Debt and development: The role of foreign capital in economic growth

Capital flows, whether between individuals or nations, are dominated by a two- fold paradox. Borrowers are initially primarily interested in obtaining sufficient funds for their needs, but once they have obtained a loan, their indebtedness becomes their principal concern. While a loan is being negotiated the lenders usually have the upper hand, but once it is made, they become dependent on the borrowers for repayment with interest. Their power to withhold future loans becomes their only real measure of control. Borrowing and lending has costs and benefits, and these balance out only in exceptional cases for both the borrowing and lending countries and the principal social groups within them. The debate about the impact of international capital flows accordingly has a long history. This paper begins with a historical perspective, and then reviews the principal characteristics of capital flows to developing countries since the 1950s. A discussion of the impact of capital flows on development, with a particular emphasis on trends in developing country indebtedness, follows. A brief examination of borrowing and debt management issues for borrowers, lenders and the international community concludes the paper.     

Dropouts,Defaulters, and Continuing Borrowers: Client Exit from Microfinance

High dropout rates are a problem faced by many microfinance institutions, with borrowers exiting after a few loans. The curiosity of dropouts is that, unlike defaulters, they repay their loans. To understand this I investigate differences across borrowers using data from Zimbabwe. I find that negative shocks are a significant predictor of dropout, but not of default, and that social networks are the most important correlate of on‐time repayment. The results show the importance of social networks in determining credit relationships.     

影响银行贷款质量因素的文献述评

贷款质量既是银行经营绩效的重要指标,也是一国金融银行体系总体健康程度的睛雨表,因此受到了政策制定者、银行管理层与学者的广泛关注和研究.本文从借款人的还款能力,借款人的还款意愿,融资约束,金融市场发育程度等四个角度综述了银行贷款质量的决定因素和形成机制,进一步探讨了银行贷款质量研究的未来可能发展方向.     

Micro-credit initiatives for equitable and sustainable development: Who pays?

There is a growing acknowledgement that micro-credit programs have potential for equitable and sustainable development. However, my anthropological research on the micro-credit program of the Grameen Bank shows that bank workers are expected to increase disbursement of loans among their members and press for high recovery rates to earn profit necessary for economic viability of the institution. To ensure timely repayment in the loan centers bank workers and borrowing peers inflict an intense pressure on women clients. In the study community many borrowers maintain their regular payment schedules through a process of loan recycling that considerably increases the debt-liability on the individual households, increases tension and frustration among household members, produces new forms of dominance over women and increases violence in society.     

我国商业银行住房抵押贷款风险成因与对策研究

个人住房抵押贷款一直被国内外研究和实践公认为商业银行的优质资产,近年来,这一业务在我国获得了快速稳定增长,住房抵押贷款余额占各项贷款的余额的比重也越来越高。但是,由于我国金融体制不健全,个人住房抵押贷款存在商业银行房贷风险控制意识薄弱、房价虚高、银行间恶性竞争等问题,对此,政府部门应加强调控和监管,商业银行应建立住房抵押贷款担保、保险机制,推行抵押贷款证券化。以保证我国商业银行经营稳健。     

Broadening access to land markets: Financing emerging farmers in South Africa

This article reports on a pilot survey of commercial farms acquired by disadvantaged people in the province of Kwazulu‐Natal, and describes a recent financial strategy to improve access to land. The survey tested a sampling technique to gather information about the rate of land redistribution, the source of terms and conditions of loans used to finance land, and the nature of property rights, managerial arrangements and land use patterns on farms acquired by disadvantaged people. It was estimated that only 0,09 per cent of the farmland available for redistribution was transferred to disadvantaged people during 1995. This low rate of transfer was attributed largely to legislation regulating the subdivision of farmland, and liquidity problems created by traditional mortgage loans. Recent experiments involving mortgage loans with graduated repayment schedules have helped to address the cashflow problem. However, these financial innovations, funded largely by the private sector, are not widely available and their impact is constrained by the Subdivision of Agricultural Land Act. It is recommended that the government amend or scrap this Act, and include financial strategies used by the private sector in its own range of land redistribution programmes.     

我国商业银行按揭贷款的久期测度研究

随着对用按揭贷款的方式购买房屋、车等大件商品的市场需求变失,我国商业银行推行越来越多的灵活的各种按揭贷款还款方式。针对商业银行目前主要推行的固定利率下的等额本息还款、等额本金还款、等额递增（递减）还款和“双周供”还款的现金流建模,并对这些模型进行久期和凸度测度,最后针对银行如何利用久期和凸度进行利率风险管理提出建议。     

Developing a Risk Group Predictive Model for Korean Students Falling into Bad Debt

Using direct loan data for 2012 to 2014 from the Korea Student Aid Foundation, we develop a risk group predictive model for borrowers defaulting on their loans. We used a logistic regression model and the Cox proportional hazards model to develop the risk predictive model. We verified the validity of the models using a receiver operating characteristic curve and a validation dataset. The present study shows that area under the receiver operating characteristic curves is similar for the models and that the major influencing factors for defaulting on their loans are household income, whether a national grant was received, age, whether more than two accounts are overdue, field of study and the monthly repayment amount. The risk group predictive model in this study will be the basis for more efficient management of direct student loans.     

