How Does Cross‐Border Activity Affect EU Banking Markets?

Cross‐border activity in the EU is widely viewed as a necessary condition for the implementation of a single banking market and therefore as a positive factor for the enhancement of competition and cost performance in the region. In this paper, we analyse the relevance of this view by investigating whether cross‐border activity really promotes competition and cost efficiency in EU banking markets. We also consider the potential role of a bank's mode of entry by comparing existing domestic banks that foreign banks take over (mergers and acquisitions) with new branches created by foreign banks, often through subsidiaries (greenfield operations). We consider the impact of cross‐border banks on cost efficiency (measured by the stochastic frontier approach), profitability (assessed through return on assets) and competition (measured by the Lerner index). We find that greenfield banks enhance cost efficiency and competition, while mergers and acquisitions hamper competition and cost efficiency. Therefore, our results suggest that EU authorities should promote only greenfield banks rather than all cross‐border entries.     

Impact of Foreign Strategic Investors on Earnings Management in Chinese Banks

Chinese authorities hoped that participation of foreign strategic investors (FSIs) could improve the profitability of Chinese banks both quantitatively and qualitatively. While past studies have typically focused on the effect of FSIs on banks' quantitative performance, this paper investigates the quality of profits through earnings management. We use matching theory to consider the selection bias. Our results demonstrate that banks with FSIs have improved the quality of their financial reports because they conducted less loss-avoidance management of earnings, but they engaged in as much management to avoid earnings growth decreases as non-FSI banks did.     

CEO pay incentives and risk-taking: Evidence from bank acquisitions

We analyze how the structure of executive compensation affects the risk choices made by bank CEOs. For a sample of acquiring U.S. banks, we employ the Merton distance to default model to show that CEOs with higher pay-risk sensitivity engage in risk-inducing mergers. Our findings are driven by two types of acquisitions: acquisitions completed during the last decade (after bank deregulation had expanded banks' risk-taking opportunities) and acquisitions completed by the largest banks in our sample (where shareholders benefit from ‘too big to fail’ support by regulators and gain most from shifting risk to other stakeholders). Our results control for CEO pay-performance sensitivity and offer evidence consistent with a causal link between financial stability and the risk-taking incentives embedded in the executive compensation contracts at banks.     

Preferential Regulatory Treatment and Banks' Demand for Government Bonds

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of preferential regulatory treatment on banks' demand for government bonds. Using unique transaction‐level data, our analysis suggests that preferential treatment in microprudential liquidity and capital regulation significantly increases banks' demand for government bonds. Liquidity and capital regulation also seem to incentivize banks to substitute other bonds with government bonds. We also find evidence that this “regulatory effect” leads banks to reduce lending to the real economy.     

Ownership structure,risk and performance in the European banking industry

We compare the performance and risk of a sample of 181 large banks from 15 European countries over the 1999–2004 period and evaluate the impact of alternative ownership models, together with the degree of ownership concentration, on their profitability, cost efficiency and risk. Three main results emerge. First, after controlling for bank characteristics, country and time effects, mutual banks and government-owned banks exhibit a lower profitability than privately owned banks, in spite of their lower costs. Second, public sector banks have poorer loan quality and higher insolvency risk than other types of banks while mutual banks have better loan quality and lower asset risk than both private and public sector banks. Finally, while ownership concentration does not significantly affect a bank’s profitability, a higher ownership concentration is associated with better loan quality, lower asset risk and lower insolvency risk. These differences, along with differences in asset composition and funding mix, indicate a different financial intermediation model for the different ownership forms.     

Impact of non-traditional activities on the efficiency of Indian banks: an empirical investigation

This article investigates the relevance of the inclusion of non-traditional activities in the specification of banks' output on the efficiency of Indian banks. The results indicate that the exclusion of non-traditional activities not only understates the cost, technical and allocative efficiencies of individual banks but also affects the ranking of ownership groups in the industry. In particular, when a proxy for non-traditional activities is accounted for in the output specification, the foreign banks appear to be more efficient than public and private sector banks. Overall, the results reinforce the prevailing view in the extant literature that the exclusion of non-traditional activities causes misspecification of banks' output, and may distort the efficiency estimates.     

The Competitive Dynamics of Geographic Deregulation in Banking: Implications for Productive Efficiency

Deregulation of geographic restrictions in banking over the past 20 years has intensified both potential and actual competition in the industry. The accumulating empirical evidence suggests that potential efficiency gains associated with consolidating banks are often not realized. We evaluate the impact of this increased competition on the productive efficiency of non-merging banks confronted with new entry in their local markets and find that the incumbent banks respond by improving cost efficiency. Thus, studies evaluating the impact of bank mergers on the efficiency of the combining parties alone may be overlooking the most significant welfare-enhancing aspect of merger activity.     

