The dark side of liquidity regulation: Bank opacity and funding liquidity risk

We evaluate how the liquidity coverage rule affects US banks’ opacity and funding liquidity risk. Banks subject to the rule become significantly more opaque and funding liquidity risk increases by $245 million per quarter. Higher funding liquidity risk is more pronounced among banks that are subject to the rule’s more stringent liquidity buffers, and systemically riskier banks. Rising opacity reflects an increase in banks’ holdings of complex assets whose value is difficult to communicate to investors. The evidence highlights the unintended consequences of liquidity regulation and is consistent with theoretical models’ predictions of a trade-off between liquidity buffers and bank opacity that exacerbates funding liquidity risk.     

Climate risk and bank liquidity creation: International evidence

This study examines the impact of climate risk on bank liquidity creation in 56 countries over the period 1995–2012. Specifically, it investigates whether the relationship between climate risk and bank liquidity creation varies by bank and country characteristics. The results reveal that climate sensitivity and exposure have negative impacts on overall liquidity creation, whereas climate adaptation has positive effects. These effects are more pronounced for larger banks with lower capital, banks located in lower-GDP and developing countries, and those in Asia. The results suggest that policymakers should exercise caution when formulating and implementing climate-related strategies, as these can influence liquidity creation, which in turn can affect macroeconomic stability.     

Regulation of systemic liquidity risk

This paper provides a baseline model for regulatory analysis of systemic liquidity shocks. We show that banks may have an incentive to invest excessively in illiquid long-term projects. In the prevailing mixed-strategy equilibrium, the allocation is inferior from the investor’s point of view since some banks free ride on the liquidity provision due to their limited liability. The paper compares different regulatory mechanisms to cope with the externalities. We show that a combination of liquidity regulation ex ante and lender of last resort policy ex post can maximize investor payoff. In contrast, both “narrow banking” and imposing equity requirements as a buffer are inferior mechanisms for coping with systemic liquidity risk.     

The dark and the bright side of liquidity risks: Evidence from open-end real estate funds in Germany

During the 6-month period from December 2005 to June 2006, the German Real Estate mutual fund industry suffered an unprecedented liquidity crisis. We investigate to what extend competing theories of liquidity crises help explain this event. Our results show that fundamental factors not only mattered for the liquidity outflow in normal times but also during the crisis. However, strategic complementarities accelerated the withdrawals during the crisis suggesting that pure panic behavior contributed substantially to the massive outflows. Thus higher liquidity buffers might help mitigating these tail events. Furthermore, we find that funds with a lower fraction of shares held by institutional investors suffered from less significant outflows suggesting that a segmentation of funds for different investor groups might help mitigate panics.     

The external effects of bank executive pay: Liquidity creation and systemic risk

We develop a conceptual framework that links the compensation incentives of bank executives to the risk and return externalities generated by banks but borne by society. Using 1994 to 2016 data from large U.S. commercial banks, we find that CEO pay-performance incentives reduce both negative systemic risk externalities and positive liquidity creation externalities, while pay-risk incentives increase both externalities. Our findings offer support for Federal Reserve guidelines that encourage greater reliance on long-term equity-based compensation, and they infer a regulatory tradeoff: Bank executive pay rules aimed at reducing systemic risk will result in reduced system-wide liquidity creation as well.     

The role of governance on bank liquidity creation

This paper examines the impact of internal bank governance on bank liquidity creation in the U.S. before, during and after the 2007–2009 financial crisis. Using bank holding company level data, we analyze whether better-governed banks create higher levels of liquidity. We find that this effect is positive and significant but only for large bank holding companies. Further analysis reveals that specific internal governance categories: CEO education, compensation structure, progressive practices, and ownership have a significant effect on bank liquidity. However, this positive effect occurs mostly during the crisis period, and for large banks that are also high liquidity creators. Finally, we find that the effect of governance on liquidity creation increases during the crisis period. These findings are robust even while controlling for liquidity measures, bank size, and endogeneity problems between governance and liquidity creation.     

