Has bank holding companies' diversification affected their risk of failure?

The effect of nonbank activities on the riskiness of banking organizations is an important issue in capital regulation and deciding whether banking firms should be allowed to perform additional activities. This paper explores the potential effect of deregulation by examining the effect of existing nonbank subsidiaries on the riskiness of bank holding companies. The results provide no evidence to suggest that deregulation would increase banking organizations' risk and weak evidence that deregulation might decrease risk.     

Economic policy uncertainty,non-financial enterprises' shadow banking activities and stock price crash risk

At present, the structural contradiction between Economic Financialization and the real economy's long-term weakness has become increasingly prominent. As China enters a “new normal” stage of economic growth, the real investment rate drops, non-financial enterprises continuously allocate resources to the shadow banking system. The financial economy becomes increasingly divorced from reality. This leads us to the questions: will the shadow banking behavior of non-financial companies exacerbate the risk of stock price crash risk? How does the increase in economic policy uncertainty affect the relationship between non-financial companies' shadow banking activities and stock price crash risk?This article uses non-financial listed companies' data from 2007 to 2017 and conducts empirical analysis to answer this question. The study finds that companies engaged in high-leverage, high-risk shadow banking business exacerbate stock crash risk. This effect is only pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises and low social trust regions. The increase in the degree of economic policy uncertainty positively impacts the relationship between non-financial companies' shadow banking business and stock price crash risk. The theoretical mechanism is as follows: the rise in economic policy uncertainty amplifies the positive relationship between shadow banking activities of non-financial companies and stock price crashes by increasing bank loans, investors' sensitivity to external information, risk cross-contagion, and inefficient investment mechanisms. Various robustness tests do not change the research conclusion. This paper has important theoretical and policy guidance significance for reviewing the existing diversified shadow banking system and preventing systemic risks.     

Interstate banking,bank consolidation,and bank lending to small business

Proponents and critics of interstate banking argue over the implications of nationwide banking for bank lending to small business. This study explores the patterns of (1) bank consolidation at the national level and (2) the share of domestic-bank commercial lending extended to small firms, specifically, small manufacturing firms, over the period 1976–90. The evidence indicates that despite the trend toward fewer banking organizations and increased aggregate bank concentration due largely to cross-state expansion by superregional banking organizations, no significant downtrend is observed in the share of domestic-bank credit extended to small manufacturing firms. Nor is there any discernible downtrend in banks' share of borrowing by small manufacturing firms. These results are consistent with the thesis that banking industry consolidation hasnot led to a reduction in the supply of bank credit to small firms, at least within the manufacturing sector.     

Market Discipline of Canadian Banks' Letters of Credit Activities: An Empirical Examination

While the motivation and riskiness of US off-balance sheet banking activities have been studied both theoretically and empirically, no such study has been found dealing with Canadian off-balance sheet banking activities, although such activities are numerically huge, and growing larger each year. This article provides support for a market discipline hypothesis of Canadian bank letters of credit activities by employing several market measures of risk from one-factor and multi-factor models, and an implied asset volatility from the option-pricing model. Furthermore, it examines both price and quantity response of off-balance sheet activities in the Canadian banking market by employing a tobit analysis to assess the robustness of our conclusions about market discipline. The results indicate that various market measures of risk and letters of credit are negatively related. Moreover, banks with greater portfolio risk measured in terms of equity and asset risk, high leverage and interest rate risk are less likely to issue letters of credit.     

Outsourcing, unemployment and welfare policy

The paper investigates the consequences of outsourcing of labor intensive activities to low-wage economies. This trend challenges the two basic functions of the welfare state, redistribution and social insurance when private unemployment insurance markets are missing. The main results are: (i) outsourcing raises unemployment and labor income risk of unskilled workers; (ii) it increases inequality between high- and low-income groups; and (iii) the gains from outsourcing can be made Pareto improving by using a redistributive linear income tax if redistribution is initially not too large. We finally derive the welfare optimal redistribution and unemployment insurance policies.     

