Bank ownership,privatization, and performance: Evidence from a transition country

This paper combines the static effect of ownership and the dynamic effect of privatization on bank performance in China over 1995–2010, reporting a significantly higher performance by private intermediaries – joint stock commercial banks and city commercial banks – relative to state-owned commercial banks. However, publicly traded banks, subject to multiple monitoring and vetting in capital markets, perform better regardless of ownership status. The privatization of banks has improved performance with respect to revenue inflow and efficiency gains in the short- or long-run (initial public offerings). The positive long-run effect is more relevant and significant for banking institutions with minority foreign ownership. Moreover, this paper innovatively estimates interest income efficiency and non-interest income efficiency at the same time. The results suggest that Chinese banks are much more efficient in generating interest income than raising non-interest revenue, although the latter aspect has improved significantly during the sample period.     

Improvements in loss given default forecasts for bank loans

An accurate forecast of the parameter loss given default (LGD) of loans plays a crucial role for risk-based decision making by banks. We theoretically analyze problems arising when forecasting LGDs of bank loans that lead to inconsistent estimates and a low predictive power. We present several improvements for LGD estimates, considering length-biased sampling, different loan characteristics depending on the type of default end, and different information sets according to the default status. We empirically demonstrate the capability of our proposals based on a data set of 69,985 defaulted bank loans. Our results are not only important for banks, but also for regulators, because neglecting these issues leads to a significant underestimation of capital requirements.     

Effects of debt collection practices on loss given default

In this article, we propose an LGD model that is solely based on legal and internal debt collection actions. Our model is supported by empirical tests in which it performs better than a usual firm specific model. This result is noteworthy when we recall that the model has only binary variables that indicate whether an action was taken. Our model can be applied to update the LGD of distressed firms in a timely manner reflecting the actions taken during the debt collection period. It also can be used to assess the effect of a recovery action and to determine whether to apply an action to certain types of debt.     

Market discipline, financial crisis and regulatory changes: Evidence from Indonesian banks

Following the 1997/1998 financial crisis, Indonesian banks experienced major regulatory changes, including the adoption of the blanket guarantee scheme (BGS) in 1998, a limited guarantee (LG) in 2005, and changes in capital regulation in 1998 and 2001. We examine the impact of these regulatory changes on market discipline during the period 1995-2009. The price of deposits is used to measure market discipline in a dynamic panel data methodology on a sample of 104 commercial banks. We find a weakening of market discipline following the introduction of the BGS. The result is consistent with the deposit insurance scheme being credible in the lower capital requirement environment. The adoption of LG in a recovering economy also mitigates the role of market discipline. However, market discipline is more pronounced in listed banks than unlisted banks and in foreign banks than domestic banks. These results have important implications for banking regulation and supervision, particularly during a crisis period.     

Bank discrimination, holding bank ownership, and economic consequences: Evidence from China

This paper finds that compared with Chinese state-owned firms, non-state-owned firms have a greater propensity to hold significant ownership in commercial banks. These results are consistent with the notion that because non-state-owned firms are more likely to suffer bank discrimination for political reasons, they tend to address their financing disadvantages by building economic bonds with banks. We also find that among non-state-owned firms, those that hold significant bank ownership have lower interest expenses, and are less likely to increase cash holdings but more likely to obtain short-term loans when the government monetary policy is tight. These results suggest that the firms building economic bonds with banks can enjoy benefits such as lower financial expenses and better lending terms during difficult times. Finally, we find that non-state-owned firms with significant bank ownership have better operating performance. Overall, we find that firms can reduce discrimination through holding bank ownership.     

Understanding the rise and decline of the Japanese main bank system: The changing effects of bank rent extraction

This paper shows how main bank rent extraction affects corporate decisions about investment and financing during financial regulatory reform. Our model predicts that limited loanable funds can initially contain main bank controlled overinvestment, even when new equity is available to the firm. Abundant funds facilitate overinvestment to the detriment of firm profitability. A shift of control rights back to the firm due to financial deregulation produces an “equity for upside potential and bank debt for downside risk” bias against the banks. A stock market and real estate boom in Japan made it harder than ever for the banks to diversify risk. The insights from this analysis help explain why Japan’s main bank system was beneficial in the (capital constrained) postwar period but became harmful during the (capital abundant and even bubbly) 1980s, and why the adverse shocks of the post-deregulation 1990s had such severe effects on the banking system.     