Liquidity creation,regulatory capital,and bank profitability

We examine the interrelationships among liquidity creation, regulatory capital, and bank profitability of US banks. We find that regulatory capital and liquidity creation affect each other positively after controlling for bank profitability. However, this relationship is largely driven by small banks and primarily during non-crisis periods. It is also sensitive to the level of banks' regulatory capital and how it is measured. Furthermore, we find that banks which create more liquidity and exhibit higher illiquidity risk have lower profitability. Finally, the relationship between regulatory capital and bank performance is not linear and depends on the level of capitalization. Regulatory capital is negatively related to bank profitability for higher capitalized banks but positively related to profitability for lower capitalized banks. Therefore, a change in regulatory capital has differential impacts on bank performance. Our findings have various implications for policymakers and bank regulators.     

Estimating risk efficiency in Middle East banks before and after the crisis: A metafrontier framework

The aim of this study is three-fold. Firstly, it attempts to analyse the effect of risk on Middle East banks' efficiency levels before and after the recent financial crisis. Secondly, it seeks to determine the influence of bank size taking into consideration the possible inefficiency originated to risk abatement cost. Thirdly, it investigates the possible effect of oil price shocks on banks' performance. To examine these issues we introduce a risk efficiency index based on an output orientated directional distance function with weak and strong disposability assumptions. The methodology has been applied on a panel of Middle East banks spanning the period 1998–2014.The empirical findings suggest that on average small banks are more efficient and their size has less negative impact on their technical efficiency and risk management. On the other hand, large banks' risk management is found to be more flexible during the financial crisis. Moreover, banks with higher fixed assets are associated with more costly disposals of non-performing loans justifying the rejection of a positive relation between bank size and technical efficiency. Finally, oil price shocks play a significant role.     

Governance,efficiency and risk taking in Chinese banking

We employ a hand-collected unique dataset on banks operating in China between 2003 and 2011 to investigate the impact of board governance features (size, composition and functioning) on bank efficiency and risk taking. Our evidence suggests that board characteristics tend to have a greater influence on banks' profit and cost efficiency than on loan quality. We find that the proportion of female directors on the board appears not only to be linked to higher profit and cost efficiency but also to lower traditional banking risk. Similarly, board independence is associated with higher profit efficiency of banks; while the opposite is found for executive directors and in the presence of dual leadership of the CEO/chairperson. Among the control variables, we found that liquidity negatively affects profit and cost efficiency, while positively affecting risk. Interestingly, we find some evidence of an incremental effect of specific board characteristics on efficiency for banks with more concentrated ownership structures and state-owned institutions; while for banks with CEO performance-related pay schemes the effect on efficiency when significant is usually negative. Our results offer useful insights to policy makers in China charged with the task of improving the governance mechanisms in banking institutions.     

The role of securitization in bank liquidity and funding management

This paper studies the role of securitization in bank management. I propose a new index of “bank loan portfolio liquidity” which can be thought of as a weighted average of the potential to securitize loans of a given type, where the weights reflect the composition of a bank loan portfolio. I use this new index to show that by allowing banks to convert illiquid loans into liquid funds, securitization reduces banks' holdings of liquid securities and increases their lending ability. Furthermore, securitization provides banks with an additional source of funding and makes bank lending less sensitive to cost of funds shocks. By extension, the securitization weakens the ability of the monetary authority to affect banks' lending activity but makes banks more susceptible to liquidity and funding crisis when the securitization market is shut down.     

The Coordination Role of Stress Tests in Bank Risk‐Taking

We examine whether stress tests distort banks' risk‐taking decisions. We study a model in which a regulator may choose to rescue banks in the event of concurrent bank failures. Our analysis reveals a novel coordination role of stress tests. Disclosure of stress‐test results informs banks of the failure likelihood of other banks, which can reduce welfare by facilitating banks' coordination in risk‐taking. However, conducting stress tests also enables the regulator to more effectively intervene banks, coordinating them preemptively into taking lower risks. We find that, if the regulator has a strong incentive to bail out, stress tests improve welfare, whereas if the regulator's incentive to bail out is weak, stress tests impair welfare.     

Deposit insurance coverage,ownership, and banks' risk-taking in emerging markets

We ask how deposit insurance systems and ownership of banks affect the degree of market discipline on banks' risk-taking. Market discipline is determined by the extent of explicit deposit insurance, as well as by the credibility of non-insurance of groups of depositors and other creditors. Furthermore, market discipline depends on the ownership structure of banks and the responsiveness of bank managers to market incentives. An expected U-shaped relationship between explicit deposit insurance coverage and banks' risk-taking is influenced by country specific institutional factors, including bank ownership. We analyze specifically how government ownership, foreign ownership and shareholder rights affect the disciplinary effect of partial deposit insurance systems in a cross-section analysis of industrial and emerging market economies, as well as in emerging markets alone. The coverage that maximizes market discipline depends on country-specific characteristics of bank governance. This “risk-minimizing” deposit insurance coverage is compared to the actual coverage in a group of countries in emerging markets in Eastern Europe and Asia.     

