Safer ratios,riskier portfolios: Banks׳ response to government aid

Using novel data on bank applications to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), we study the effect of government assistance on bank risk taking. Bailed-out banks initiate riskier loans and shift assets toward riskier securities after receiving government support. However, this shift in risk occurs mostly within the same asset class and, therefore, remains undetected by regulatory capital ratios, which indicate improved capitalization at bailed-out banks. Consequently, these banks appear safer according to regulatory ratios, but show an increase in volatility and default risk. These findings are robust to controlling for credit demand and account for selection of TARP recipients by exploiting banks? geography-based political connections as an instrument for bailout approvals.     

Did quantitative easing reduce the borrowing costs of firms? The risk-taking channel

This paper examines the effect of the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing (QE) on the cost of bank loans and documents large heterogeneous effects across different firms. In QE1, the average loan spread is 22.7 percent lower compared to the non-QE period. This effect falls in QE2 and OT and then rises in QE3 and the tapering period. The rates of riskier loans are restrained more than less risky loans during QEs as banks take more risks by offering lower rates to attract risky borrowers. The Fed mortgage-backed securities purchases have a larger impact in narrowing the borrowing cost difference between riskier and safer loans than the Fed Treasury purchases. Our results are robust to borrower, year-quarter and bank fixed effects. Overall, our findings support that the risk-taking channel of QE plays a significant role in the corporate bank loan market.     

Laying off credit risk: Loan sales versus credit default swaps

How do markets for debt cash flow rights, with and without accompanying control rights, affect the efficiency of lending? A bank makes a loan, learns if it needs monitoring, and then decides whether to lay off credit risk. The bank can transfer credit risk by either selling the loan or buying a credit default swap (CDS). With a CDS, the originating bank retains the loan's control rights; with loan sales, control rights pass to the loan buyer. Credit risk transfer leads to excessive monitoring of riskier credits and insufficient monitoring of safer credits. Increases in banks' cost of equity capital exacerbate these effects. For riskier credits, loan sales typically dominate CDS but not for safer credits. Once repeated lending and consequent reputation concerns are modeled, although CDSs remain dominated by loan sales for riskier credits, for safer credits they can dominate loan sales, supporting better monitoring (albeit to a limited extent) while allowing efficient risk sharing. Restrictions on the bank's ability to sell the loan expand the range in which CDSs are used and monitoring is too low.     

Does Regulatory Capital Arbitrage, Reputation, or Asymmetric Information Drive Securitization?

Banks can choose to keep loans on balance sheet as private debt or transform them into public debt via asset securitization. Securitization transfers credit and interest rate risk, increases liquidity, augments fee income, and improves capital ratios. Yet many lenders still retain a portion of their loans in portfolio. Do lenders exploit asymmetric information to sell riskier loans into the public markets or retain riskier loans in portfolio? If riskier loans are indeed retained in portfolio, is this motivated by regulatory capital incentives (regulatory capital arbitrage), or a concern for reputation? We examine these questions empirically and find that securitized mortgage loans have experienced lower ex-post defaults than those retained in portfolio, providing evidence consistent with either the capital arbitrage or reputation explanation for securitization.     

Portfolio rebalancing and the transmission of large-scale asset purchase programs: Evidence from the Euro area

The European Central Bank's large-scale asset purchase program targeted safe assets, but also aimed to impact prices of risky assets. The mechanism for this is the “portfolio rebalancing channel”, where financial institutions’ portfolio decisions impact financial prices more broadly. We examine this mechanism using cross-sectional heterogeneity in how the financial portfolios of different sectors of the European economy were affected around the purchase program. We find evidence of rebalancing. In vulnerable countries, where macroeconomic unbalances and relatively high risk premia remained, we document rebalancing towards riskier securities. In less vulnerable countries, based on granular information for large European banks, we document rebalancing toward bank loans.     

Bank Leverage Limits and Regulatory Arbitrage: Old Question-New Evidence

Banks are regulated more than most firms, making them good subjects to study regulatory arbitrage (avoidance). Their latest arbitrage opportunity may be the new leverage rule covering the largest U.S. banks; leverage rules require equal capital against assets with unequal risks, so banks can effectively relax the leverage constraint by increasing asset risk. Consistent with that conjecture, we find that banks covered by the new rule shifted to riskier, higher yielding securities relative to control banks. The shift began almost precisely when the rule was finalized in 2014, well before it took effect in 2018. Security level analysis suggests banks actively added riskier securities, rather than merely shedding safer ones. Despite the risk shifting, overall bank risk did not increase, evidently because the banks most constrained by the new leverage rule significantly increased leverage capital ratios.     

Bank portfolio choice with private information about loan quality: Theory and implications for regulation

This paper models bank asset choice when shareholders know more about loan quality than do outsiders. Because of this informational asymmetry, the price of loans in the secondary market is the price for poor quality loans. Banks desire to hold marketable securities in order to avoid liquidating good quality loans at the ‘lemons’ price, but also have a countervailing desire to hold risky loans in order to maximize the value of deposit insurance. In this context, portfolio composition and bank safety is examined as a function of the market distribution of loan quality, and the distribution of deposits. The model suggests that off-balance sheet commitments have little effect on bankruptcy risk, and induce banks to hold more securities. We also show that an increase in the bank equity requirement will unambiguously increase bank safety in the long run. In the short run, banks are unambiguously riskier on-balance sheet, although the effect on bank safety is ambiguous.     