The impact of mergers in banking : Evidence from a nationwide sample of federally chartered banks

Spurred by deregulation, cost, and risk factors, commercial bank mergers have accelerated sharply in recent years. Many banks appear to be positioning themselves for the advent of interstate banking through holding company or reciprocal branching arrangements. Yet, the performance effects of mergers among operating U.S. banks (as opposed to holding company acquisitions) have been examined both infrequently and inconclusively. This study focuses upon the characteristics and performance effects of national bank mergers occurring during the 1970–1980 period. Acquiring national banks were found to have lower operating efficiency and productivity than nonmerging banks and their profitability did not increase following the mergers, but credit availability, productivity, loan losses, deposit service charges, and interest-rate risk did rise. Frequency of merger activity did not significantly influence bank profitability or growth, but did augment stockholder risks and increase business and real-estate credit. In the aggregate, national bank mergers appeared to result neither in significant service benefits nor in significant service costs to the public.Spurred by deregulation of the industry, rising cost pressures, and increased operating risk, merger transactions among U.S. banks have soared in recent years. During the 1982–1986 period, for example, banking led all other industries in the number of consummated mergers and consistently was among the ten leading U.S. industries in the estimated market value of merger agreements. Moreover, the recent upsurge in reciprocal interstate banking agreements and proposals for fully legalized interstate banking hold out the prospect for a further acceleration in bank merger transactions in the years ahead. In view of the fact that legislation in more than 30 states now permits some form of interstate banking by merger or de novo entry and a June 1985 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court has legitimized regional banking compacts, the public and private impact of bank mergers becomes of much greater importance as a research focus.Despite the magnitude of recent bank merger transactions and their implications for the public, the research literature in this area is surprisingly meager and often contradictory. This article is an attempt to focus more sharply on recent research findings, provide additional evidence concerning the effects of mergers on the financial performance of banks, and assess their impact on the public's interest in an adequate supply of financial services.     

Capital Regulation,Bailout and Banking Asset Correlation

We study the effect of capital regulation on banking asset correlation. Banks are more efficient users of banking assets. This implies that it may be ex post optimal to bail out a failed bank. We show, under Basel 1 capital regulation, that the financial regulator is committed to a mixed bailout strategy in the state of systemic failure, which reduces banks’ incentive to choose highly correlated assets. The mixed strategy is not creditable under mark‐to‐market capital regulation. In the subgame perfect equilibrium, banking asset correlation increases, resulting in a high probability of systemic failure. We then discuss social losses under different capital regulations.     

Lending technologies,lending specialization,and minority access to small-business loans

We investigate minority access to small-business loans using a probit model of loan application denial that recognizes two loan types (line-of-credit loans and non-line-of-credit loans) made by two lender types (commercial banks and nonbank financial institutions). We estimate our model on data from the 1998 Survey of Small Business Finances. We find evidence consistent with minority equal access to bank credit lines and nonbank non-line-of-credit loans in highly competitive loan markets; in less competitive markets we find evidence consistent with unequal access to these loans. We also find evidence consistent with unequal minority access to bank non-line-of-credit loans, regardless of loan market competitiveness. Our findings differ from previous research which treats small-business loans as a homogenous product and finds evidence consistent with unequal minority access to small-business loans generally. We argue that the existence of multiple small-business lending technologies and loan specialization by lenders account for our findings and demonstrate the need to treat small-business loans as a heterogeneous product when investigating equal access to small-business credit.     

我国银行业关联交易行为的风险控制问题探析

银行业关联交易是伴随着银行业机构产权关系的复杂化而出现的一种具有普遍性的客观现象。关联交易具有二重性,在给银行带来利润回报的同时,也给整个银行埋下了巨大的安全隐患。在对银行业关联交易进行科学界定的基础上,分析了我国银行业关联交易中存在的诸多风险,并有针对性地提出了规范关联交易行为的风险防范策略。     

银保合作程度的宏观实证检验与微观机制探讨

文章分析了改革开放30年来银行和保险两大金融行业多类宏观指标相互间的关系和影响,发现银行保险业随着各自发展进入成熟期,其协整关系也越来越明显,但是银行与保险业中财产险和人身险的相互影响的关系是不一致的。通过对全国30个省份的研究发现,银保的比例关系与经济发展程度有一定关系,经济发达地区保险业占比反而较小。实证结论对于银保融合中出于不同动机的不同利益诉求者的决策提供了依据,宏微观结合的方式为银行保险的研究提供了更为广阔的思路。     

商业银行偿付能力风险、流动性风险与银行体系风险

宏观审慎监管需要微观基础.研究商业银行偿付能力风险与流动性风险和银行体系风险的关系,有助于监管当局制定合适的监管工具,有效管理银行业的系统性风险.中国未曾爆发过真正意义的银行业危机,因而研究影响银行业系统性风险的因素成为难题.在借鉴风险二维定义属性基础上,本文对商业银行偿付能力风险和流动性风险如何影响银行业稳定进行了实证分析.分析结果表明,当商业银行偿付能力上升时,银行风险承担会上升,进而增加银行倒闭的预期损失;商业银行流动性风险的上升也会增加银行倒闭的预期损失;商业银行偿付能力提高时,流动性风险会降低;商业银行流动性风险上升时,偿付能力风险也上升.     

