Measures of the riskiness of banking organizations: Subordinated debt yields,risk-based capital,and examination ratings

Recently there have been a number of recommendations to increase the role of subordinated debt (SND) in satisfying bank capital requirements as a preferred means to discipline the risk-taking behavior of systemically important banks. One such proposal recommended using SND yield spreads as the triggers for mandatory supervisory action under prompt corrective action guidelines introduced in US banking legislation in the early 1990s. Currently such action is prompted by bank capital ratios. Evidence from previous research suggests that yield information may be a better predictor of bank problems. This paper empirically analyzes potential costs and benefits of using SND signals to trigger prompt corrective action.     

The Impact of No-Fault Legislation on Automobile Insurance

Abstract

Since its inception, the effectiveness of no-fault legislation has been highly debated. Although some research suggests that no-fault laws are effective in reducing costs, other evidence suggests that the current no-fault systems may not meet the original objectives. This study provides a detailed assessment of the relation of no-fault laws and automobile insurance losses for the period 1994 to 2007. By examining total automobile insurance losses along with liability and personal injury protection losses, we are able to determine if and how specific provisions of the laws are related to claims costs. We find a negative relation between the presence of a no-fault law and total losses, which suggests that no-fault systems are associated with lower losses than the traditional tort system. In addition, an examination of no-fault-only states suggests that specific provisions of no-fault laws, such as thresholds and limitations on benefits, have some effect on losses. With the sunset of Colorado’s no-fault legislation in 2003, the recent passage of Personal Injury Protection Reform in Florida, and proposed federal choice legislation, the overall impact of no-fault as well as the specific components of the laws are of heightened importance to consumers, insurers, and lawmakers.     

The demand for the audit in small companies in the UK

A recent development of the big GAAP/little GAAP debate in the UK was the proposal to raise the audit exemption thresholds for small companies to EC levels. This paper is based on a survey of the directors of 385 companies conforming to the EC definition of ‘small’. The study investigates whether the three size criteria in company legislation (turnover, balance sheet total and number of employees) are appropriate and sufficient proxies for the demand for the audit by developing and testing a number of theoretical models. The results found that 63% of companies would choose to have their accounts audited if they were exempt, which suggests that the majority of those affected by the proposed increase consider the benefits outweigh the costs. It was found that turnover alone could represent size, but that size was less important than the directors' perceptions of the value of the audit in terms of improving the quality of information and providing a check on internal records. Agency relationships with owners and lenders were also found to be significant influences on the demand for the audit in companies of the size studied.     

Benefits management beyond the adding machine: using integrated, worker-specific analysis

Modern employee benefits practices have not taken advantage of modern information technology largely because of an implicit reliance on "adding machine" approaches to health care benefits. This article argues that an integrated, worker-specific approach to benefits management is needed in a modern benefits environment. Quantitative illustrations of the integrated approach are provided in terms of a benefits Pareto analysis. The empirical results presented suggest that human resource/risk management practices can have a significant impact on worker benefits costs.     

SOX and the regulated firm

We investigate the initial and long-term market reactions in three regulated industries to the debate and ultimate passage of Sarbanes–Oxley (SOX) legislation. We argue that market reactions may differ for regulated industries relative to the broad market based on perceived differences in the costs and benefits from the legislation. Our results indicate that the initial reaction to the passage was more positive for regulated firms compared with non-regulated firms. These results are generally consistent with a compliance cost based explanation, although the underlying motivation for the results differs across industries. However, over longer post-SOX holding periods, the regulated samples outperformed the S&P 500 but underperformed their matched samples. Lower longer-term accounting profits in terms of ROA argue against significantly lower compliance costs associated with SOX.     

Risk allocation and the costs and benefits of public‐‐private partnerships

We study the agency costs of delegated public service provision, focusing on the link between organizational forms and uncertainty at project implementation. We consider a dynamic multitask moral hazard environment where the mapping between effort and performance is ex ante uncertain but new information may arise during operations. Our analysis highlights the costs and benefits that bundling planning and implementation—as under public‐‐private partnerships—can bring in terms of project design and operational costs under various scenarios, possibly allowing for asymmetric information, moral hazard and renegotiation. It also shows that relying on private finance enhances the benefits of bundling only if lenders have enough expertise to assess project risks.     

