Risk-based capital requirements for mortgage loans

We contribute to the debate over the reform of the Basel Accord by developing risk-based capital requirements for mortgage loans held in portfolio by financial intermediaries. Our approach employs simulation of both economic variables that affect default incidence and conditional loss probability distributions. Results indicate that appropriate capital charges for credit risk vary substantially with loan characteristics and portfolio geographic diversification. Hence, rules that offer little risk differentiation, including the current Basel I regime and “standardized” approach proposed in Basel II result in significant divergence between regulatory and economic capital. These results highlight the incentive problems inherent in simplified methods of capital regulation.     

The role of venture capital in SME loans in China

We examine the role of venture capital (VC) in small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) loans through samples on the National Equities Exchange and Quotations (NEEQ) in China. We find that VC backup can effectively improve SMEs’ access to bank loans, especially short-term loans, at lower costs, and loans without collateral. VC backed loans are also less likely to default and positively related to SMEs’ performance. Our findings further suggest that VC backup reduces the information asymmetry between banks and SMEs through both “hard” information of better-quality financial statement and “soft” information of SMEs’ creditability. Evidenced by enhanced SME financing conditions and bank efficiency in loan allocation, the combined debt-equity financing scheme can be a meaningful new ingredient in the financial infrastructure of the largest emerging market.     

Economic value in tranching of syndicated loans

This paper presents a theory to explain the economic value of tranching and provides empirical evidence to support the theoretical implications. I show that riskier firms are more likely to take loans with multiple tranches. Therefore, the average credit spread on a syndicated loan with multiple tranches is higher than that on a non-tranched loan. However, after accounting for the risk characteristics of a tranched loan, I show that borrowings that are a part of tranched loans have lower credit spreads than otherwise identical non-tranched loans. I also show that the benefits of tranching accrue primarily to riskier borrowers.     

The internal capital markets of business groups: Evidence from intra-group loans

We study business groups? internal capital markets using a unique data set on intra-group lending in Chile (1990–2009). In line with groups? financing advantage, firms that borrow internally have higher investment, leverage, and return on equity (ROE) than other firms. At the margin, controlling shareholders have higher cash-flow rights in borrowing firms than in lending firms. However, there is no robust evidence of minority shareholders losing out from intra-group loans as tunneling predicts. Our evidence is consistent with the idea that strict regulation and disclosure requirements for intra-group loans, which are features of the Chilean market, reduce the risk of expropriation in pyramids.     

The impact of bank ownership concentration on impaired loans and capital adequacy

This paper examines the impact of bank ownership concentration on two indicators of bank riskiness, namely banks’ non-performing loans and capital adequacy. Using balance sheet information for around 500 commercial banks from more than 50 countries averaged over 2005–2007, we find that concentrated ownership (proxied by different levels of shareholding) significantly reduces a bank’s non-performing loans ratio, conditional on supervisory control and shareholders protection rights. Furthermore, ownership concentration affects the capital adequacy ratio positively conditional on shareholder protection. At low levels of shareholder protection rights and supervisory control, ownership concentration reduces bank riskiness.     

Board quality and the cost of debt capital: The case of bank loans

We analyze the relation between comprehensive measures of board quality and the cost as well as the non-price terms of bank loans. We show that firms that have higher quality boards with a greater advisory presence borrow at lower interest rates. This relation exists even after controlling for ownership structure, CEO compensation policy, and shareholder protection, as well as the size and financial characteristics of the borrower and of the loan. We also show evidence that board quality and other governance characteristics influence the likelihood that loans have covenant requirements, but the relations differ by covenant type. When we combine the direct and indirect costs of bank loans we find that firms with large, independent, experienced, and diverse boards and lower institutional ownership borrow more cheaply. Overall, the evidence indicates that board quality impacts the cost of bank debt.     

Economic and regulatory capital allocation for revolving retail exposures

We present two internal capital allocation models and compare the capital ratios they generate with those prescribed by the latest revision of Basel’s New Capital Accord proposal for advanced retail portfolios, which allows for explicit future margin income recognition. Given a test portfolio of credit card exposures that we assemble, we find that Basel’s ratios are closer to those generated by our models for low credit risk segments. We attribute the discrepancies to the different ways Basel and our models account for future margin income, to Basel’s assumptions about asset correlations and to one model taking macroeconomic conditions into account.     