The Impact of Mergers and Acquisitions on the Efficiency of the US Banking Industry: Further Evidence

Abstract:  Using the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA), this study investigates the cost and profit efficiency effects of bank mergers on the US banking industry. We also use the non-parametric technique of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate the production structure of merged and non-merged banks. The empirical results indicate that mergers have improved the cost and profit efficiencies of banks. Further, evidence shows that merged banks have lower costs than non-merged banks because they are using the most efficient technology available (technical efficiency) as well as a cost minimizing input mix (allocative efficiency). The results suggest that there is an economic rational for future mergers in the banking industry. Finally, mergers may allow the banking industry to take advantage of the opportunities created by improved technology.     

Banks and Corporate Decisions: Evidence from Business Groups

Banks who can influence clients' governance may steer those clients into mergers to reduce the banks' own risk. Empirical evidence based on Japan's mergers and acquisitions (M&As) during the country's 1990s banking crisis indicates that acquirers with stronger bank ties made acquisitions that they would not have normally made. These acquirers lost more shareholder value via mergers than acquirers with weaker bank ties. The banks' risk was reduced, while the banks' shareholders gained significant excess returns from their borrowers' mergers. This paper offers implications for corporate governance of firms with strong bank ties and advances the existing knowledge on business groups.     

金融服务实体经济的效率及影响因素研究 ——基于商业银行资产负债的实证分析

本文首先深入分析了商业银行的资产负债管理行为,构建商业银行追求利润的资产负债管理模型,从理论上分析出商业银行将资产配置到实体经济领域的影响因素。在此基础上,从金融监管的角度出发,将商业银行的资产负债项目进一步分类为杠杆类、通道类,利用25家商业银行2009到2018年的面板数据,实证分析针对商业银行的杠杆类、通道类资产负债的监管,对金融支持实体经济力度、价格的影响效果。结果显示：银行支持实体经济力度方面,银行的杠杆率对银行支持实体经济力度有显著正向效果,但是资金通道长度对银行支持实体经济力度的影响并不显著;银行支持实体经济的资金价格方面,杠杆率对银行资金价格的影响并不显著,但是通道长度则会显著增加资金成本;商业银行的国有、股份制、城商行性质对银行支持实体经济力度的影响也不显著,但是同等条件下,商业银行的国有性质会显著降低资金价格水平。     

Effect of Internationalization on the Cost Efficiency of Taiwan’s Banks

Abstract:

We focus on the effect of internationalization on the cost efficiency of banks by studying Taiwan as a sample for developing countries. We find that (1) increasing overseas businesses and foreign exchange deposits increases cost efficiency; (2) expanding offshore banking units increases bank efficiency; and (3) the profitability of a bank’s overseas branch is not a critical factor behind the differences in cost efficiency across both financial holding company (FHC) banks and non-financial holding company (non-FHC) banks. Finally, our metafrontier empirical results illustrate that FHC banks in Taiwan show better technical performance in cost control than non-FHC banks.     

Banks' Liquidity and the Cost of Liquidity to Corporations

We consider the liquidity shock banks experienced following the collapse of the asset‐backed commercial paper (ABCP) market in the fall of 2007 to investigate whether banks' liquidity conditions affect their ability to provide liquidity to corporations. We find that banks that borrowed more from the Federal Home Loan Bank system or the Federal Reserve's discount window following that liquidity shock passed a larger portion of their borrowing costs onto corporations seeking access to liquidity when compared to the precrisis period. This increase is larger among banks with a bigger exposure to the ABCP market, credit lines that pose more liquidity risk to banks, and borrowers that are likely dependent on the credit‐line provider. Our findings show that the crisis that affected the banking system had a negative effect not only on the price of credit to corporations, but also on the price corporations pay to guarantee access to liquidity.     

Measuring bank risk: Forward-looking z-score

While the z-score has been widely used to evaluate bank risk, it is criticized as a backward-looking measure. We propose a forward-looking method to construct the z-score by incorporating analyst forecasts. Empirical results show that the forward-looking z-score can predict the movement of the standard z-score one quarter ahead of time, and its predictive ability on banks' downward risk is better than the standard z-score. Moreover, we find that the predictive ability of the forward-looking z-score improves after the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, especially for large banks, showing the consequences of strengthened regulation and transparency. The forward-looking z-score is also significantly associated with the probability of default and market-based risk measures and can provide predictive signals for banks' future profitability. Overall, our findings suggest that the forward-looking z-score mitigates the shortcomings of the standard z-score and provides a reliable early warning signal for banks' future risk and performance.     

Accounting for distress in bank mergers

Most bank merger studies do not control for hidden bailouts, which may lead to biased results. In this study we employ a unique data set of approximately 1000 mergers to analyze the determinants of bank mergers. We use undisclosed information on banks’ regulatory intervention history to distinguish between distressed and non-distressed mergers. Among merging banks, we find that improving financial profiles lower the likelihood of distressed mergers more than the likelihood of non-distressed mergers. The likelihood to acquire a bank is also reduced but less than the probability to be acquired. Both distressed and non-distressed mergers have worse CAMEL profiles than non-merging banks. Hence, non-distressed mergers may be motivated by the desire to forestall serious future financial distress and prevent regulatory intervention.