Strategic revelation of differences in segment earnings growth

Prior studies have theoretically and empirically documented that incentives to disclose information involve a trade-off between the benefits to the corporation of reducing information asymmetry and the costs of revealing proprietary information. This study investigates the interplay of managers’ motives to conceal versus reveal cross-segment differences in earnings growth in multi-segment firms. We find that revealed segment earnings growth differences are negatively associated with proxies for proprietary costs and agency costs, and positively associated with firms’ reliance on external financing. We also find that SFAS No. 131 improved the quality of segment information by requiring or allowing revelation of greater cross-segment differences in earnings growth.     

Relative Target Setting and Cooperation

A large stream of work on relative performance evaluation highlights the benefits of using information about peer performance in contracting. In contrast, the potential costs of discouraging cooperation among peers have received much less attention. The purpose of our study is to examine how the importance of cooperation affects the use of information about peer performance in target setting, also known as relative target setting. Specifically, we use data from an industrial services company where business unit managers need to share specialized equipment and staff with their peers to manage bottlenecks in their capacity. We construct several empirical proxies for the costs and benefits of information about peer performance and examine their effects on target setting. We find robust evidence that the sensitivity of target revisions to past peer performance is higher when peer group performance has greater capacity to filter out noise but lower when the importance of cooperation among peers is greater.     

Secrecy jurisdictions

This paper surveys tax haven legislation and links the literature on tax havens to the literature on asymmetric information. I argue that the core aim of tax haven legislation is to create private information (secrecy) for the users of tax havens. This leads to moral hazard and transaction costs in non-havens. The business model of tax havens is illustrated by using Mauritius and Jersey as case studies. I also provide several real-world examples of how secrecy jurisdictions lead to inefficient market outcomes and breach of regulations in non-haven countries. Both developed and developing countries are harmed, but the consequences seem most detrimental to developing countries.     

A model of corporate rent-seeking through tax legislation

An analytic model is developed to examine the role of rent-seeking expenses on tax legislation. Rent-seeking expenses are found to be only a fraction of the tax benefits at stake. Rent-seeking expenses increase when firms cannot cooperate, when very general tax legislation is proposed, and when there is legislative support for tax cuts.     

Cost Savings from Check 21 Electronic Payment Legislation

Electronic payment legislation permitted an initially paper substitute digital image of a check, and later the electronic digital image of a check, to be processed and presented for payment on a same‐day basis. By shifting to electronic collection and presentment, Federal Reserve per item check processing costs fell by over 70%, reducing estimated overall U.S. payment system costs by $1.16 billion in 2010. Payment collection times and associated float fell dramatically for collecting banks and payees with consequent additional savings in firm working capital costs of perhaps $1.37 billion and indebted consumer benefits of $0.64 billion.     

Bankruptcy priority for bank deposits: a contract theoretic explanation

Over the past decade several countries, including the US, haveintroduced or redesigned legislation that confers priority inbankruptcy upon all or some bank deposits. We argue that inthe presence of contracting costs such rules can increase efficiency.We first show in a private information model that a borrowercan reduce overall costs of finance by letting informationallyheterogeneous lenders choose between junior and senior debt.In particular, we find that debt priorities reduce sociallywasteful information gathering by investors. We then argue why,particularly in banking, legal standardization of debt prioritiesmay be superior to bilateral private arrangements.     

The Impact of Firing Costs on Turnover and Unemployment: Evidence from the Colombian Labour Market Reform

Reductions in firing costs are often advocated as a way of increasing the dynamism of labour markets in both developed and less developed countries. Evidence from Europe and the U.S. on the impact of firing costs has, however, been mixed. Moreover, legislative changes both in Europe and the U.S. have been limited. This paper, instead, examines the impact of the Colombian Labour Market Reform of 1990, which substantially reduced dismissal costs. I estimate the incidence of a reduction in firing costs on worker turnover by exploiting the temporal change in the Colombian labour legislation as well as the variability in coverage between formal and informal sector workers. Using a grouping estimator to control for common aggregate shocks and selection, I find that the exit hazard rates into and out of unemployment increased after the reform by over 1\% for formal workers (covered by the legislation) relative to informal workers (uncovered). The increase of the hazards implies a net decrease in unemployment of a third of a percentage point, which accounts for about one quarter of the fall in unemployment during the period of study.     

Call and Continuous Trading Mechanisms Under Asymmetric Information: An Experimental Investigation

I examine the relative performance of call and continuous auctions under asymmetric information by manipulating trading rules and information sets in laboratory asset markets. I find significant differences in an environment that extends the Kyle (1985) framework to permit the exogenous liquidity trading motive to have a natural economic interpretation. The adverse selection costs incurred by noise traders are significantly lower under the call auction, despite no significant reduction in average price efficiency. This result suggests that discussions of the costs and benefits of insider trading should take place within the context of a specific trading mechanism.     