亚行首次对华提供政策性贷款,支持首都地区治理空气污染

亚洲开发银行(简称:亚行)已批准为中国提供一笔总额为三亿美元的政策性贷款(PBL),这是亚行首次向中国提供政策性贷款,旨在帮助中国解决长期困扰首都及周边地区的空气污染问题.通过减少该地区的煤炭使用,这些举措也将有助于中国政府实现其在《联合国气候变化框架公约》第21次缔约方会议中承诺的温室气体减排目标.     

基于Copula函数的保险公司经济资本配置研究

经济资本的度量及配置是风险管理的核心内容。本文利用Copula函数构建保险公司总体风险的联合分布函数,结合TCE方法来度量保险公司经济资本,并利用动态规划方法对经济资本最优配置模型求解。最后结合中国人民财产保险股份有限公司的数据进行实证。通过研究发现,我国财险公司内部偿付能力状况较好,但险种结构有待优化。     

Corporate tax,capital structure,and the accessibility of bank loans: Evidence from China

In this paper, we investigate whether listed firms in China adjust their capital structure in response to an increase in the corporate tax rate. Although theories of capital structure suggest that corporate tax is an important determinant of capital structure, how exogenous changes of the tax rate affect firms’ leverage decisions has not been fully explored. We examine a unique circumstance in which the Chinese government increased the corporate tax rate of firms that had previously received local government tax rebates. The evidence indicates that these firms increased their leverage when the corporate tax rate increased. Further investigation suggests that the adjustment of leverage was mostly driven by firms with a high level of access to bank loans.     

Economic freedom and cross-border venture capital performance

We investigate the determinants of cross-border venture capital (VC) performance using a large sample of 10,205 cross-border VC investments by 1906 foreign VC firms (VCs) in 6535 domestic portfolio companies. We focus on the impact of a domestic country's economic freedom on the performance of both VC investments and portfolio companies using a probit model and the Cox hazard model. After controlling for other related factors of domestic countries, portfolio companies, VCs and the global VC market, as well as year and industry fixed effects, we find that a domestic country's economic freedom is crucial to cross-border VC performance. In particular, in a more economically free country, as measured by the raw values of, quartiles of or the ranking in the index of economic freedom (IEF), a foreign VC-backed portfolio company is more likely to pull off a successful exit through an IPO (initial public offering) or an M&A (merger and acquisition), and a foreign VC firm is likely to spend a shorter investment duration in the portfolio company. We also identify interesting evidence on the impact of many other level factors of domestic countries, portfolio companies, VCs and the global VC market on cross-border VC performance.     

Assessing bank competition for consumer loans

Based on frontier analysis, we derive inferences of bank consumer loan competition from estimating a revenue-cost ‘competition efficiency’ (CE) frontier. The competitiveness of the $400 billion U.S. bank consumer loan market is then assessed by comparing results from our frontier CE measure with other competition measures, such as HHI, Lerner Index, and H-Statistic. These measures are weakly related to one another and only half of them identify banks with the highest loan price as also being the least competitive. This is the opposite of what is expected. Using the frontier CE measure, the most and least competitive banks are not located in the most populous states and the largest banks are underrepresented. Overall, the HHI should not be used to indicate competition.     

Economic policy uncertainty and the cost of capital

This paper examines the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the cost of capital in China. We find that an increase in EPU results in a significantly higher cost of capital and this impact is mainly through increasing the cost of equity instead of the cost of debt. There is no significant difference between the impact of EPU on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and the one on private firms, but a stronger impact on large firms than on small firms is found. Further analysis suggests that the stronger impact on large firms occurs only in private firms instead of SOEs. We provide and test several channels through which EPU might affect the cost of capital. Our results suggest that EPU influences the cost of capital through increasing information asymmetry and reducing the quality of internal controls.     

