by regulated banks, and (ii) unregulated substitute sources of credit are unable to offset changes in credit supply by affected banks. This paper examines micro evidence—lacking to date—on both questions, using a unique data set. In the UK, regulators have imposed time‐varying, bank‐specific minimum capital requirements since Basel I. It is found that regulated banks (UK‐owned banks and resident foreign subsidiaries) reduce lending in response to tighter capital requirements. But unregulated banks (resident foreign branches) increase lending in response to tighter capital requirements on a relevant reference group of regulated banks. This “leakage” is substantial, amounting to about one‐third of the initial impulse from the regulatory change.     

Capital Constraints,Asymmetric Information,and Internal Capital Markets in Banking: New Evidence

A growing literature investigates the role of internal capital markets in mitigating financial constraints faced by the subsidiaries of a conglomerate. Most studies have relied on indirect tests based on correlations between the cash flows and the investment of the subsidiaries. In contrast, we avoid the widespread criticisms of such specifications by providing direct tests that focus on the mechanisms through which internal reallocations of funds occur. We find that internal capital markets are used by multibank holding companies to mitigate capital constraints faced by individual bank subsidiaries. In addition, we show that internal capital management within a multibank holding company involves not only the movement of capital to those subsidiaries with a relatively greater need for capital but also the movement of assets (loans) from less well capitalized to better capitalized subsidiaries by means of loan sales and purchases among the subsidiaries. Furthermore, net loan sales are used to allow efficiency‐enhancing specialization among bank subsidiaries, insofar as those subsidiaries with the best loan origination opportunities are able to focus on loan originations even if they do not have sufficient capital to hold the loans. Our evidence is consistent with banks affiliated with holding companies more actively participating in loan sales and purchases because, by using their internal secondary loan market, they are able to avoid the “lemons” problem faced by stand‐alone banks.     

Bank risk and monetary policy

We find evidence of a bank lending channel operating in the euro area via bank risk. Financial innovation and the wider use of new ways of transferring credit risk have tended to diminish the informational content of standard bank balance sheet indicators. We show that bank risk conditions, as perceived by financial market investors, need to be considered, together with the other indicators (i.e., size, liquidity and capitalization), traditionally used in the bank lending channel literature to assess banks’ ability and willingness to supply new loans. Using a large sample of European banks, we find that banks characterized by lower expected default frequency are able to offer a larger amount of credit and to better insulate their loan supply from monetary policy changes.     

Reserve Requirements,Liquidity Risk,and Bank Lending Behavior

Although reserve requirements (RR) have been used in emerging markets to smooth credit cycles, the transmission mechanism remains blurry. Using bank‐level data, we unveil the interaction of RR with bank lending. We identify a new channel that works through a decline in banks’ liquid assets and loan supply due to an increase in RR. “Quantitative tightening” through RR raises the short‐term funding needs of the banking system, which is met by collateralized central bank lending, thus depleting banks’ unencumbered liquid assets. Our results suggest that such a shift in bank liquidity is associated with a significant change in lending.     

The bright side of market power in Asian banking: Implications of bank capitalization and financial freedom

Using a sample of listed banks in the Asia-Pacific region from 2000 to 2016, this paper documents that higher market power reduces risk taking but increases loan growth and performance in banking. This highlights the "bright side" of bank market power in general. However, the positive effect of market power on bank stability is more pronounced for well-capitalized banks, although their performance tends to decline, and loan growth is unaffected by market power. Hence, bank capitalization plays an important role in strengthening financial stability due to an increase in bank market power. Moreover, banks with higher market power located in countries with a lower degree of financial freedom exhibit lower riskiness, higher loan growth, and better performance. Greater control by authorities in the financial sector is essential, not only to enhance financial stability, but also to boost financial intermediation and bank performance following an increase in bank market power.     

Bank Capital and Lending Relationships

This paper investigates the mechanisms behind the matching of banks and firms in the loan market and the implications of this matching for lending relationships, bank capital, and credit provision. I find that bank‐dependent firms borrow from well‐capitalized banks, while firms with access to the bond market borrow from banks with less capital. This matching of bank‐dependent firms with stable banks smooths cyclicality in aggregate credit provision and mitigates the effects of bank shocks on the real economy.     