Cost and effectiveness of physician peer review in reducing medicare overutilization

There has been concern that some physicians within the U.S. Medicare program may be rendering medical attention unecessarily. To help curb this possible overutilization, peer review committees have been formed in certain areas. These committees of practicing physicians examine utilization practices of doctors.The objective of this study is to determine the cost and effectiveness of the peer review process. In order to do this, we compare the costs and benefits resulting from peer review. The benefits are two types. One type is recoverable overpayments, which peer review has established as amounts that were paid for unnecessary medical attention. The other type is the deterrent to physicians against overutilization, due to the presence of peer review.The findings of this study are that each of the benefits of peer review substantially outweigh its costs, and that the benefits due to the deterrent effect of peer review are evident in all review areas considered.     

The Restoration Methodology for Valuing Goodwill

A method is proposed by which the goodwill of a business may be valued whenever the conventional accounting method is not available. This ‘restoration’ methodology involves using a combined cost and income approach to value the benefits a hypothetical purchaser of an operating business obtains, by reference to the costs, delays and risks it avoids, by acquiring the operating business rather than the business's identifiable assets alone. Such a value approximates that of the goodwill of the business. To provide some guidance as to how the restoration methodology might be used in a real situation, the actual sale of an interest in the Gove bauxite and alumina joint venture business is considered, where the existence and value of the business's goodwill was a factor in determining whether land‐rich stamp duty was payable in respect of the transaction. When the benefits gained by the purchaser of the Gove business are identified by reference to the costs, delays and risks it avoided by purchasing the business rather than the assets, it is not difficult to understand why such a sophisticated purchaser paid (and a pre‐empted purchaser was prepared to pay) an amount equal to or greater than the value of the business's identifiable assets in order to obtain those benefits.     

Who Benefits from the Reform of Pension Taxation in Germany?*

The present paper quantifies the revenue, distributional and efficiency effects of the recent reform of pension taxation in Germany. The starting point is the new legislation, which has introduced a switch to the deferred taxation of retirement benefits starting in 2005. We compare this reform with an alternative transition proposed by the Federation of German Pension Insurance Institutes (VDR), where double taxation is avoided at the cost of higher revenue losses. Our simulations indicate significant growth and efficiency gains from the new tax legislation. Winners from the reform are mainly younger workers, while older workers, civil servants and the self‐employed will lose. The VDR proposal would have resulted in higher efficiency gains, but also in stronger distributional consequences.     

Mortgage Default with Asymmetric Information

This article analyzes mortgage-market equilibrium when borrower default costs are private information. By applying the approach of Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976), it is shown that asymmetric information regarding default costs distorts the contract choices available in the mortgage market, preventing safe borrowers (those with high default costs) from fully satisfying their demand for mortgage debt. Large loans are available for a substantial interest-rate premium, but only risky borrowers find this premium worth paying. The article builds on an empirical literature designed to test the ruthless-default principle from option-based models of mortgage pricing. That literature provides evidence against ruthless behavior, suggesting that default costs play an important role in borrower decisions. The article takes a further step by arguing that such costs are private information, which has important implications for market equilibrium.     

Medicare on the critical list. Understanding the etiology of the disease will help in the search for a cure.

Medicare, and its companion program Medicaid, came into being as part of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Their purpose was to provide the elderly with equal access to high-quality medical care. Though the goals were laudable, the magnitude of the costs and of the effects was unforeseen. As the two programs made medical care available to a large segment of the population, the demand grew. At the same time, private industry became more generous with its health insurance plans. Because of their emphasis on hospital care, the governmental and private industry plans helped push hospital prices up. Now that both sectors are finding the cost of medical care unacceptably high, Congress is proposing remedial legislation and corporations are trying alternative health care plans. These authors explore how well the maladies of Medicare may respond to the various cures that are being proposed.     

How aware are employees of their benefits? Findings from two companies

This study examines benefit awareness of employees in two companies. Contrary to previous research, the results show that employees are generally accurate in their perceptions of the benefits available to them. However, the results also show a lack of awareness of unemployment insurance and disability insurance as benefits. In addition, employees were somewhat uncertain regarding costs of benefits to employers. These findings suggest that employers should monitor employee awareness of benefits and target communications to specific problem areas.