Bank business models and liquidity creation

Using a large panel of US bank holding companies from 2001 to 2015, this study investigates the association between functional diversification and bank liquidity creation. I document evidence of lower liquidity creation for higher diversification. The effect of moving into nontraditional activities on liquidity creation is more apparent with large banks and less pronounced with small banks. The impact of diversification on liquidity creation is less significant during the late stage of crisis and is more clearly observed in small and medium-sized banks. Low liquidity creation banks, leveraged by a higher share of non-interest income, are more likely to further decrease their liquidity creation. The study is of interest to regulators and policymakers who are concerned about bank business models.     

Leverage and valuation effects: How global liquidity shapes sectoral balance sheets

Global financial conditions have been shown to be important drivers of cross-border capital flows. But how do they interact with the leverage of the domestic sectors? That is the question this paper proposes to answer. Financial and non-financial sectors increase their leverage pro-cyclically, i.e., during periods of favourable domestic economic performance and whenever global financial conditions are more loose. The general government is an exception: it has a stabilizing counter-cyclical role, by taking on more debt in times of worse economic outcomes. Moreover, there is an important interaction between financial market stress and leverage, whereby heightened financial stress leads to higher leverage via the valuation component of balance sheets - this relationship vanishes when leverage measures are stripped of these price swings.     

A bibliometric review of liquidity creation

Liquidity creation is a core function of financial intermediation and an important factor for economic growth. Using performance and bibliometric analysis, we trace the knowledge structure of the academic research on liquidity creation conducted over 45 years. Bibliographic material from the Scopus database is used to perform co-citation, co-word, and bibliographic coupling analyses of influential aspects of the literature, such as authors, articles, journals, countries, institutions, and topics. Through content analysis, we identify three prevalent areas of research in this field of study.     

Corporate social responsibility and bank liquidity creation

Under the stakeholder theory hypothesis, reputable corporate social responsibility (CSR) banks are expected to attract more loans and deposits, which in turn strengthens their ability to create liquidity. Our findings support this view. Further analyses reveal that the positive effect of CSR on liquidity creation differs depending on bank size, bank capital, and type of financial crisis. In addition, deposit growth, loan growth, lending rate, and funding rate are potential channels through which CSR influences bank liquidity creation. The findings are not driven by an endogeneity issue.     

Bank liquidity creation and real economic output

We find that bank liquidity creation (LC) is statistically and economically significantly positively related to real economic output (GDP). This is robust to using instrumental variables and many robustness checks. LC also beats bank assets in “horse races.” On-balance sheet LC matters more for small banks and off-balance sheet LC matters more for large banks. Small bank LC generates more GDP per dollar than large bank LC, but large bank LC matters more overall because large banks provide much more LC than small banks. The LC-output relation is strongest in bank-dependent industries, consistent with the hypothesized transmission mechanism.     

When liquidity risk becomes a systemic issue: Empirical evidence of bank behaviour

This article provides empirical evidence of behavioural responses by banks in the recent crisis. Using firm-specific balance sheet data, we construct aggregate indicators of systemic risk. Measures of size and herding show that balance sheet adjustments have been pro-cyclical in the crisis, while responses became increasingly dependent across banks and concentrated on certain market segments. Banks reacted less according to a pecking order, as an indication of reduced flexibility in their risk management opportunities. The behavioural indicators are useful tools for monetary and macro prudential analyses and can contribute to the micro foundations of financial stability models.     

The impact of bank FinTech on liquidity creation: Evidence from China

This paper examines whether and how bank FinTech affects liquidity creation. Using panel data from Chinese commercial banks over the period 2008–2019 and bank-level FinTech indices constructed by a textual analysis method, we find robust evidence that banks with greater FinTech development create more liquidity for the public. This effect operates through deposit inflow, risk management, and cost efficiency channels. Furthermore, we find that the positive effect of bank FinTech on liquidity creation is more pronounced for banks with non-state ownership, unlisted status, and less liquidity creation.     

