Interest-risk sensitive deposit insurance premia: Stable ACH estimates

The parameters of interest rate uncertainty are estimated by maximum likelihood for the period 1952–1982, and used to evaluate bank or thrift deposit insurance as a function of duration mismatching, capital/asset ratio, and the recent history of interest rate forecasting errors. Homoskedasticity is overwhelmingly rejected in favor of adaptive conditional heteroskedasticity (ACH). Even after removing this heteroskedasticity, normality gives much lower likelihood than Paretian stable distributions with characteristic exponent in the range 1.614 to 1.714. The conditional deposit insurance values fluctuate by factors in excess of 300 for some duration gaps over the past three decades.     

Optimal bank reorganization and the fair pricing of deposit guarantees

When should regulators close a financially ailing bank? FDIC practice in the US has moved in the direction of early closure. In contrast, banking regulators in Japan continue to follow a more patient approach. This paper analyses a series of models in which closure rules and bailout policies arise endogenously through the interaction of (i) regulators' attempts to minimize discounted, expected bankruptcy costs, and (ii) equity-holders' incentives to recapitalise banks. We characterize subsidy policies for distressed banks that implement socially optimal closure rules at minimum financial cost to regulators and which reduce moral hazard.     

The distributional impact of foreign deposits on federal deposit insurance premia

Rapid growth of deposits in U.S. foreign bank branches and current U.S. government policies have combined to create a new inequality in the deposit insurance system. Our research shows that smaller banks are substantially subsidizing the insurance costs of the larger, multinational institutions. When insurance premiums are viewed in the context of an implicit tax, it is highly regressive with the wealth transfer growing over time. Recent reform proposals do not fully address important international influences and therefore underestimate the scope of the problem.     

Capital regulation,deposit insurance and bank risk: International evidence from normal and crisis periods

In this paper, we examine the impact of capital regulation on bank risk and the moderating role of deposit insurance on the relationship between capital regulation and bank risk during both normal and crisis periods. Using an international sample of banks from 111 countries, our results show that stringent capital regulation reduces bank default risk, in general, during normal growth period, and this effect is not conditioned by the existence of explicit deposit insurance. Further, stringent capital regulation in place during the pre-crisis period reduces bank default risk during the crisis period, and this effect is stronger for countries with explicit deposit insurance during the pre-crisis period. These results have important policy implications to design the optimal bank regulations.     

Alternative forms of deposit insurance: Pricing and bank incentive issues

This paper derives formulas for a deposit insuring agency's liability (and hence a fair value deposit insurance premium) and the equilibrium value of bank equity, considering a wide variety of factors affecting individual bank risk. Both fixed rate and variable rate (risk-sensitive) insurance systems are analyzed. Consideration is made as to whether the deposit insuring agency makes direct payments to depositors or arranges mergers following bank closings. The effect of these various policy choices on banks' incentive for risk taking is also analyzed.     

Private deposit insurance,deposit flows,bank lending,and moral hazard

We examine the role of private unlimited deposit insurance as a complement to federal deposit insurance for deposit flows, bank lending, and moral hazard during a crisis. We find that banks whose deposits are federally and privately fully insured obtain more deposits and expand lending, in contrast to banks whose deposits are only federally insured. We also document that privately insured banks remain prudent in the loan origination process during the subprime crisis. Our results offer novel insights into depositor and bank behavior in the presence of multiple deposit insurance schemes with differential design features. They also illustrate how private sector solutions incentivize prudent bank behavior to strengthen the financial safety net.     

Implicit government guarantees and credit ratings

Exploiting the first default of a state-owned enterprise (SOE) in China, we analyze the role of implicit government guarantees in credit ratings. We consider two causes of implicit government guarantees. First, we suggest a “too big to fail” effect by revealing positive associations between credit ratings and issuer size, number of employees and taxes paid. Second, we propose a “government link” effect by showing positive associations between credit ratings and an issuer's state ownership, indicators for SOEs and central SOEs. Importantly, after the first SOE default, both dimensions of implicit government guarantees are weakened when explaining credit rating variations. Extending to analyses of yield spreads, we find that debt pricing relies more on credit ratings after the default event, consistent with bond investors weighing credit ratings more with weakened beliefs in implicit government guarantees. Collectively, our study proposes two dimensions of implicit government guarantees in credit ratings and shows how the initial SOE default significantly changes the role of such guarantees in credit ratings.     