Bank loans during the 2008 quantitative easing

We examine the effect of quantitative easing on the supply of bank loans. During the Fed’s quantitative easing programs, lending banks reduced relatively more loan spreads, offered longer loan maturities, provided larger loans, and loosened more covenants for firms whose long-term bond ratings were below BBB and were lower than those with investment-grade bond ratings. Furthermore, we find that new bank loans in this period were associated with a reduction in a firm’s value and an increase in default risk. These results indicate that banks took greater risk during the 2008 quantitative easing by relaxing lending standards to relatively riskier borrowers.     

Information Opacity,Credit Risk,and the Design of Loan Contracts for Private Firms

This paper examines the structure and cost of a large sample of bank loans to private firms. Compared to public firms, private firms are more informationally opaque and riskier. The results suggest that the design of a loan to a private firm is significantly different from that to a public firm. Bank loans to private firms are more likely to be by a sole lender, collateralized, and have sweep covenants than loans to public firms. The cost of borrowing is higher for a private firm than for a public firm, even after holding constant firm and loan characteristics.     

Financial Protectionism? First Evidence

We examine large public interventions in the financial sector, such as bank nationalizations and search for “financial protectionism,” a decrease in the quantity and/or an increase in the price of loans that banks from one country make to borrowers resident in another. We use a bank‐level panel data set spanning all U.K.‐resident banks between 1997Q3 and 2010Q1. After nationalization, foreign banks reduced their fraction of British loans by about 11% and increased their effective interest rates by about 70 basis points. In contrast, nationalized British banks did not significantly change either their loan mix or effective interest rates.     

Who Borrows from the Lender of Last Resort?

We analyze lender of last resort (LOLR) lending during the European sovereign debt crisis. Using a novel data set on all central bank lending and collateral, we show that weakly capitalized banks took out more LOLR loans and used riskier collateral than strongly capitalized banks. We also find that weakly capitalized banks used LOLR loans to buy risky assets such as distressed sovereign debt. This resulted in a reallocation of risky assets from strongly to weakly capitalized banks. Our findings cannot be explained by classical LOLR theory. Rather, they point to risk taking by banks, both independently and with the encouragement of governments, and highlight the benefit of unifying LOLR lending and bank supervision.     

Did Structured Credit Fuel the LBO Boom?

The leveraged buyout (LBO) boom of 2004 to 2007 was fueled by growth in collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and other forms of securitization. Banks active in structured credit underwriting lent more for LBOs, indicating that bank lending policies linked LBO and CDO markets. LBO loans originated by large CDO underwriters were associated with lower spreads, weaker covenants, and greater use of bank debt in deal financing. Loans financed through structured credit markets did not lead to worse LBOs, overpayment, or riskier deal structures. Securitization markets altered banks' access to capital, affected their lending policies, and fueled the recent LBO boom.     

Are lending relationships beneficial or harmful for public credit guarantees? Evidence from Japan's Emergency Credit Guarantee Program

This paper examines the effectiveness of Japan's Emergency Credit Guarantee (ECG) Program set up during the financial turmoil following the failure of Lehman Brothers, in increasing credit availability and improving the ex-post performance of small businesses. In particular, using a unique firm–bank matched dataset, the paper examines whether lending relationships enhanced or dampened the effects of the ECG program. It is found that the ECG program significantly improved credit availability for firms using the program. However, when it was a relationship lender (main bank) that extended an ECG loan, the increased availability was partially, if not completely, offset by a decrease in non-ECG loans by the same bank. Further, propensity score matching estimations show that the ex-post performance of firms that received ECG loans from the main bank deteriorated more than that of firms that received non-ECG loans. We do not find such loan “substitution” or performance “deterioration” effects when a non-main bank extended ECG loans. Our findings suggest that close firm–bank relationships may have perverse effects on the efficacy of public credit guarantees.     

银行价格竞争、融资约束与企业研发投资——基于“中介效应”模型的实证研究

近年来我国利率市场化改革积极推进,实体经济发展积极向创新驱动转型,一个亟须研究厘清的关键问题是,银行业竞争如何驱动企业创新活动?本文关注银行价格竞争对企业创新的影响,以2013—2018年沪深两市的上市企业为样本,采用"中介效应"因果分析模型,实证检验了银行价格竞争对企业研发投资的影响,并识别出以融资约束为中介渠道的作用机制。研究发现,银行价格竞争不仅会提高银行的风险容忍度,直接增加R&D投资的信贷供给意愿,而且还会通过降低贷款价格和增加贷款可得性来缓解企业整体的融资约束,间接促进企业创新活动。这一机制在解除贷款利率管制之后以及在民营企业层面体现得更加明显。本文的研究结果对于深化金融市场化改革、改善金融服务实体经济效果以及实施经济创新驱动发展战略,具有明确的政策启示。     

