Estimating causal effects of credit decisions

In principle, making credit decisions under uncertainty can be approached by estimating the potential future outcomes that will result from the various decision alternatives. In practice, estimation difficulties may arise as a result of selection bias and limited historic testing. We review some theoretical results and practical estimation tools from observation study design and causal modeling, and evaluate their relevance to credit decision problems. Building on these results and tools, we propose a novel approach for estimating potential outcomes for credit decisions with multiple alternatives based on matching on multiple propensity scores. We demonstrate the approach and discuss results for risk-based pricing and credit line increase problems. Among the strengths of our approach are its transparency about data support for the estimates and its ability to incorporate prior knowledge in the extrapolative inference of treatment-response curves.     

Entrepreneurship education and the creation of an enterprise culture: provisional results from an experiment in Egypt

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report (2008) for Egypt identified education and training as one of the main constraining factors to entrepreneurship development and the creation of an entrepreneurial culture in the country. Of the 31 countries participating in the National Experts’ Survey, Egypt was ranked in last place in terms of the contribution of the education system and the number one recommendation was that it needs to be reformed. Hence, the study examines the Entrepreneurial Tendencies of students of business administration at the British University in Egypt using the Durham University General Enterprising Tendency Test. It reveals that the entrepreneurial propensity of the Egyptian students is somewhat higher than that of their counterparts in the UK, despite the prevailing traditional “knowledge acquisition” pedagogy. When exposed to a more entrepreneurial style of teaching and learning, the students’ GET scores increased by about 8 per cent over a 12 week period, suggesting that if a change in the educational paradigm could be effected, it should be possible to effect a change in the way students think and behave, thereby helping bring about an entrepreneurial culture. The study examines the brain dominance of the students and makes proposals for future research.     

Optimizing the credit term decisions in supply chain finance

We study a credit term determination problem in the context of a supplier-buyer supply chain. The supplier's credit term decision is simultaneously made with its production and inventory decisions, and most importantly, it is impacted by the buyer's order quantity. We present a new game-theoretic framework to model this problem, which captures the interaction between the supplier's credit term decision and the buyer's order decision in a multi-period setting. An exact method based on nonlinear programming is implemented to obtain the optimal solutions. We apply our methodologies on a real world case. The computational results show that our approach significantly outperforms the heuristics with fixed credit terms, and either a short or a long credit term can be sub-optimal for the supplier in profitability. Our work offers the first data-driven model and solution approach that assists purchasing and supply managers to make optimal dynamic credit term decision in conjunction with production, ordering and inventory decisions in a game-theoretic setting.     

The role of self-accounting and financial capability in consumer credit decisions

The role of financial capability in the consumers＇ financial behaviour has been widely analyzed by the literature. The same happened for the relationship between debt and financial capability. The consensus about the benefits of an increase in the levels of financial literacy collides with a diversity of opinions on what the best solutions to increase financial capability. While methods based on traditional teaching may not be an effective solutions and they could not provide results in the short term, solutions oriented to support consumers in important financial decisions （requests for funding, choice of retirement solutions, etc.） may show greater effectiveness. Studies in literature have shown the tendency of subjects with high levels of financial capability to adopt a long term view and to upgrade their daily financial behaviour with attitudes and practices related to self-finance （budget, financial check-up, saving for goals, etc.） The paper focuses on the relationship between financial capability and self-accounting practices, interpreting the latter as evidence of conduct financially aware. After a review of the literature designed to emphasize the role of self-accounting in the context of personal finance, a financial check-up based tool is proposed, pointing out how the financial accounts＇ schemes and logics （regular budget, estimates and forecasts checking targets） may find useful application in the context of personal finance.     

Trade credit versus bank credit: Evidence from corporate inventory financing

In this study, I introduce capital market imperfections into a structure framework of inventory investments and investigate impacts of trade credit on firms’ inventory dynamics and analyze the relationship between trade credit and bank loans. As a result, firms end up using a mix of trade credit and bank loans. I find that the use of trade credit and bank credit can be either complements or substitutes. During tight monetary periods, trade credit operates mainly as a substitute for bank borrowing while during looser monetary episodes even when the economy is weak, trade credit and bank loans are dominated by a complementary effect.     