Determinants of Interest Rates on Time Deposits and Savings Accounts: Macro Factors,Bank Risk,and Account Features

Using a novel dataset from the Netherlands' banking sector, we examine how macroeconomic, bank‐specific, and account‐specific characteristics affect the interest rates of banking products. Our results show that interest rates have become more sensitive to bank risk since the onset of the global financial crisis. More generally, we show that time deposits reflect more closely the economic environment than bank interest rates on savings accounts do. Interest rates on deposit products vary not only across, but also within banks (i.e., across account of individual banks). We find that maturity‐increasing conditions (i.e., withdrawal fees for savings accounts and product maturity for time deposits) positively influence a product's interest rate.     

Banking Reforms for the 21st Century: A Perfectly Stable Banking System Based on Financial Innovations*

Although bank loans themselves are somewhat illiquid because of private information, most of their cashflows are not. Recent financial innovations allow commercial loans to be liquefied via credit derivatives and actual and synthetic securitizations. The loan originating bank holds the remaining illiquid equity tranche containing the concentrated credit risk, private information rent and the ‘excess spread’ that incentivize the bank to continue to monitor and service the loans. Empirically, we find that the average size of the equity tranche is about 3% for the representative commercial loan portfolios in our sample. The liquefaction of bank loans makes possible a banking system that restricts the guaranteed accounts to be backed by 100% reserves and the non‐guaranteed deposits to be backed by liquid securitized loan tranches, while retaining the deposit‐lending synergy. Such a system is perfectly safe without deposit insurance and it renders banks bankruptcy‐remote without sacrificing a bank's traditional role as a financial intermediary.     

In Which Context is the Option Clause Desirable?

The option clause is a contractual device from free banking experiences meant to prevent banknote redemption duels. It has been used within the Diamond and Dybvig (J Pol Econ 91: 401–419, 1983) framework to suggest that very simple contractual solutions can act as an alternative to deposit insurance. This literature has, however, been ambiguous on whether the option clause can replace deposit insurance outside of those two contexts. It will be argued that the theoretical clause does not generally affect the likelihood that a solvent bank goes bankrupt because of a bank run, as empirical evidence suggests it is already near null, and that the exercise of the clause will have the effect of diminishing the size of creditor claims on bank assets because it exacerbates the agency problem of bank debt. It will therefore be argued that the clause is only desirable in (a) free banking systems that are historically devoid of bank runs in the first place and have other means of managing debt-related agency problems and (b) under the unrealistic assumption that bank runs are self-fulfilling prophecies. It will be argued that the agency problem of bank debt makes the option clause undesirable outside of free banking systems.     

Excess Risk Premia of Asian Banks

This paper develops a framework for gauging the risks of emerging market banks by using stock market data. Employing a multifactor asset pricing model that allows for time‐varying risk premia, we find the presence of large excess risk premia on Asian bank stocks, especially in those markets affected by the Asian financial crisis. We find that the excess risk premia appear to be negatively related to the degree of economic freedom of a country but positively related to its corruption level. Thus, our findings are consistent with the view that crony capitalism in Asia may have distorted the market mechanism or the systematic risk exposure of banks. This suggests that the excess risk premium provides useful information on risk exposure for opaque banking systems where quality accounting information is not available.     