Japan’s banking crisis: An event-study perspective

We calculate abnormal stock returns for Japanese non-financial companies around major events associated with the banking crisis (1995–2000), and find that not all companies were equally sensitive to the malaise of the banking sector: the most affected were small, leveraged, low-tech companies with low credit ratings and low market to book ratios. This is consistent with “credit crunch” theories (companies with limited access to financial markets are sensitive to changes in bank lending) and with claims that innovation is rarely financed by bank debt. We do not find much evidence on the alleged misallocation of loans to support ailing bank clients.     

The Risk Map: A new tool for validating risk models

This paper presents a new method to validate risk models: the Risk Map. This method jointly accounts for the number and the magnitude of extreme losses and graphically summarizes all information about the performance of a risk model. It relies on the concept of a super exception, which is defined as a situation in which the loss exceeds both the standard Value-at-Risk (VaR) and a VaR defined at an extremely low probability. We then formally test whether the sequences of exceptions and super exceptions are rejected by standard model validation tests. We show that the Risk Map can be used to validate market, credit, operational, or systemic risk estimates (VaR, stressed VaR, expected shortfall, and CoVaR) or to assess the performance of the margin system of a clearing house.     

How corporate governance affects payout policy under agency problems and external financing constraints

This paper analyzes the effect of corporate governance on the payout policy when a firm has both agency problems and external financing constraints. We empirically test whether strong corporate governance would lead to higher payout to minimize agency problems (outcome hypothesis), or to lower payout to avoid costly external financing (substitute hypothesis). We find that firms with higher (lower) external financing constraints tend to decrease (increase) payout ratio with an improvement in their corporate governance. The results are consistent with our hypothesis that the relation between payout and corporate governance is reversed depending on the relative sizes of agency and external financing costs.     

A framework for assessing the systemic risk of major financial institutions

In this paper we propose a framework for measuring and stress testing the systemic risk of a group of major financial institutions. The systemic risk is measured by the price of insurance against financial distress, which is based on ex ante measures of default probabilities of individual banks and forecasted asset return correlations. Importantly, using realized correlations estimated from high-frequency equity return data can significantly improve the accuracy of forecasted correlations. Our stress testing methodology, using an integrated micro–macro model, takes into account dynamic linkages between the health of major US banks and macro-financial conditions. Our results suggest that the theoretical insurance premium that would be charged to protect against losses that equal or exceed 15% of total liabilities of 12 major US financial firms stood at $110 billion in March 2008 and had a projected upper bound of $250 billion in July 2008.     

Practical methods for measuring and managing operational risk in the financial sector: A clinical study

This paper analyzes the implications of the advanced measurement approach (AMA) for the assessment of operational risk. Through a clinical case study on a matrix of two selected business lines and two event types of a large financial institution, we develop a procedure that addresses the major issues faced by banks in the implementation of the AMA. For each cell, we calibrate two truncated distributions functions, one for “normal” losses and the other for the “extreme” losses. In addition, we propose a method to include external data in the framework. We then estimate the impact of operational risk management on bank profitability, through an adapted measure of RAROC. The results suggest that substantial savings can be achieved through active management techniques.     

A geographically weighted approach to measuring efficiency in panel data: The case of US saving banks

This paper discusses a new approach to controlling for the environment when estimating efficiency. In response to the literature on the international comparison of bank efficiency, we draw the attention to a local dimension of comparison. By introducing geographical weights and estimating local frontiers for each US savings bank in the 2001–09 period, we find that the bank technical performance is higher for most banks in comparison to a fixed-effects approach. This result highlights the importance of taking into account the local environment and constraints while analyzing banks’ performance, so as not to consider the factors that are exogenous to these institutions as inefficiencies. Further analysis could improve the weighs calculation by employing other measures of interconnectedness besides geographical distance.     

The pernicious effects of contaminated data in risk management

Banks hold capital to guard against unexpected surges in losses and long freezes in financial markets. The minimum level of capital is set by banking regulators as a function of the banks’ own estimates of their risk exposures. As a result, a great challenge for both banks and regulators is to validate internal risk models. We show that a large fraction of US and international banks uses contaminated data when testing their models. In particular, most banks validate their market risk model using profit-and-loss (P/L) data that include fees and commissions and intraday trading revenues. This practice is inconsistent with the definition of the employed market risk measure. Using both bank data and simulations, we find that data contamination has dramatic implications for model validation and can lead to the acceptance of misspecified risk models. Moreover, our estimates suggest that the use of contaminated data can significantly reduce (market-risk induced) regulatory capital.     

