Banks’ lending behavior and monetary policy: evidence from Sweden

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the aggregate data about bank loans which may hide significant information about the monetary transmission mechanism. This study, by disaggregating bank loans data and using the relevant interest rates in Sweden, investigates the behaviour of banks after a monetary policy tightening. By using an unrestricted VAR model and impulse response analysis, our results show that a shock on the policy rate affects the main components of the banks’ loan portfolios differently. Initially, banks do not reduce lending to firms and households and they present a sluggish reaction concerning the relevant interest rates. On the contrary, they reduce lending to mortgage credit institutions significantly since real estate lending can be considered as a risky long-term investment. Moreover mortgage credit institutions reduce lending for housing purposes to non-bank public. This reduction is mainly driven by flexible rate loans and loans secured on tenant owned apartments. Consequently, theses actions have a significant effect on real economic activity, by amplifying the initial shock from the tightening monetary policy. The latter result provides evidence of the bank lending channel in Sweden working via mortgage lending and could be very important for policy makers.     

Monetary policy and bank lending in the Euro area: Is there a stock market channel or an interest rate channel?

In this paper I compare a traditional demand oriented model of bank lending with its focus on short-term interest rates in the money market, to a non-traditional capital budgeting model of bank lending based on movements in share valuations for the Euro area. Using non-nested hypothesis tests, omitted variables tests, and Granger Causality tests, I reject the traditional demand oriented model of bank lending and fail to reject the capital budgeting model of bank lending for Monetary Financial Institutions (MFI's) in the Euro area. Even though Europe is a bank-based financial system, it appears the stock market plays a key role in the lending decisions and allocation of resources in Europe. One possible policy implication of this research is that the central bank should try and stabilize stock prices in order to achieve their goal of stabilizing bank lending and the economy.     

Does competition influence the bank lending channel in the euro area?

This paper examines how competition influences the bank lending channel in the euro area countries. Using a large panel of banks from 12 euro area countries for the period 2002–2010 we analyze the reaction of loan supply to monetary policy actions depending on the degree of bank competition. We find that the effect of monetary policy on bank lending is dependent on bank competition: the transmission of monetary policy via the bank lending channel is less pronounced for banks with extensive market power. Further investigation shows that banks with less market power were more sensitive to monetary policy only before the financial crisis. These results suggest that bank market power has a significant impact on the effectiveness of monetary policy. Therefore, wide variations in the level of bank market power may lead to asymmetric effects of the single monetary policy.     

The effect of TARP on lending: Evidence from the lead bank’s share in syndicated loans

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We investigate the effect of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) on the shares of lead banks in syndicated loans by using quarterly data for the...     

Does bank ownership affect lending behavior? Evidence from the Euro area

We analyze the differences in lending policies across banks characterized by different types of ownership, using micro-level data on Euro area banks during the period 1999–2011 to detect possible variations in bank lending supply responses to changes in monetary policy. Our results identify a general difference between stakeholder and shareholder banks: following a monetary policy contraction, stakeholder banks decrease their loan supply to a lesser extent than shareholder banks. A detailed analysis of the effect among stakeholder banks reveals that cooperative banks continued to smooth the impact of tighter monetary policy on their lending during the crisis period (2008–2011), whereas savings banks did not. Stakeholder banks’ propensity to smooth their lending cycles suggests that their presence in the economy has the potential to reduce credit supply volatility.     

Banks’ interconnections and peer effects: Evidence from Chile

In this paper, we identify and quantify the importance of endogenous peer effects in the interbank market, allowing for varying degrees of intensity of these peer effects. We base our analysis on a unique dataset that includes all interbank loans that have taken place between 15 banks in the Chilean interbank market representing more than 95% of the market between 2009 and 2016. This approach contrasts sharply with the geographical definition of peers used by most of the literature. As an application of our model, we examine an episode of liquidity shortage experienced by one Chilean bank in the interbank market, with the lenses of our model. We show evidence consistent with a herding behavior of the lender banks which, according to our model, were peers of the stressed bank.     

Can material asset reorganizations affect acquirers’’ debt financing costs?——Evidence from the Chinese Merger and Acquisition Market

In this paper, we investigate whether material asset reorganizations (MARs), a special form of merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions, can affect the acquirers’ cost of debt financing. Further, we examine the effect of acquiring firms’ accounting information quality on the cost of debt and on the association between MARs and debt costs. We predict that compared to conventional M&As, large-scale acquisitions through MARs can generate a much greater influx of assets from target firms. This raises the acquirers’ asset collateral and thus reduces the cost of debt. Because the quality of accounting information is a key factor affecting the cost of debt, we suggest that it has a spillover effect on the debt-cost effect of MARs. Using M&A transactions by listed companies in the Chinese A-share market from 2008 to 2014 as our sample, we find that MARs are associated with a higher asset collateral and lower ex post cost of debt than conventional M&As. Furthermore, we show that the acquiring firms’ accounting information quality has a significant negative effect on debt costs, and the negative association between MARs and the cost of debt is more pronounced when accounting information quality is higher.     