FDI and credit constraints: Firm-level evidence from China

In this paper, we assess the success of the ongoing financial system reforms in China by investigating the extent to which firms are financially constrained. We focus on the role played by Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in funding the Chinese corporate sector, and analyze whether incoming foreign investment in China plays an important role in alleviating domestic firms’ credit constraints. Using firm-level data on 1300 domestic companies over the period 2000–2002, we confirm that the development of cross-border relationships with foreign firms helps private domestic firms to bypass both the financial and legal obstacles that they face at home.     

战略无形资产、商誉与企业持续竞争优势

本文运用“资源基础论”分析了战略无形资产与企业持续竞争优势和超额利润之间的关系,论述了现行财务会计模式对战略无形资产信息的综合反映形式。认为商誉是现行财务会计模式对企业持续竞争优势的综合反映形式,其本质是在现行财务会计模式下无法单独入账的企业战略无形资产,商誉的性质实际上是战略无形资产性质的外在综合表现,外购商誉的本质是被收购企业未入账的战略无形资产,外购商誉的会计处理应该依据并购后被收购企业战略无形资产价值的增减变动情况来决定。     

Financial competence,overconfidence, and trusting investments: Results from an experiment

Financial transactions sometimes occur in an environment where third-party enforcement is lacking. Behavioral explanations typically allude to the social preferences, where an individual’s utility is directly affected by another’s outcome, as the driver of the trusting investments and reciprocal returns. We hypothesize that, in part, these decisions are determined by an individual’s financial literacy and overconfidence in one’s knowledge. Experimental evidence is coupled with an innovative financial literacy assessment, which measures general competence, numeracy skills, and overconfidence in one’s knowledge. Results indicate that overconfidence is a significant determinant of behavior. Specifically, overconfident individuals make larger contributions in the investment game. We also document that there is an escalated effect in overconfident individuals who are also exhibit risk loving preferences.     

Risk-shifting: Evidence from the 2007 credit crisis

I find empirical evidence that financially distressed firms increase investment risk. I exploit a natural experiment where the treated firms must refinance long-term debt during the 2007–2008 credit crisis. When focusing on firms where the incentive to risk-shift is theoretically greater, such as financially vulnerable firms and those with better governance, I find the increase in investment risk is most prevalent among firms that are the most financially vulnerable and when executives benefit from increased risk. Contrary to previous empirical papers that did not find causal evidence of risk-shifting, these results suggest that the risk-shifting does occur when firms are financially distressed.     

Financial innovation and bank behavior: Evidence from credit markets

This paper investigates whether, and through which channel, the active use of credit derivatives changes bank behavior in the credit market, and how this channel was affected by the crisis of 2007–2009. Our principal finding is that banks with larger gross positions in credit derivatives charge significantly lower corporate loan spreads, while banks׳ net positions are not consistently related to loan pricing. We argue that this is consistent with banks passing on risk management benefits to corporate borrowers but not with alternative channels through which credit derivative use may affect loan pricing. We also find that the magnitude of the risk management effect remained unchanged during the crisis period of 2007–2009. In addition, banks with larger gross positions in credit derivatives cut their lending by less than other banks during the crisis and have consistently lower loan charge-offs. In sum, our study is suggestive of significant risk management benefits from financial innovations that persist under adverse conditions – that is, when they matter most.     

Financial constraints and corporate investments during the current financial and economic crisis: The credit crunch and investment decisions of Slovenian firms

We investigate the effect of financial constraints on the investment decisions of Slovenian firms during the current financial and economic crisis. By estimating the error-correction model and the Euler-equation specification, we found that corporate investments were significantly affected by financial constraints during the crisis. The effect of financial constraints intensified in 2009 and alleviated slightly in 2010, although still being significantly more intense than before the crisis hit the economy. By estimating a switching regression model with unknown sample separation that enabled us to address the problem of judgemental sample separation, we were also able to estimate the error-correction model separately for financially constrained and financially unconstrained firms. The results indicate that financial constraints have a significant effect on both financially constrained and financially unconstrained firms, although corporate investments were more severely affected in financially constrained firms.     