On stock-based loans

We investigate the equilibrium interest rate charges on non-recourse and recourse loans secured by stock. In such loans, the client retains the option to prepay and recover the collateral stock. We adopt a structural model of the firm where debt levels, with endogenous bankruptcy, affect equity dynamics. Complicating matters, the link between total equity and the price of a share of stock that forms the collateral depends on the extent of dilutions and buybacks that occur. For levered firms, due to dilution in bad states of nature, stock prices typically fall faster than equity values; and for firms that engage in buybacks in good states of nature, stock prices will rise faster than equity values. Banks that ignore these features underestimate the equilibrium interest rate charge on stock-based loans. We provide an analysis of individual stock-based loans and their portfolio characteristics, the latter of which can be used by banks to ascertain capital requirements.     

Announcement effects of convertible bond loans and warrant-bond loans: An empirical analysis for the Dutch market

This study investigates the announcement effects of offerings of convertible bond loans and warrant-bond loans using data for the Dutch market. The event study analysis shows that announcement effects of convertible bonds are associated with positive but insignificant abnormal returns and that announcements of warrant-bonds are associated with significant positive abnormal returns. These findings are similar to the results for Japanese hybrid debt, as reported by Kang et al. (1995) (Kang, J.K., Kim, Y.C., Park, K.J., Stulz, R.M., 1995. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, pp. 257–270) and Kang and Stulz (1996) (Kang, J.K., Stulz, R.M., 1996. Review of Financial Studies, pp. 109–139), but they contrast with studies for the United States that generally find significant negative abnormal returns for convertible bond loans and insignificant negative abnormal returns for warrant-bond loans. Our results cannot be attributed to differences in the corporate governance structures of the Netherlands and the United States. We find that the positive abnormal returns for the warrant-bond loans are caused by the packaging of the announcements with other (good) firm-specific news.     

Risk-based pricing of interest rates for consumer loans

By focusing on observable default risk's role in loan terms and the subsequent consequences for household behavior, this paper shows that lenders increasingly used risk-based pricing of interest rates in consumer loan markets during the mid-1990s. It tests three resulting predictions: First, the premium paid per unit of risk should have increased over this period. Second, debt levels should have reacted accordingly. Third, fewer high-risk households should have been denied credit, further contributing to the interest rate spread between the highest- and lowest-risk borrowers.For people obtaining loans, the premium paid per unit of risk did indeed become significantly larger after the mid-1990s. For example, for a 0.01 increase in the probability of bankruptcy, the corresponding interest-rate increase tripled for first mortgages, doubled for automobile loans and rose nearly six-fold for second mortgages. Additionally, changes in borrowing levels and debt access reflected these new pricing practices, particularly for secured debt. Borrowing increased most for the low-risk households who saw their relative borrowing costs fall. Furthermore, while very high-risk households gained expanded access to credit, the increases in their risk premiums implied that their borrowing as a whole either rose less or, sometimes, fell.     

Forecasting bank loans loss-given-default

With the advent of the new Basel Capital Accord, banking organizations are invited to estimate credit risk capital requirements using an internal ratings based approach. In order to be compliant with this approach, institutions must estimate the loss-given-default, the fraction of the credit exposure that is lost if the borrower defaults. This study evaluates the ability of a parametric fractional response regression and a nonparametric regression tree model to forecast bank loan credit losses. The out-of-sample predictive ability of these models is evaluated at several recovery horizons after the default event. The out-of-time predictive ability is also estimated for a recovery horizon of 1 year. The performance of the models is benchmarked against recovery estimates given by historical averages. The results suggest that regression trees are an interesting alternative to parametric models in modeling and forecasting loss-given-default.     

建立农业银行市场化清收机制的构想

文章研究建立农业银行市场化清收机制问题。     

A model for determining mispricing of sovereign risk loans

Banks are known to use non-price terms in arriving at an effective loan rate. We demonstrate that international commercial banks use similar ‘credit rationing’ terms in pricing medium-term sovereign debt. Specifically, bankers adjust the loan rate, the maturity, and grace period in order to accommodate borrowers, specific needs while maintaining a fair return for the risk of the loan. These taken together comprise an all-in effective loan rate. We present a unique model using two stage least squares, which can easily be used to determine loan mispricing. The model is demonstrated using simulated loan pricing data.     

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.