Not all bank systemic risks are alike: Deposit insurance and bank risk revisited

This study investigates how deposit insurance, especially in terms of its design features, affects the sources of banking systemic risk. We do so by decomposing a bank's contribution to systemic risk into idiosyncratic tail risk (Alpha), the exposure to fundamental macroeconomic and finance factors (Beta) and bank interconnectedness (Gamma). Our results indicate that while deposit insurance may increase Alpha, there is a U-shaped relationship between deposit insurance coverage and Beta and Gamma, indicating the existence of an optimal coverage level that minimizes systemic risk. We also find that insurance design characteristics significantly affect the U-shaped relationship. Deposit insurance designed to be independently organized, with public administration, additional supervision and risk minimization functions, and private funding, further reduces the systemic risk associated with any given level of coverage. With several robustness checks, including potential endogeneity, heterogeneity, and possible limits in the sample, the results remain valid. Our results should benefit policymakers who design and optimize deposit insurance schemes to ensure that they play a positive role.     

A model of reserves, bank runs, and deposit insurance

A model is presented in which demand deposits backed by fractional currency reserves and public insurance can be beneficial. The model uses Samuelson's pure consumption-loans model. The case for demand deposits, reserves, and deposit insurance rests on costs of illiquidity and incomplete information. The effect of deposit insurance depends upon how, and at what cost, the government meets its insurer's obligation — something which is not specified in practice. It remains possible that demand deposits and deposit insurance are a distortion, and reserve requirements serve only to limit the size of this distortion.     

The spread of deposit insurance and the global rise in bank asset risk since the 1970s

We construct a new measure of deposit insurance generosity for many countries, empirically model the exogenous international influences on the adoption and generosity of deposit insurance and use a novel econometric method to explore the causal chain from the expansion of deposit insurance generosity to increased overall lending, increased lending to households, increased banking system leverage, and more severe and frequent banking crises. Greater deposit insurance generosity robustly produces greater overall lending relative to bank assets and more lending to households relative to both bank assets and GDP, and results in higher banking system leverage. Our estimates, however, are not conclusive regarding whether greater deposit insurance generosity resulted in greater total loans relative to GDP or in more frequent or severe banking crises.     

Structural changes in Australian bank risk

There have been substantial changes in banking industries throughout the world in the last two decades. While many of the effects of these changes in the US have been documented, the increasingly global nature of regulation in recent years makes understanding the effects of these changes in other countries imperative. This paper examines Australian bank returns during the period 1981–1993, employing a switching-regression methodology. We find that several structural changes have occurred, coinciding with (i) the release of deregulatory initiatives by the Australian government in the early 1980s, (ii) the flotation of the Australian dollar and the licensing of foreign banks, and (iii) the implementation of the Basle accord risk-based capital measures. Moreover, we report important differences in the relations between bank returns and both interest rates and exchange rates relative to those reported in US studies.     

Premium setting and bank behavior in a voluntary deposit insurance scheme

This study analyzes the effect of premium rates on banks’ incentives to join a deposit insurance scheme and their incentives to invest in risky projects under a voluntary deposit insurance scheme. We find that in order to maximize social welfare, the insurance agency must either set the premium rate to be low so as to attract all banks to join the insurance scheme, or not to have the deposit insurance at all. However, the low premium rate in the voluntary scheme does not balance the budget of the deposit insurance. We also show that in the compulsory deposit insurance scheme, however, it is possible to impose an optimal premium rate that can balance the insurance agency’s budget and achieve the highest social welfare. The results also present the dominance of the compulsory scheme over the voluntary scheme in terms of maximizing social welfare and balancing the budget.