Overcoming Information Asymmetries in Low-Income Lending: Lessons from the “Working Wheels” Program

Without access to transportation, the welfare-to-work transition is nearly impossible, yet little is known about the effectiveness of programs designed to improve credit access. Since 1998, Vermont's TANF funds have provided automobile loans through the “Working Wheels” program. We use microlevel data from this program to explore how to cost-effectively provide loans to clients who cannot obtain affordable loans elsewhere. Our results verify the importance of relationship lending, particularly among those without documented credit histories. In the presence of information asymmetries about credit history, our results justify the increased trust placed in clients with whom the bank has a stronger relationship; such clients, ceteris paribus, are less likely to default. We conclude that in the current climate of welfare reform, policymakers should consider programs that encourage welfare recipients to establish and maintain relationships with financial institutions in order to facilitate access to credit and minimize the risk of default.     

Accounting-Based Compensation and Debt Contracts*

We examine how accounting-based compensation plans influence a firm's contracts with its creditors. After granting long-term accounting-based compensation plans (LTAPs) to CEOs, firms pay lower spreads and have fewer restrictive covenants in new bank loans. Mechanisms leading to lower borrowing cost include improvements in debt repayment ability, reduced shareholder-debtholder conflicts, and reduced risk-taking incentives. Creditors view LTAPs as a substitute for monitoring, adjust covenant design based on LTAP features, and value plans with concave performance-payout functions and reasonable performance targets. A firm's credit rating improves and CDS spread declines after LTAP grants, suggesting that LTAPs help reduce firms' credit risk.     

1992-2010年中国信贷供给结构与经济波动——基于VAR模型分析

文章选取1992—2010年的季度数据,通过建立各变量的VAR模型和VEC模型,对我国信贷供给结构与经济波动的关系进行实证分析。研究结果表明:中长期贷款、短期贷款与产出没有格兰杰因果关系,其它贷款与产出存在着相互因果关系,同时,信贷供给结构各变量均不引起通货膨胀的变化,而通货膨胀是中长期贷款、短期贷款变化的原因;从信贷供给结构各变量来看,其它贷款是引起我国经济波动的主要原因;中长期贷款、短期贷款、其它贷款三者之间存在不同程度的相互影响。基于这些分析结论,文章提出若干信贷政策的建议。     

MICROFINANCE REVOLUTION: ITS EFFECTS,INNOVATIONS, AND CHALLENGES

“Microfinance revolution” is the term often applied to the successful expansion of small-scale financial services to the poor with high repayment records in developing countries. The present paper investigates the extent to which the microfinance revolution is truly revolutionary. More specifically, it explores the impact of microfinance institutions on the poor, the mechanisms underlying high repayment rates and their innovations, and the new challenges microfinance institutions are currently facing. Different from the existing published survey literature, we focus on current topics and attempt to show recent theoretical developments in a comprehensive manner using simplified models with very similar settings. We contend that microfinance is developing in a promising direction but has yet to reach its full potential.     

Loan interest rate pass-through and changes after the financial crisis: Japan’s evidence

We estimate interest rate pass-through in the loan market using an individual bank-based panel dataset from Japan. Previous studies using data from European countries have presented a number of common findings, including that banks with a high proportion of relationship lending tend to set lower pass-through. In this respect, we have obtained similar results using a dataset for Japan going back to the early 2000s. We further examine the influence of borrowing firms’ balance sheet characteristics on loan interest rate pass-through, and find that these additional factors are also important determinants for pass-through dispersion. However, after the recent global financial crisis, even banks with a high proportion of relationship lending have largely lowered loan interest rates by raising pass-through, and pass-through has not necessarily been determined in accordance with borrowing firms’ balance sheet characteristics. These results differ from those of recent studies on European countries. Possible background factors explaining this change are that (i) pressure to lower loan interest rates has risen due to extensive monetary easing and greater lending competition among banks, while Japan’s banking system as a whole has maintained its resilience in the post-crisis period; (ii) demand for bank loans has increased substantially due to disruptions in the market for alternative funding sources, such as commercial paper and corporate bonds; and (iii) public measures to increase bank loans have been broadly introduced in Japan.     

