Struggle for survival in credit crunch: The effect of interest rate deregulation in China

This study investigates how interest rate deregulation affects firms' financing choice between bank debt and public debt. Our analysis exploits China's 2013 bank interest rate floor deregulation as an exogenous shock to the supply of bank credit. Using a difference-in-difference design, we find that firms with higher default risk substitute away from bank loan and switch to public debt after the 2013 deregulation. However, this substitution to public debt is limited, leading to a dramatic decline in debt ratio. Our result also demonstrates that the effect on firms' public debt financing is more pronounced for firms with better information environments, suggesting that good information environment is an important prerequisite for making the switch. This switching, contradicting to traditional financing framework that high-risk firms prefer bank loans, inevitably is costly. Compared with low-risk firms, bonds issued by high-risk firms have significantly higher spreads, a higher likelihood of being secured, and a higher tendency of including an interest-adjusted clause. More importantly, we also document that high-risk firms subsequently improve their information transparency after the interest rate deregulation. Our findings highlight the role of interest rate deregulation in firms' financing choice and illustrate that firms incur high switching costs when their choice deviates from the optimal financing choice.     

Why do commercial banks hold government bonds? The case of Japan

We investigate the determinants of the demand for Japanese government bonds (JGBs) by commercial banks in Japan. In particular, by estimating portfolio equations for JGB demand and bank loans, based on a panel data set from the late 1990s to the 2000s, we rigorously test the popular assertion that the long stagnation of the real economy caused a shift in the portfolios of commercial banks from bank lending to JGBs. We find that the popular assertion is not empirically supported. Rather, the portfolio shift from loans to JGBs has been caused by a fall in the ratio of the loan rate to unit lending costs, or the bank’s price–cost margin for lending.     

Loan interest rate pass-through and changes after the financial crisis: Japan’s evidence

We estimate interest rate pass-through in the loan market using an individual bank-based panel dataset from Japan. Previous studies using data from European countries have presented a number of common findings, including that banks with a high proportion of relationship lending tend to set lower pass-through. In this respect, we have obtained similar results using a dataset for Japan going back to the early 2000s. We further examine the influence of borrowing firms’ balance sheet characteristics on loan interest rate pass-through, and find that these additional factors are also important determinants for pass-through dispersion. However, after the recent global financial crisis, even banks with a high proportion of relationship lending have largely lowered loan interest rates by raising pass-through, and pass-through has not necessarily been determined in accordance with borrowing firms’ balance sheet characteristics. These results differ from those of recent studies on European countries. Possible background factors explaining this change are that (i) pressure to lower loan interest rates has risen due to extensive monetary easing and greater lending competition among banks, while Japan’s banking system as a whole has maintained its resilience in the post-crisis period; (ii) demand for bank loans has increased substantially due to disruptions in the market for alternative funding sources, such as commercial paper and corporate bonds; and (iii) public measures to increase bank loans have been broadly introduced in Japan.     

Outside Blockholders' Monitoring of Management and Debt Financing

Corporate governance mechanisms designed to alleviate manager‐shareholder agency conflicts can worsen shareholder‐bondholder conflicts. This study examines how one such corporate governance mechanism, monitoring by large outside shareholders, influences the choice between public and private debt. I conjecture and find that firms with higher outside blockholdings are inclined to choose bank loans over public debt when they borrow, consistent with the notion that banks are better monitors than public debt markets. I also find that bank loans carry less price protection than corporate bonds against increased agency risk associated with outside blocks. Corroborating the monitoring story, I document that bank loans contain more accounting‐based covenants and dividend restriction provisions for firms with higher outside blockholdings than for those with lower blockholdings. I find no such relation for public debt covenants. This supports that banks' monitoring of their loans counters the agency risk caused by blockholders. This study extends prior research that associates governance mechanisms with agency costs of debt, by incorporating lenders' differential monitoring mechanisms in the overall corporate governance system.     