The sensitivity of bank stock returns to real estate

According to the Federal Reserve Board, banking firms have recently been shifting significantly larger portions of their loan portfolios into real estate. This increase in real estate lending has caused concern about the continuing economic health of banks on the part of state and federal regulators, since changes in real estate returns, evidenced by changes in property value, can potentially have a significant impact on bank default risk and profit-ability. However, concerned parties do not seem to have explicitly considered the relationship between mortgage default risk and the specific characteristics of real estate investments.This study examines the sensitivities of stock returns for different bank groups, based on the percentage of total loans in real estate and the percentage of loans in five different mortgage categories (construction and development loans, farmland loans, one- to four-family residential loans, multifamily residential loans, and nonresidential and nonfarm loans), to changes in real estate market returns. This is done by developing and using a three-index model.The results of this study indicate that bank stocks, overall, are very sensitive to changes in real estae returns. Banks, with a larger portion of their total loans invested in all types of real estate loans, except farmland loans, are most sensitive to changes in real estate returns.     

Does regulatory forbearance matter for bank stability? Evidence from creditors’ perspective

Regulatory forbearance in times of corporate distress has been a common practice in many countries to achieve bank stability, particularly so in the absence of a unified bankruptcy code, yet very little is known in the context of emerging market economies. Exploiting variation of membership across banks in a corporate debt restructuring programme (CDR) sponsored by the central bank in India, this paper finds that the banks that made use of regulatory forbearance (RF) on the restructured corporate loans could increase their stability significantly due to the extension of low provisioning on restructured loans. However, the positive effect of RF diminishes at higher levels of market power, highlighting that member banks with higher market power tend to originate riskier assets (as reflected in their risk-weighted assets) under the auspices of this programme. Our results remain robust to different estimators (including propensity score matching), ownership structure, and alternative measures of bank stability.     

Bank loans and bond prices

We test whether bank loans change public bond yields. A 25% increase in bank debt raises bond yields by 8 bps, reflecting a trade-off between the benefits of bank cross-monitoring and higher bond risk. This effect is smaller for firms with no credit default swaps (CDSs) and with junk debt—scenarios where bank monitoring is most valuable. It is unlikely that firms with bank debt are riskier, because they are less likely to be downgraded and have lower loan spreads. We find similar results using a natural experiment around the 2014 oil shock. Our results highlight how bond yields depend on incentive conflicts among creditors.     

Bank systemic risk and corporate investment: Evidence from the US

In this paper, we develop a simple two-period model in which a bank’s investment (e.g., loans) is influenced by short-term financing and a probability of a financial crisis. When banks ex ante expect to be bailed out during financial crises, they do not necessarily internalize the cost of financial crises and invest more. We argue that the level of systemic risk in the banking sector is largely driven by (1) the way in which banks finance their investment (e.g., loans) using more short-term debt and/or (2) the increase in asset commonality amongst banks. We use three measures that arguably capture two dimensions of “bank systemic risk”, namely, (1) bank funding maturity and (2) bank asset commonality, to empirically test whether bank systemic risk has a positive effect on corporate investment. We document that in a sample of publicly listed firms in the United States over the period 1991–2013, bank systemic risk is positively associated with the firm-level investment ratio after controlling for a large set of country- and firm-level variables. In addition, we show that a firm's leverage strengthens the positive effect of bank systemic risk on corporate investment, suggesting that more financially constrained firms experience a larger effect of bank systemic risk on corporate investment than less financially constrained firms.     

BORROWING RELATIONSHIPS,MONITORING, AND THE INFLUENCE ON LOAN RATES

While monitoring borrowers, a bank obtains private information about its customers, giving the bank an informational advantage in the production of subsequent services. Competing theories exist on the way banks use this advantage in the pricing of subsequent services to the customer. If moral hazard limits the transfer of private information, the borrowing relationship transforms into an informational monopoly and can be characterized as a “wasting asset.” Alternately, if the banks' competitive environment necessitates that cost economies are shared, the relationship has “value.” Ordering pairs of successive loans made to a particular borrower as prior loans and subsequent loans, and controlling for environmental, borrower, and loan characteristics, we show that the subsequent loan is priced significantly lower than the prior loan.     

Collateralization of business loans: Testing the prediction of theories

Using confidential data on a large sample of relationship lending, we analyze the determining factors of the collateralization of business loans from banks, distinguishing between firms with observable risk and firms with hidden information. We achieve three main results. First, we provide evidence that observably riskier borrowers are encouraged to give more collateral to banks to obtain a loan, whereas firms with hidden information are less risky borrowers, offering collateral to signal their quality. Second, we show that relationship banking has a direct impact on the use of collateral and produces moderating effects on the other determining factors. Finally, we observe that distant bank branches—i.e., branches that encounter greater difficulties collecting soft information and obtaining site-specific data from headquarters—are more likely to require collateral than local bank branches.