The impact of joint participation on liquidity in equity and syndicated bank loan markets

Market liquidity is impacted by the presence of financial intermediaries that are informed and active participants in both the equity and the syndicated bank loan markets, specifically informationally advantaged lead arrangers of syndicated bank loans that simultaneously act as equity market makers (dual market makers). Employing a two-stage procedure with instrumental variables, we identify the simultaneous equations model of liquidity and dual market maker decisions. We find that the presence of dual market makers improves the liquidity of the more competitive and transparent equity markets, but widens the spread in the less competitive over-the-counter loan market, particularly for small, informationally opaque firms.     

Securitization,risk-transferring and financial instability: The case of Spain

The 2007–2010 financial crisis has hit a variety of countries asymmetrically. The case of Spain is particularly illustrative as it exemplifies in a vivid manner most of the core issues largely responsible for the crisis. This country experienced a pronounced housing bubble partly funded via spectacular developments in its securitization markets leading to looser credit standards and subsequent financial stability problems. We analyze the sequential deterioration of credit in Spain considering rating changes in securitized deals. Using a sample of 20,286 observations on securities and rating changes from 2000Q1 to 2010Q1 we build a model in which loan growth, on balance-sheet credit quality and rating changes are estimated simultaneously. Our results suggest that loan growth significantly affects on balance-sheet loan performance with a lag of at least two years. Additionally, loan performance is found to explain rating changes with a lag of four quarters. Importantly, bank characteristics (in particular, observed solvency, cash-flow generation and cost efficiency) also affect ratings considerably. Additionally, these other bank characteristics seem to a higher weight in the rating changes of securities issued by savings banks as compared with commercial banks.     

Real estate prices and bank stability

Real estate prices can deviate from their fundamental value due to rigid supply, heterogeneity in quality, and various market imperfections, which have two contrasting effects on bank stability. Higher prices increase the value of collateral and net wealth of borrowers and thus reduce the likelihood of credit defaults. In contrast, persistent deviations from fundamentals may foster the adverse selection of increasingly risky creditors by banks seeking to expand their loan portfolios, which increases bank distress probabilities. We test these hypotheses using unique data on real estate markets and banks in Germany. House price deviations contribute to bank instability, but nominal house price developments do not. This finding corroborates the importance of deviations from the fundamental value of real estate, rather than just price levels or changes alone, when assessing bank stability.     

Perceived vs actual financial crisis and bank credit standards: Is there any indication of self-fulfilling prophecy?

We link senior banks loan officers’ responses regarding their decisions for bank credit standards, from successive surveys from the European Bank Lending Survey to investigate two important issues. First, we examine the relationship between bank credit standards (CS) and perceived and actual financial crisis. Second, we investigate whether the notion of the self-fulfilling prophecy is applicable in the case of the 2008 financial crisis. In particular, the second main research question that we try to answer is whether the perceived crisis (as implied by the Google search query “financial crisis”) contributed to the acceleration of the outburst of the actual crisis. We find that both perceived and actual financial crisis affect senior bank loan officers’ credit standards, with the actual crisis having the greatest impact. These results are consistent both in the short and in the long run. Finally, by putting forward a binary choice model we find sufficient evidence to support the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy notion.     

The role of private equity group reputation in LBO financing

This paper investigates whether the reputation of acquiring private equity groups (PEGs) is related to the financing structure of leveraged buyouts (LBOs). Using a sample of 180 public-to-private LBOs in the US between January 1, 1997 and August 15, 2007, we find that reputable PEGs are more active in the LBO market when credit risk spreads are low and lending standards in the credit markets are lax. We also find that reputable PEGs pay narrower bank and institutional loan spreads, have longer loan maturities, and rely more on institutional loans. In addition, while we find that PEG reputation is positively related to buyout leverage (i.e., LBO debt divided by pre-LBO earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization (EBITDA) of the target), and leverage is significantly positively related to buyout pricing, we do not find any direct relation between PEG reputation and buyout valuations. The evidence suggests that PEG reputation is related to LBO financing structure not only because reputable PEGs are more likely to take advantage of market timing in credit markets and but also because PEG reputation reduces agency costs of LBO debt.     