Transparency in the interbank market and the volume of bank intermediated loans

In the present paper we study the equilibrium interaction through which the interbank market is related to the public lending and borrowing market. It turns out that this interaction is affected by the transparency in the interbank market. Interbank market transparency is modeled by means of more informative signals about future interbank rates. We find that more transparency might increase or decrease the volume of bank intermediated loans in the public market. In particular, the impact of more transparency on the volume of loans depends on the curvature of the marginal cost function of the banking firm. Furthermore, we find that expected profits of the bank are higher when the interbank market is more transparent.     

Explaining Interest Rate Spreads in Ghana*

Abstract: The question of the optimal spread between bank lending rates and rates that banks pay on deposits, which is fair to bankers, depositors and borrowers, has dogged economies for some time. In Ghana, there is widespread perception that the spread is too wide. Bankers, on the other hand justify the spread on the basis of economic variables that affect them. This paper contributes to the literature by identifying, in the case of Ghana, the short‐run response of the net interest margin of banks to changes in bank‐specific, industry‐specific and macroeconomic variables within the broad framework of Ho and Saunders (1981) . We find that increases in the following factors significantly increase net interest margin — bank market power (or concentration), bank size, staff costs, administrative costs, extent of bank risk aversion and the rate of inflation. On the other hand, increases in the following variables decrease net interest margin significantly — bank excess cash reserves, the central bank lending rate, management efficiency and the passage of time. To help reduce interest rate margins, we recommend that banks should not get too big, the central bank should consider lowering the capital adequacy ratio and banks should be required to pass on to borrowers the full extent of reductions or increases in the central bank lending rate. Continued efforts at keeping inflation at bay will also help.     

Growth opportunities,collateral and debt structure: the case of the Japanese machine manufacturing firms

We explore the determinants of debt structure by analyzing the Japanese machine manufacturing firms’ data from 1990 through 1996. We find that firms with abundant growth opportunities and scarce collateral are likely to borrow from banks rather than to issue bonds. This is robust even if we consider the simultaneous decision of the debt composition and leverage or managerial incentive. We also find that firms with abundant growth opportunities or collateral tend to depend on equity rather than on debt. Though banks reduce the agency costs of debt for growing firms, equity costs less than bank loans for them.     

Monetary Policies versus Regulatory Policies: Management of Peer to Peer Market Interest Rates

This paper studies how monetary and regulatory policies manage peer to peer (P2P) interest rates. Based on selected representative monetary and regulatory policies, this paper finds that easy monetary policies reduce the demand for online loans, thus reducing the market's interest rates. Monetary policies may increase the supply of online loans through rational expectation channels or reduce the demand for online loans through bank risk‐taking channels. Normative market‐based regulatory policy enables the P2P market to return to rationality, eliminates high‐risk investors and borrowers, and subsequently reduces market interest rates. Risk disposal‐based regulatory policy reduces market supply to some extent, resulting in a small increase in interest rates. Both easy monetary policies and regulatory policies have a great impact on the normal platforms. The interest rate of high‐risk platforms is less affected by the relevant policies, which is evidence that such platforms do not behave in accordance with the financial rules in general. Monetary policies mainly affect platforms with interest rates in a relatively normal range, while regulatory policies mainly focus on platforms with abnormal interest rates.     

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.     

Trust and contracting with foreign banks: Evidence from China

We empirically investigate whether firms doing business in regions characterized as having high social trust receive preferential treatment on loan contractual terms by foreign banks. Tracing cross-border syndicated lending activities in China, we document that firms located in provinces with higher social trust scores obtain significantly low costs of bank loans and experience less stringent collateral requirement. To address the potential endogeneity issues, we adopt an instrumental variable approach and a two-sided matching model, and report consistent results. We also estimate a system of three equations through three-stage-least square estimator to accommodate the joint determination of price and non-price terms in loan contracts. In addition, we find that the effect of social trust on cost of bank loans is more prominent for firms located in provinces with relatively less developed formal institutions.     