Did the securitization market freeze affect bank lending during the financial crisis? Evidence from a credit register

Using data from the Italian Credit Register we identify the adverse effect of the freeze of the securitization market on bank lending during the crisis of 2007–2008. Applying a differences-in-differences estimation to data on firms that borrow from multiple banks, we single out credit supply by including firm fixed effects. Our results show that the degree to which banks tightened credit supply to nonfinancial firms is positively related to the share of loans they securitized before the crisis. The tightening translated into lower credit growth, higher interest rates, lower probability of accepting loan applications and higher probability of relationship termination. Firms were unable to fully compensate the negative credit supply shock, which suggests that the securitization freeze played a role in reducing aggregate credit availability.     

Is bank diversification a linking channel between regulatory capital and bank value?

This study investigates the interrelationship between bank regulatory capital and bank diversification. We argue that regulatory capital might act as a substitutive mechanism of diversification to alleviate a bank's default risk. As a result, regulatory capital is likely to discourage firms from excessive diversification, which might in turn indirectly improve bank value. Using a sample of listed banks in developed countries from 2011 to 2017, we find that total regulatory capital is inversely associated with bank diversification. Narrower regulatory capital ratios only have a significant association with income-based but not with asset-based diversification. Our results also reveal an indirect effect of regulatory capital on bank value mediated by bank diversification (i.e. indirect-only mediation). Overall, our study provides novel insights into the complementarity of the institutional and strategic domains so as to understand the far-reaching implications of regulation reforms for the strategic behaviour of banking companies.     

SME financing and the choice of lending technology in Italy: Complementarity or substitutability?

This paper investigates SME financing in Italy. The literature distinguishes between two main different lending technologies (LTs) for SMEs: transactional and relationship LTs. We find that banks lend to SMEs by using both LTs together, independently of the size and proximity of borrowers. Moreover, we show that the use of soft information decreases the probability of firms being credit rationed. Finally, we find that more soft information is produced when the bank uses relationship LT as primary technology individually or coupled with transactional LT. Our results support the view that LTs can be complementary, but reject the hypothesis that substitutability among LTs is somehow possible for outsiders by means of hardening of soft information.     

Auditing regulations and bank shareholders’ wealth: An international analysis

This paper examines the ability of auditing regulation to protect bank shareholders’ wealth during the time of normal growth and during the 2007–2009 global financial crises. The study uses the bank regulation database available at the World Bank website. We select a sample of 2467 banks from 107 countries for the years 1999–2009. We perform multivariate regression analyses and find that while auditing regulations enhance bank equity prices in normal growth periods, there is no evidence that auditing regulations are associated with bank share prices during the period of financial crisis. We observe similar results for both developed and emerging countries and for the common and code law countries. Our results suggest an immediate need to strengthen audit regulations so that investor confidence is more likely to persist during periods of financial downturn.     

Banks’ reserve management,transaction costs,and the timing of Federal Reserve intervention

We use daily data on bank reserves and overnight interest rates to document a striking pattern in the high-frequency behavior of the US market for federal funds: depository institutions tend to hold more reserves during the last few days of each “reserve maintenance period”, when the opportunity cost of holding reserves is typically highest. We then propose and analyze a model of the federal funds market where uncertain liquidity flows and transaction costs induce banks to delay trading and to bid up interest rates at the end of each maintenance period. In this context, the central bank’s interest-rate-smoothing policy causes a high supply of liquid funds to be associated with high interest rates around reserve-settlement days.     

Is there a gender effect on the cost of bank financing?

In this paper, we address the question of whether the gender of a firm’s leader affects the cost of bank funding faced by small and medium enterprises in Europe. Using a large sample of observations of non-financial firms, during the years 2009–2013, we empirically test for the presence of discrimination, comparing female-led and male-led firms. After controlling for a rich set of variables and addressing potential endogeneity, our results show that i) female-led enterprises are more likely to face worse price conditions for bank financing compared to their male-led counterparts and, ii) firms whose leadership changes from female to male are more likely to benefit from an improvement in interest rate levels. This evidence is robust to different model specifications and various methodological approaches. The existence of such bias in the credit markets highlights the need of policy measures addressing female-led businesses, thus reducing their bank financing burdens and enhancing their entrepreneurial opportunities.     