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.     

Sudden crash or long torture: The timing of market reactions to operational loss events

An emerging literature investigating market responses to operational loss announcements concludes that financial markets tend usually to overreact to loss events. This overreaction is commonly interpreted as reputational damage. We revisit this issue by focusing on the timing of markets’ reactions and highlight two variables: the start and the speed of stock markets’ responses. It appears that when operational losses are caused by internal fraud the negative market reaction materializes earlier and faster. Industry sectors and prevailing market conditions influence the timing of market reactions as well. Our empirical findings reveal moreover that a higher initial grading of the company is associated with a later stock market reaction to the announcement. While the relative magnitude and the length of markets’ overreactions is positively correlated to the concomitant downgrading our study shows that overreaction magnitudes are also strongly correlated to our estimate of the total duration of the reaction.     

Using accounting ratios to distinguish between Islamic and conventional banks in the GCC region

This study determines whether it is possible to distinguish between conventional and Islamic banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region on the basis of financial characteristics alone. Islamic banks operate under different principles, such as risk sharing and the prohibition of interest, yet both types of banks face similar competitive conditions. The combination of effects makes it unclear whether financial ratios will differ significantly between the two categories of banks. We input 26 financial ratios into logit, neural network, and k-means nearest neighbor classification models to determine whether researchers or regulators could use these ratios to distinguish between the two types of banks. Although the means of several ratios are similar between the two categories of banks, non-linear classification techniques (k-means nearest neighbors and neural networks) are able to correctly distinguish Islamic from conventional banks in out-of-sample tests at about a 92% success rate.     

Asymmetric effects of the business cycle on bank credit risk

Prior empirical research on the relation between credit risk and the business cycle has failed to properly investigate the presence of asymmetric effects. To fill this gap, we examine this relation both at the aggregate and the bank level exploiting a unique dataset on Italian banks’ borrowers’ default rates. We employ threshold regression models that allow to endogenously establish different regimes identified by the thresholds over/below which credit risk is more/less cyclical. We find that not only are the effects of the business cycle on credit risk more pronounced during downturns but cyclicality is also higher for those banks with riskier portfolios.     

Strong boards,CEO power and bank risk-taking

This study examines the relevance of bank board structure on bank risk-taking. Using a sample of 212 large US bank holding companies over 1997–2004 (1534 observations), this study finds that strong bank boards (boards reflecting more of bank shareholders interest) particularly small and less restrictive boards positively affect bank risk-taking. In contrast, CEO power (CEO’s ability to control board decision) negatively affects bank risk-taking. These results are consistent with the bank contracting environment and robust to several proxies for bank risk-takings and different estimation techniques.     

Charter Value, Risk-Taking Incentives, and Emerging Competition for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

This paper examines two forces that may soon increase competition in the U.S. secondary conforming mortgage market: (1) the Federal Home Loan Bank mortgage purchase programs, and (2) the adoption of revised risk-based capital requirements for large U.S. banks (Basel II). We argue that this competition is likely to reduce the growth and relative importance of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and hence reduce their charter values and effective capital. Such developments could, in turn, lead to more risky behaviors by these two companies. This last consequence warrants greater supervisory awareness and legal authorities.     

Economic value,competition and financial distress in the European banking system

In this paper we examine the impact of a large number of factors at the bank level (liquidity and credit risks, asset size, income diversification and market power), at the industry level (banking concentration) and macro-level (real GDP growth) on bank financial distress using an unbalanced panel of 308 European commercial banks between 1996 and 2009. The observations falling below a given threshold of the empirical distribution of the Shareholder Value Ratio proxy bank financial distress. We employ a panel probit regression and, given the presence of overlapping data giving rise to residual autocorrelation, we use the Bertschek and Lechner (1998) robust estimator of the covariance matrix of parameters. We show that credit risk, liquidity risk and bank market power are the most influential determinants of distressed Shareholder Value Ratio. Finally we evaluate the model out-sample forecasting performance over the 2008–2009 crisis period.