How Much of Bank Credit Risk Is Sovereign Risk? Evidence from Europe

We examine European banks' exposures to systematic and country‐specific sovereign risk. We organize our investigation around a multifactor affine credit risk model estimated on credit default swap data of different maturities. During the 2008–15 period, about one third of banks' credit risk is sovereign. However, banks strongly differ both in the magnitude and type of their sovereign exposures. Measures of indirect exposures, such as bank size and return on equity, capture these cross‐sectional differences better than measures of direct exposures. Furthermore, the properties of the distress risk premiums turn out to be important to understand the effect of sovereign risk on bank funding costs.     

Euro area banking and monetary policy shocks in the QE era

This paper assesses the effects of monetary policy shocks on the macroeconomy and the euro area banking sector after the global financial crisis. First, financial risk-return indicators of the banking sector based on a compound option-based structural credit risk model are embedded in a large macro-financial quarterly database covering the period 2008Q4–2019Q4. Second, a SFAVAR identifies and estimates the shocks’ responses relating them to the endogenous build-up of banks’ vulnerabilities which are consistent with the internally coherent structure of the credit risk model. By introducing structure in the understanding of banks’ asset-liability management behavior following monetary policy shocks, the research strategy contributes to disentangling results that are often mixed in the empirical literature. The study finds that unconventional monetary policy, in particular the Asset Purchase Program of the European Central Bank, seems to have been more successful than conventional monetary policy in raising output and inflation. The desired boost to bank lending has been muted and loan cyclicality has varied across countries and loan types. The performance of the banking sector following monetary policy shocks can be characterized by a drop in expected return on equity and assets, a relaxation of lending conditions and increased correlation between banks’ assets return and the market return, a mechanism pointing to enhanced risk-taking. While banks’ probabilities of default fall following monetary policy shocks, the price of risk increases. Banks’ net worth rises via higher market capitalization and implied assets value together with lower volatility, despite often incurring more debt. Risk-taking in the banking sector may pose a risk to financial stability, especially if its effects on banks’ vulnerability spread and increase systemic risk. The unintended endogenous build-up of macro-financial vulnerabilities may need to become part of monetary policymaking.     

Determinants of heterogeneity in European credit ratings

In this study, we empirically analyze the determinants of heterogeneity in rating assessments across different segments of the European loan market. We conduct a benchmarking analysis using rating information on European corporate obligors from nine major Austrian banks that have a large share of foreign lending, particularly in the Central and Eastern European region. We provide evidence that, generally, overall heterogeneity among rating outcomes for foreign markets is higher than for domestic markets. Furthermore, we show that heterogeneity increases in transition economies and those markets where Austrian bank involvement is relatively low. Our evidence supports the hypothesis that heterogeneity in the assessment of credit risk is determined not only by the objective quality of information, which is deemed to be lower in transition economies, but also by the subjective access to information about obligors measured by the level of domestic bank involvement in the respective foreign market. Furthermore, we quantify potential effects on regulatory capital requirements.     

The Effects of Formal and Informal Contracting in Credit Availability

This paper investigates how the use of collateral (formal contracting), along with the market power of banks (which facilitates relational contracts), affects the availability of credit for business firms. Using loan data from the Spanish Credit Register, we show that the average credit quality of borrowers in a provincial market decreases with market concentration and the availability of collateral. Additionally, the marginal effect of each variable decreases with the higher values of the other variable. We also find that credit line interest rates increase with the availability of collateral, although the increase is lower for banks operating in more concentrated credit markets. Therefore, market power (relations) and collateral (formal contracting) act as substitutes to increase the availability of bank finance under asymmetric information.     

Financial Dampening

We propose a novel mechanism, “financial dampening,” whereby loan retrenchment by banks attenuates the effectiveness of monetary policy. The theory unifies an endogenous supply of illiquid local loans and risk sharing among subsidiaries of bank holding companies (BHCs). We derive an instrumental variable (IV) strategy that separates supply-driven loan retrenchment from local loan demand by exploiting linkages through BHC internal capital markets across spatially separate BHC member banks. We estimate that retrenching banks increase loan supply substantially less in response to exogenous monetary policy rate reductions. This relative decline has persistent effects on local employment and thus provides a rationale for slow recoveries from financial distress.