Volume,liquidity, and liquidity risk

Many classes of microstructure models, as well as intuition, suggest that it should be easier to trade when markets are more active. In the data, however, volume and liquidity seem unrelated over time. This paper offers an explanation for this fact based on a simple frictionless model in which liquidity reflects the average risk-bearing capacity of the economy and volume reflects the changing contribution of individuals to that average. Volume and liquidity are unrelated in the model, but volume is positively related to the variance of liquidity, or liquidity risk. Empirical evidence from the U.S. government bond and stock markets supports this new prediction.     

The light and dark side of TARP

This paper empirically investigates the impact of the first announcement of TARP, the announcement of revised TARP, respective capital infusions under TARP–CPP and capital repayments on changes in shareholder value and the risk exposure of supported US banks. Our analysis reveals a light and a dark side of TARP. While announcements as well as capital repayments may provoke positive wealth effects and a decrease in bank risk, equity capital injections to banks are observed to be a severe impediment to restore market confidence and financial stability. Furthermore, while TARP announcements and capital injections may increase systemic risk, no significant effect on systemic risk is found for capital repayments.     

The world price of liquidity risk

This paper empirically tests the liquidity-adjusted capital asset pricing model of Acharya and Pedersen (2005) on a global level. Consistent with the model, I find evidence that liquidity risks are priced independently of market risk in international financial markets. That is, a security’s required rate of return depends on the covariance of its own liquidity with aggregate local market liquidity, as well as the covariance of its own liquidity with local and global market returns. I also show that the US market is an important driving force of global liquidity risk. Furthermore, I find that the pricing of liquidity risk varies across countries according to geographic, economic, and political environments. The findings show that the systematic dimension of liquidity provides implications for international portfolio diversification.     

On the hidden side of liquidity

This article deals with the informativeness of iceberg orders, also known as hidden limit orders (HLOs). Namely, we analyze how the market reacts when the presence of hidden volume in the limit order book is revealed by the trading process. We use high-frequency book and transaction data from the Spanish Stock Exchange, including a large sample of executed HLOs. We show that just when hidden volume is detected, traders on the opposite side of the market become more aggressive, exploiting the opportunity to consume more than expected at the best quotes. However, neither illiquidity nor volatility increases in the short term. Furthermore, the detection of hidden volume has no relevant price impact. Overall, our results suggest that market participants do not attribute any relevant information content to the hidden side of liquidity.     

The dark side of analyst coverage: The case of innovation

We examine the effects of financial analysts on the real economy in the case of innovation. Our baseline results show that firms covered by a larger number of analysts generate fewer patents and patents with lower impact. To establish causality, we use a difference-in-differences approach that relies on the variation generated by multiple exogenous shocks to analyst coverage, as well as an instrumental variable approach. Our identification strategies suggest a negative causal effect of analyst coverage on firm innovation. The evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that analysts exert too much pressure on managers to meet short-term goals, impeding firms' investment in long-term innovative projects. We further discuss possible underlying mechanisms through which analysts impede innovation and show that there is a residual effect of analysts on innovation even after controlling for these mechanisms. Our paper offers novel evidence on a previously under-explored adverse consequence of analyst coverage—its hindrance to firm innovation.     

Funding liquidity risk: Definition and measurement

Funding liquidity risk has played a key role in all historical banking crises. Nevertheless, a measure for funding liquidity risk based on publicly available data remains so far elusive. We address this gap by showing that aggressive bidding at central bank auctions reveals funding liquidity risk. We can extract an insurance premium from banks’ bids which we propose as a measure of funding liquidity risk. Using a unique data set consisting of all bids in all auctions for the main refinancing operation conducted at the ECB between June 2005 and October 2008 we find that funding liquidity risk is typically stable and low, with occasional spikes especially around key events during the recent crisis. We also document downward spirals between funding liquidity risk and market liquidity. As measurement without clear definitions is impossible, we initially provide definitions of funding liquidity and funding liquidity risk.