中国银行业信息化问题探讨

中国金融业和银行业的发展举世瞩目。中国银行业的信息化之路走过了20年,实现了信息大集中、运营集约化、管理现代化和服务电子化。随着全球经济一体化、金融一体化的深入推进,中国的商业银行必须从银行信息化走向信息化银行,即在银行信息化的基础上真正实现融汇、贯通,促使银行业经营管理产生根本变化。具体说来,就是要集中、整合、共享、挖掘。一要转变为规模化、标准化的作业模式,实现业务集中处理,最终达到经营管理的全面集中和集约,使银行在业务量快速增长、业务复杂性大幅提高的情况下,依然保证业务运营的高质量、高效率,有效降低生产运营成本,控制经营风险;二要按照统一的信息技术架构将银行内部各管理系统全部整合到一个系统管理平台,实现各系统互联互通;三要突破信息传导和查控的限制,提高可用性和易用性;四要对银行或者企业非常需要的管理信息、客户信息、产品信息等进行收集、储存和处理,进行挖掘和归纳性梳理,充分利用有价值的信息,帮助管理者判断市场,发现价格,评估风险,配置资源,提供决策支持。中国银行业应在全球银行业剧变之时,为银行信息化建设走出一条新路。     

资产证券化对商业银行微观审慎监管的影响——基于流动性的思考

文章扩展了资产证券化对银行稳定性影响的模型,分别从银行风险承担水平及监督努力水平两方面来研究资产证券化对银行稳定性的影响。研究发现,若证券化增加了通常情况下银行资产的流动性,则会提高银行的风险承担水平,降低银行的监督努力水平;若证券化增加了非常时期银行资产的流动性,则会提高银行的风险承担水平,并且提高银行的监督努力水平。总体而言,若资产证券化提高了银行资产的流动性,则会增大单个银行的风险。     

Stand by me: Friends,relationship banking,and financial governance in Asia

While northeastern Asian economies have grown at a stellar rate over the past 4 decades, during the same period, bank officials and financial market participants have been charged with corruption, nepotism, and government meddling and have incurred high levels of non-performing loans. The close relationships between financiers and their clients, a part of Chinese society known as guanxi, has often been criticized as a key source of corruption in Northeast Asia finance. However, the complex nature of relationships in guanxi networks brings a good side to Asian finance in that reputational risk disciplines financiers, clients, and government officials. I delve into the personal side of Asian finance using the theoretical poles of transactional and relationship banking. Transactional banking is a top-down, hard-data impersonal form of financial contracting, while relationship banking is a bottom-up interpersonal form of banking that relies on softer data. I argue that relationship banking, which naturally fits into an Asian context, could engender a shift from bad behavior to good behavior to protect wealth, reputation, and friends. Contrary to conventional wisdom, guanxi may lead to better governance in banking and other areas of Asian finance as more information becomes available through numerous media outlets and as groups outside the banking sector (e.g., insurance companies, the press, auditors, and citizens) discipline bankers and their clients through ‘private monitoring.’     

Use of Bank and Nonbank Financial Services: Financial Decision Making by Immigrants and Native Born

This study examines the joint decisions made by immigrant and native‐born families about whether or not to have a bank account and to use nonbank financial services (NBFS ). Immigrant families, especially those from Mexico or other Latin American countries, have a higher probability of using NBFS than native‐born families, regardless of their banking status. Residing in concentrated ethnic enclaves or being a US citizen, however, lowers the probability of using these services. Similarly, native‐born Black and Hispanic families are more likely to use these services than native‐born White families. Our findings support continued efforts to encourage mainstream participation among immigrant and minority native‐born families. Having access to mainstream financial services can help these families establish financial stability and economic mobility. To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive study of immigrant families' joint decision making about using NBFS and bank account ownership.     

Loyalty,naivety and powerlessness among Norwegian retail bank customers

The quantitative analysis presented in this paper builds on a qualitative focus group study of mobility among bank customers. The main finding from the focus group study was that mobile bank customers had a reflective – often critical ? relation to their banks, while the immobile bank customers had an unreflective – often trusting – relation to their banks. The study also resulted in a typology identifying different bank customer orientations. In the present paper, this typology has been operationalized and modified for further quantitative estimation and investigation. Nine different bank orientations are distinguished, and the results indicate that at least two of three bank customers do not regularly monitor their banking terms and conditions. In other words, it is reasonable to believe that the ordinary bank customer is not acting as expected according to the theory of well‐functioning market mechanisms. Resourceful consumers, with high incomes and education levels, tend to be more financially oriented than others. When people with meagre financial resources tend to end up in the more unfavourable banks, this is not solely a result of the banks’ own discrimination of the poor; it is also due to the fact that people with high incomes and education levels are more likely to monitor their banking conditions than people with low incomes, irrespective of whether or not they have bank loans. The quantitative material analysed was collected in February 2007 by computer‐assisted telephone interviews. One thousand randomly selected respondents answered the questions.