Financial Statement Quality and Debt Contracting: Evidence from a Survey of Commercial Lenders

We survey commercial bank lenders to better understand how they evaluate and react to variation in financial statement quality and how they view recent changes in accounting standards. A unique aspect of this study is that our respondents focus on medium‐size loans to private companies. In fact, more than 90 percent of the survey respondents primarily make credit decisions on loans between $250 thousand and $50 million. This is in contrast to prior archival research, which focuses primarily on very large loans to public firms or very small loans to private firms. We find that lenders in our sample distinguish among financial statements in terms of quality, including conservatism, primarily on the basis of accrual patterns and restatements. While this general result holds throughout our sample, financial statement quality is substantially more important for lenders making larger loans (over $10 million) as compared to very small loans (under $1 million). In addition, bank lenders are much more likely to respond to low‐quality reporting with collateral and guarantee requirements than with an increase in the interest rate charged. This finding is consistent for lenders making both larger and smaller loans. Finally, despite concerns in the academic literature, bank lenders in our sample actually hold a neutral‐to‐positive view of recent changes in accounting standards. In addition, most do not support current efforts to exempt private companies from some accounting standards.     

Some Evidence on the Relevance of Bank Behaviour for the Lending Channel in The Netherlands

This paper studies the behaviour of Dutch banks. We test the adjustment of banks' balance sheets in times of monetary policy changes during the period 1957–1991. As a reaction to a policy change, banks basically have two alternatives to adjust their net money creation: (1) sell securities in public capital markets, and/or issue long-term liabilities, and (2) change domestic loan supply. If banks opt for the latter a lending channel may be relevant, even in a small open economy with a fixed exchange rate and a high degree of international capital mobility. We test for the effectiveness of both indirect and direct instruments of monetary policy. It turns out that in case of changes in the official interest rate, the volume of bank loans is not affected and that banks display a kind of buffer-stock behaviour by diminishing their publicly traded assets. In situations with quantity restrictions on the growth of net money creation, however, the volume of loans is affected significantly when the quantity restriction is withdrawn thereby fulfilling a necessary condition for the bank lending channel to be effective.     

Dual-track interest rates and capital misallocation

The control-track interest rate and the market-track interest rate constitute China's dual-track interest rates. A theoretical model of dual-track interest rates and financial frictions is studied. In the model, bank loans are provided to state-owned enterprises with the control-track interest rate, private enterprises resort to shadow banking with the market-track interest rate. The interest rate wedge between these two interest rates distorts capital allocation, even driving a sector out of production. Full interest rate liberalization which eliminates the interest rate wedge alleviates cross-sector capital misallocation. However, the net effect on aggregate TFP is ambiguous due to the within-sector effect. Under calibrated parameters, full interest rate liberalization improves aggregate TFP moderately, unless the financial reform aimed to have SOEs and POEs face the same degree of financial frictions is also implemented.     

Bank-moneylender linkage as an alternative to bank competition in rural credit markets

This paper proposes a new method in which banks and moneylenderscan link in rural credit markets. Banks and moneylenders, twoof the major lenders in rural credit markets, differ in theirinformation on borrowers and costs of funds. Due to informationconstraints, banks must deny further loans to borrowers whocannot repay a certain amount. In the linkage, these borrowersobtain loans from moneylenders, repay the banks, and have continuingaccess. We then evaluate conditions under which the linkagewould be preferred to bank competition and find that the linkagedominates for a wide range of parameters. In light of recentproposals to liberalize Indian banking, the analysis providesa cautionary note to the limits of introducing banking competitionin rural credit markets and provides an alternative.     

我国银行体系改革的独特性

文章将我国银行体系改革纳入中国特色的渐进改革路径,分析了我国银行体系改革的独特性。文章认为,我国银行体系改革的独特性主要体现在以下七个方面：一是政府相机决策的结果;二是渐进改革成本的主要转移者;三是银行结构地区差距和存贷款差异明显;四是利率市场化严重不足;五是利息收入是银行收入的主要来源;六是银行同质性行为严重;七是表外业务的竞争并不充分。     

Depressed access to formal finance and the use of credit card debt in Chinese SMEs