赊销：考验企业的信用管理

企业的信用管理是企业对信用销售(赊销)的管理过程和方法,对企业信用进行有效的管理是一个企业管理的基本要求。从价值交换的成本上讲,在     

Interest rate risk propagation: Evidence from the credit crunch

During the 2007–2009 financial crisis, US subprime mortgage risk exposures led to severe liquidity problems in several other foreign markets. Such risk contagion was caused by enormous changes in interest rates. Although risk contagion has been investigated by several literatures, the magnitude of propagated interest rate risk around global financial markets remains unexplored. Therefore, this study quantifies the degree to which the increased credit risk within the US financial system propagated to the European markets’ liquidity risks. Specifically, using a conditional value-at-risk (CoVaR) model, we quantitatively measure interest rate risk of a European country, by looking at the upside risk in distribution of changes in interest rate. And such propagation risk measure considers additional value-at-risk conditional on the interest rate movements in the US. The results show significantly positive differences between European country's value-at-risk conditional on the US financial markets being in a normal or distressed state. This propagating effect increased from 2007, and was particularly pronounced in the 2008–2009. In addition, the interest rate risk contagion is especially severe for some countries in the Euro regions with greater sovereign debt problems. Hence our result foretells the deterioration of the European sovereign debt crisis which started to unfold in 2010. Our work supplements the literature by successfully quantifying the magnitude of additional interest rate risk conditional on risk exposure from external sectors.     

Human capital,investment and growth: Some results from an endogenous growth model

Recent theoretical literature on the sources of economic growth has emphasized the role of human capital as an internal contributing force in the growth process. Empirical results reported in this paper provide support for this theoretical proposition. Cross-country data from 32 developing countries indicate that human capital (as alternatively measured by the primary school enrollment rate or the adult literacy rate) exerts a significant positive impact upon output growth.     

Financial forecasting and risky decisions: an experimental study grounded in Prospect theory

This study employed prospect theory to examine relationships between effort invested in developing financial forecasts and risk taking. Results of an experimental study indicated that the more effort subjects invested in developing forecasts, the more likely they were to use those forecasts as their reference points when evaluating venture performance. Results also indicated that subjects who used forecasts as their reference points and exerted greater effort developing those forecasts were more likely to take risky actions when performance fell below their reference points. This study is the first to link effort to the type of reference point used and the first to link effort and the use of financial forecasts to risky decisions. In addition, it is one of only a few studies to employ prospect theory to examine risk taking decisions subsequent to start-up. Its results enhance our understanding of risk taking, prospect theory and reference points.

     

Firm leverage and investment decisions in an emerging market

In this study, the effect of leverage on investment is analyzed by employing panel data methods for the Turkish non-financial firms that are quoted on İstanbul Stock Exchange. For one-way error component models, it is shown that there is a negative impact of leverage on investment for only firms with low Tobin’s Q. These results are in conformity with the previous literature and agency theories of corporate finance stating that leverage has a disciplining role for firms with low growth opportunities. However, when the model is extended to include the time effects in a two-way error component model, the relation between leverage and investment disappears.     

Current account and credit growth: The role of household credit and financial depth

Understanding the impact of financial variables on the current account balance is one of the priorities of academic literature and policymakers. Evidence from a broad panel of advanced and emerging countries shows that an increase in credit growth is associated with a significant deterioration in the current account balance. When we examine the roles of the components of credit, we find that an increase in household credit causes a significant decline in the current account balance, whereas an increase in business loans has no significant effect. Therefore, our findings indicate that the significant negative impact of credit growth on the current account balance is driven by household credit. Furthermore, we show that total and household credit growth rates have a stronger negative effect on the current account balance for lower levels of financial depth. Our results suggest that targeted policy measures that curb household credit growth might be more effective to reduce external imbalances particularly at the early stages of financial deepening.