The Quality and Price of Investment Banks’ Service: Evidence from the PIPE Market

We investigate the market structure and the pricing by placement agents of private investments in public equities (PIPEs). Our findings indicate that more reputable agents are associated with larger offers and with firms possessing lower risk. Agent reputation is positively associated with lower discounts and an enhanced post-PIPE trading environment. Issuers pay a higher dollar fee for these benefits, although more reputable agents charge a lower percentage fee. The evidence suggests that it is the quality of the issuing firm, and the pricing and reputational concern of the placement agent, that drives the equilibrium in the PIPE market.     

Information processing costs and corporate tax avoidance: Evidence from the SEC’s XBRL mandate

The IRS uses information contained in financial statements as well as tax returns to detect tax avoidance behavior. We examine the impact on corporate tax avoidance behavior of reductions in the IRS’s information processing costs resulting from the mandatory adoption of XBRL for financial reporting. Motivated by the recent debate in the U.S. Congress over the cost-benefit of mandatory XBRL reporting for small firms, we pay particular attention to small firms, which inherently have relatively high information frictions. We find that the adoption of XBRL for financial reporting results in a significant decrease in tax avoidance. We further find that the negative relation between XBRL reporting and tax avoidance is less prominent for firms subject to more intense IRS monitoring in the pre-XBRL-reporting period. Overall, our results suggest that XBRL reporting reduces the cost of IRS monitoring in terms of information processing, which dampens managerial incentives to engage in tax avoidance behavior.     

Equity financing and innovation: Is Europe different from the United States?

During the mid and late 1990s young, high-tech firms in the US experienced a supply shift in both internal and external equity fueling a finance-driven boom in corporate R&D. This paper examines whether R&D spending in Europe in a similar way was sensitive to fluctuations in the supply of internal and external equity during the late 1990s and early 2000s. I conjecture that UK and Continental Europe, due to their different financial systems, differ in terms of equity supply. I estimate dynamic R&D regression models for UK and Continental European high-tech firms separately and find significant joint cash-flow effects for newly listed firms in both samples. However, only new firms in the UK experienced a joint external equity effect as well. The findings of this paper suggest a channel through which market-based financial systems outperform the bank-based economies of Continental Europe.     

Policy uncertainty and bank’s funding costs: The effects of the financial crisis,Covid-19 pandemic,and market discipline

This paper examines the impacts of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on bank funding costs using the 2001–2021 data of US banks. We document consistent evidence of a negative relationship between EPU and bank funding costs, implying lower bank funding costs during a time of high EPU, consistent with the hypothesis that economic agents tend to reallocate their assets into safer investments, such as bank deposits during high uncertainty. Large banks are likely to benefit most during high EPU when experiencing lower costs of funds compared with other banks, suggesting the “too-big-to-fail” perception of depositors. Cross-sectional analysis indicates that depositors require safer banks to pay lower rates, indicating the existence of market discipline. The cost-decreasing effects of policy uncertainty are less pronounced during the global financial crisis than the Covid-19 crisis.     

Risk-shifting and the regulation of bank CEOs’ compensation

This paper analyzes the effects of two regulatory mechanisms, namely a regulation of the structure of bank CEOs incentive pay and sanctions for the CEOs of failed banks, on bank risk shifting. We extend a standard model of CEO compensation by incorporating leverage and an investment decision. To the extent that bank depositors and creditors are even partially protected by public guarantees, we show that it is in the interests of bank shareholders to choose more risky investments than would be socially optimal, and therefore to design a CEO contract with excessive risk taking incentives. Thus, we argue that current corporate governance arrangements in the banking sector are not efficient. In this setting, we show that putting in place one of the aforementioned mechanisms could yield the socially optimal outcome at no cost. We also identify some limitations and potential perverse effects of these mechanisms.     

Employee firing costs and auditors’ going-concern opinions: Evidence from wrongful discharge laws

This paper examines the impact of employee firing costs on auditors’ going-concern (GC) reporting decisions by exploiting the wrongful discharge laws (WDLs) adopted by U.S. states. We find that auditors are more likely to issue GC opinions to financially-distressed clients headquartered in states that have adopted the laws, in particular the good faith exception, than to clients in states that have not. This finding is robust to controlling for the state-level economics, the strictness of legal liability rules, audit office fixed effects, as well as alternative definitions of financial distress and estimation methods. The impact is concentrated in labor-intensive clients and clients in industries with a higher proportion of nonunionized or permanent employees. We further find that the increased propensity to issue GC opinions is attenuated when the auditor is economically dependent on the client, and is driven by auditors who possess labor-specific expertise. Overall, these findings are consistent with higher firing costs increasing auditors’ propensity to issue GC opinions.