SMEs (small and micro enterprises) in developing countries are in general financially depressed; business owners thus resort to other financial instruments (here, personal credit cards) when access to bank loans is prohibited. By investigating two different types of SMEs (namely, informal businesses and formal SMEs) in China, we find that SMEs turn to credit card debt as a substitute when they fail to obtain bank loans. Specifically, we find that households with informal businesses are more likely to use credit cards when their businesses are financially constrained. We also find that when financially constrained, formal SMEs are more likely to carry credit card debt and are also carrying more. This relationship persists after selection issues are addressed. However, credit card debt and bank loans are hardly perfect substitutes as these two instruments may function differently. Consistently, we find that even with bank loans, formal SMEs still carry substantial credit card debt. Additionally, compared to those with no fund need and thus no bank loan, formal SMEs with bank loans are carrying more credit card debt.     

An empirical analysis of the factors determining the financial crisis in Asia

This article tests a hypothesis that the causes of the Asian financial crisis are weaknesses in the balance sheet of financial institutions, high international interest rates, high short-term external debts, excessive loans, and continuing large current account deficits. It also tests a hypothesis regarding the determination of nonperforming bank loans. Empirical tests are carried out with panel data on seven countries in Asia—Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand—for the 1995 through 1997 period. The 3-month LIBOR interest rate and nonperforming loan rates of banks are found to be the major determinants of the Asian financial crisis. The nonperforming bank loan ratios are explained by the corporate leverage ratio. In addition, both the corporate high leverage ratio and LIBOR interest rates are found to significantly affect the outcome of the Asian crisis. Lowering world interest rates and taking the measures of individual Asian countries to reduce nonperforming assets and debt-to-equity ratios would be very effective in preventing reoccurrence of the crisis.     

Monetary policy transmission through the bank lending channel in Thailand

This paper investigates the strength of the bank lending channel in the transmission of monetary policy in Thailand. Bank behavior is captured by quarterly balance sheet data for ten commercial banks of diverse size for the period 2007-2016. Based on a flexible form profit function, bank supply and demand equations are estimated that capture lending and funding choices. The estimation results are used to derive time-dependent supply and demand elasticities which are then combined with estimates of pass-through from the policy rate to retail rates to simulate the dynamic impact of a monetary tightening on bank portfolio allocations. Due to pass-through differentials among retail interest rates, an increase in the policy rate is shown to raise the cost of loan-production relative to the return on loans, thereby motivating banks to contract their lending. Small banks show a greater degree of loan contraction than large banks because large banks are better able to fund continued lending through debt issuance. Because the Thai economy relies heavily on bank loans, these findings suggest that the bank lending channel is an important conduit for the transmission of monetary policy in Thailand.     

The role of information sharing in trade credit distribution: evidence from Thailand

Prior research has shown that information sharing among lenders facilitates bank credit allocation and reduces default rates. We examine the role of information sharing in trade credit allocation using a sample of publicly traded firms in Thailand over the 1994–2005 period. Taking the establishment of a private credit bureau in 1999 as signalling improvement in information sharing among lenders, we obtain three main results in the improved information sharing period: (1) Thai firms have become less dependent on supplier credit; (2) financially constrained firms redistribute more funds via trade credit; and (3) the relationships between the use of trade credit and firm‐specific factors such as liquidity, free cash flow, tangible assets, interest cost ratio, and firm size weaken as information sharing improves. Our results are consistent with the view that better information sharing facilitates credit allocation. Hence, policies aiming at facilitating information exchange among financial intermediaries should be supported. We also find support for the view that bank credit substitutes for trade credit. This substitution lowers firms' cost of capital, given that trade credit is assumed to be more costly than bank loans.     

Common Auditors and Private Bank Loans*

We show that when banks and borrowers share the same audit firm, borrowers receive lower interest rates, after controlling for potentially confounding director connectedness. The common auditor effect is observed only for opaque borrowers, and is greatest when the same audit engagement office audits the bank and borrower. A common auditor connection also matters more for longer‐tenured auditors, for geographically proximate borrowers, and when the syndicate involves fewer lenders. The effect does not hold for auditors recently sanctioned by the PCAOB. Finally, the interest rate discount is not the consequence of homophily or biased decision making, based on a comparison of postloan performance of firms with common auditor loans versus those with noncommon auditor loans.