Was the expansion of housing credit in Japan good or bad?

This paper shows, using data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey, that housing credit has become increasingly available over time in Japan, especially since 2000, and that this has made it easier for Japanese households to purchase housing and enabled them to do so at an earlier age. However, it also shows that the greater availability of housing credit has increased households’ housing loan repayment burden, which has resulted in their cutting back on their other consumption expenditures and created the potential for retirement insecurity. Another concern is that the increasing availability of housing credit has been accompanied by a pronounced shift from fixed-rate to variable-rate housing loans. This is cause for concern given the low level of financial literacy that prevails among the Japanese population and the likelihood that interest rates on variable-rate housing loans will be raised sooner or later as monetary policy is tightened.     

The LDC external debt and the euromarkets: The impressive record and the uncertain future

This paper deals in detail with the volume and nature of LDC borrowing in the eurocurrency markets over the past 10 years. The factors affecting borrowing and lending on the euromarket are discussed, followed by an evaluation of the terms and conditions attached to euromarket loans. These borrowing activities, which have grown considerably recently, are analysed with a view towards clarifying a number of major issues related to the general problem of the increasing LDC external indebtedness and to the future of financial relations between the LDCs and the rest of the world economy.     

Commercialization and mission drift: Evidence from a large Chinese microfinance institution

Front-line loan officers of microfinance institutions (MFIs) are important in acquiring information on potential borrowers and selecting them in accordance with the MFI's mission. We use a unique data set on loan officers and their loan portfolios from China's largest NGO microfinance institution to test whether officers' personal characteristics affect the size and quality of their loans. We study a period in which the institution shifted from reliance on government donations and subsidies to commercial sources of funding. Imposing more commercial incentives on loan officers could affect how they balance potentially competing objectives to serve the poor and pursue profitability. We find that loan officers who were formerly farmers or worked in local government were better able to maintain lending to poorer borrowers, without incurring substantially lower repayment rates on their loans. In short, it appears that the career backgrounds of loan officers did play a role in preventing mission drift.     

集团内部资本市场、银行债务与债权人保护——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

本文研究了集团内部资本市场对上市公司银行债务融资的影响以及相应的经济后果。研究发现集团内部资本市场一方面可以起到对银行贷款的替代作用,这种替代效应的存在能在一定程度上缓解成员公司的融资约束,但另一方面它也可能成为大股东掠夺上市公司信贷资金的渠道,大股东代理成本越高的公司存在更严重的掠夺问题。掠夺效应的存在是上市公司发生债务危机的重要原因之一。     

Lending Through the Cycle: The Federal Housing Administration’s Evolving Risk in the Primary Market

Utilizing a sample of loan originations, the distribution of the market served by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and conventional lenders is modeled through this current cycle. Results indicate that FHA market shares in the early years of the observation period (2003 through 2006) are concentrated in zip codes with higher economic risk characteristics and obtained by high risk borrowers. FHA is forced to accept lower quality loans as competition from more nimble private lenders with lower access hurdles and more rapid processing expanded into markets traditionally served by FHA. Unexpectedly, the analysis also reveals that the distribution of FHA loans fails to exhibit a targeted racial bias toward neighborhoods with African American Concentration.     

Information contents of collateral under heterogeneous borrower qualities on the bank loans market in China

We analyze the risk of default and provision of collateral for bank loans made to firms of varied credit qualities using a unique dataset obtained from a major state-owned commercial bank in China. Both high and low quality borrowers provide collateral more often than medium quality debtors do. Using models that explicitly incorporate heterogeneous borrower qualities, we find a positive relation between collateralization and risk of default for loans issued to debtors with low credit ratings. In contrast, collateral provided by debtors with high credit ratings is negatively associated with the risk of default. These results suggest that low quality borrowers may be required to provide collateral at the bank's request to mitigate moral hazard problem. On the other hand, high quality borrowers may provide collateral willingly to signal quality in order to mitigate adverse selection problem when competing for getting access to bank loans. Our findings shed new lights on different information contents of collateral on the bank loans market of China, and have important implications for banks in screening, contracting and monitoring the risk of commercial loans for clients with diverse credit qualities.     

投资效率对银行借款的影响——基于我国上市公司的经验证据

文章从企业投资效率的角度研究我国银行信贷的有效性问题。结果表明,过度投资的企业比投资不足的企业获得更多的长期贷款,短期借款则没有显著差异。对于过度投资企业来说,过度投资程度越大,企业获得的长期借款越多,短期借款没有显著差异;而对于投资不足的企业来说,投资不足程度对长期借款和短期借款都没有显著影响。文章的研究丰富了信贷资源配置方面的研究,也为我国银行的信贷决策和改革提供依据。