The effect of bank ownership and deposit insurance on monetary policy transmission

In this paper we develop a theoretical model with a representative bank whose ownership is shared between state and private sector. The bank faces a risk of failure and provides private and public explicit deposit insurance. Banks owned to a larger extent by the government are more able to counteract a restrictive monetary policy because of their capacity to raise additional volume of deposits. Therefore, the greater the state’s share in the bank ownership, the less the impact of a monetary tightening on the level of loan supply.     

Political uncertainty and risk premia

We develop a general equilibrium model of government policy choice in which stock prices respond to political news. The model implies that political uncertainty commands a risk premium whose magnitude is larger in weaker economic conditions. Political uncertainty reduces the value of the implicit put protection that the government provides to the market. It also makes stocks more volatile and more correlated, especially when the economy is weak. We find empirical evidence consistent with these predictions.     

Fairly priced deposit insurance,incentive compatible regulations,and bank asset choices

This article provides incentive compatible regulations that support fairly priced deposit insurance in a competitive banking industry. If informational asymmetry exists between the regulator and banks regarding loan quality, but the regulator can observe actual loan rates charged, then imposing a capital requirement schedule that leads market loan rates to decrease in loan quality is shown to be incentive compatible. Competition in the loan market induces banks to be indifferent to all loans that satisfy a minimum acceptable quality and reject all riskier loans. The regulator could reduce the banking industry's riskiness by imposing stricter capital requirements that increase this minimum quality.     

Bond risk premia and realized jump risk

We find that augmenting a regression of excess bond returns on the term structure of forward rates with an estimate of the mean realized jump size almost doubles the R² of the forecasting regression. The return predictability from augmenting with the jump mean easily dominates that offered by augmenting with options-implied volatility and realized volatility from high-frequency data. In out-of-sample forecasting exercises, inclusion of the jump mean can reduce the root mean square prediction error by up to 40%. The incremental return predictability captured by the realized jump mean largely accounts for the countercyclical movements in bond risk premia. This result is consistent with the setting of an incomplete market in which the conditional distribution of excess bond returns is affected by a jump risk factor that does not lie in the span of the term structure of yields.     

Charter value,minimum bank capital requirement and deposit insurance pricing in equilibrium

This paper shows that leaving insolvent banks with large enough charter values open can be optimal and derives normative bank closure/reorganization policies based on the liquidation value of assets and the charter value. The charter value of a bank is broadly defined as the value that would be foregone due to a closure. Our simulations of risk taking show that an optimal forbearance for an insolvent bank with a large enough charter value alleviates the moral hazard problem. This is because increasing the risk raises the probability of losing the charter value, although it generates a moral hazard gain.     

Deposit insurance system,risk-adjusted premium and bank systemic risk: Evidence from China

In this paper, we investigate whether and how the Deposit Insurance (DI) system and its Risk-adjusted Premium (RAP) scheme affect the systemic risk of Chinese banks. Based on bank-level panel data from 2007 to 2020 and the difference-in-differences (DID) method, we find that the establishment of the explicit DI system in China increases bank systemic risk, while the implementation of RAP alleviates this negative impact by reducing systemic risk. We further find the mechanism behind this phenomenon that bank profit acts as a mediator. We also find evidence for international heterogeneity using cross-country data and show that, as China has a longstanding implicit government guarantee, the establishment of explicit DI actually reduces the extent to which banks are protected, thus increasing bank systemic risk. Our study highlights the specificity of Chinese DI system, offers important policy implications for the design of financial safety nets in China and worldwide.     

An analytic derivation of the cost of deposit insurance and loan guarantees An application of modern option pricing theory

It is not uncommon in the arrangement of a loan to include as part of the financial package a guarantee of the loan by a third party. Examples are guarantees by a parent company of loans made to its subsidiaries or government guarantees of loans made to private corporations. Also included would be guarantees of bank deposits by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. As with other forms of insurance, the issuing of a guarantee imposes a liability or cost on the guarantor. In this paper, a formula is derived to evaluate this cost. The method used is to demonstrate an isomorphic correspondence between loan guarantees and common stock put options, and then to use the well developed theory of option pricing to derive the formula.