Adverse selection as an explanation of credit rationing and different lender types

An adverse selection model is utilized to demonstrate that informational asymmetry may make it wealth optimal for the financial intermediary (FI) to credit ration and to rationalize the existence of different lenders in the credit market. The crucial assumption is that borrowers differ in their tolerance for a lender-imposed default penalty, the severity of which also varies with the lender. The credit rationing portion proves that the FI will: 1) be forced by a binding regulatory constraint to overinvest in capital; 2) ration its worst risk class borrowers; 3) establish its optimal loan interest rate on the basis of the average quality of its loans and the interest rate elasticity of the borrower demand in its best risk category; and 4) decrease the total loan volume and increase the loan interest rate due to an increase in the capital requirement, but the effect on the default risk quality of its loan portfolio is ambiguous. The existence result is that if a lender has a high default penalty, he can charge a lower rate and attract only “good” borrowers, i.e., heterogeneous lender types encourage the screening of borrowers and vice versa.     

Credit market discipline: Theory and evidence

Popular in the academic literature and financial press, the credit market discipline hypothesis holds that credit markets, through risk premia increasing in debt level, constrain governments from borrowing and thus, impose fiscal discipline on sovereign borrowers. While several papers document rising risk premia, none have investigated the consumption response. This paper fills this gap by using data on U.S. states' risk premia from 1973–98. An optimizing model is formulated, whereby states intertemporally smooth consumption in the face of interest rates which increase with debt. Deviations from optimality are considered by allowing for governments which consume out of contemporaneous resources. In both cases, credit market discipline is rejected. Rejection is robust to sample splits based on ideology and the stringency of balanced budget requirments.     

Discrete Choice Model Application to the Credit Risk Evaluation

The aim of the paper is to discuss the application of classification functions and artificial neural networks (such as multilayer perceptron and radial basis function) to recognize the risk category of investigated companies. The research is based on data from 295 enterprises that applied for credit in two regional banks operating in Poland. Each firm is described by 13 diagnostic variables and potential borrowers are classified into four classes. The efficiency of classification is evaluated in terms of classification errors calculated from the actual classification made by the credit officers. The results of the experiments show that application of artificial neural networks and classification functions can support the creditworthiness evaluation of borrowers.     

Information technology and the rise of household bankruptcy

Several studies have attributed the rise of household bankruptcy in the past two decades to the decline of social stigma associated with default. Stigma explanations, however, cannot account for the large increase in the use of unsecured credit during this period. I explain the simultaneous increase in bankruptcy rates and unsecured credit as the result of improvements in credit-rating technologies. Using an environment where borrowers face heterogeneous default costs (unobservable by creditors), I show that such improvements will lead to agents with high default costs, i.e., “safe” borrowers, being able to borrow more. A quantitative example illustrates that this increased access to credit can be large enough to raise both equilibrium borrowing and default rates.     

Financial Matching, Asymmetric Information and Entrepreneurial Risk Taking

We study financial matching in credit markets when entrepreneurs have private information about their success potential. Entrepreneurs can search for financing for either a “risky” or a “safe” investment and only the risky project is sensitive to entrepreneurs' intrinsic “types”. There is excess risk taking in the sense that entrepreneurs with inefficiently low success probabilities choose the risky investment. However, steady states featuring greater market liquidity are associated with higher efficiency. As market liquidity also reflects the intensity of competition among financiers, earlier results which indicate a negative relationship between competition and allocative efficiency do not hold in our setup.     

基于K-S检验与距离相关分析的网络借贷信用评价指标体系构建

网络借贷作为一种新型互联网金融模式,提升了金融资源使用效率,缓解了小企业融资难的困局。构建合理的网络借贷信用评价指标体系,从而对网络借贷的潜在风险及时甄别与预防,对互联网金融健康持续发展意义重大。本文根据K-S检验与距离相关分析相结合,筛选对借款客户违约状态甄别能力强的指标,建立了网络借贷信用评价指标体系,通过P2P网络借贷(peer to peer lending,个人对个人借贷)平台LendingClub交易数据进行实证研究,结果表明:不仅借款金额、借款利率等借款标的特征对借贷者违约具有显著相关性,借款者年龄等个人特征、借款者年收入等财务特征以及借款者违约次数等信用特征均对借贷者违约风险产生显著影响。投资者在出借资金时,往往青睐于已婚、年龄适中、具有一定工作经历、历史违约次数较少的借款人。因此,风险监管部门应构建网络借贷违约风险评估模型,对P2P平台进行风险监测,同时建立关键信息共享机制,融合多源数据,明确审查范围,实现P2P网络借贷行业健康有序发展。     

Evaluating credit risk and loan performance in online Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending

Online Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending has emerged recently. This micro loan market could offer certain benefits to both borrowers and lenders. Using data from the Lending Club, which is one of the popular online P2P lending houses, this article explores the P2P loan characteristics, evaluates their credit risk and measures loan performances. We find that credit grade, debt-to-income ratio, FICO score and revolving line utilization play an important role in loan defaults. Loans with lower credit grade and longer duration are associated with high mortality rate. The result is consistent with the Cox Proportional Hazard test which suggests that the hazard rate or the likelihood of the loan default increases with the credit risk of the borrowers. Finally, we find that higher interest rates charged on the high-risk borrowers are not enough to compensate for higher probability of the loan default. The Lending Club must find ways to attract high FICO score and high-income borrowers in order to sustain their businesses.     

Access to capital in rural Thailand: An estimated model of formal vs. informal credit

This paper analyzes the mechanism underlying access to credit, focusing on two important aspects of rural credit markets. First, moneylenders and other informal lenders coexist with formal lending institutions such as government or commercial banks, and, more recently, micro-lending institutions. Second, potential borrowers presumably face sizable transaction costs in obtaining external credit. We develop and estimate a model based on limited enforcement and transaction costs that provides a unified view of these facts. Based on data from Thailand, the results show that the limited ability of banks to enforce contracts, more than transaction costs, is crucial in understanding the observed diversity of lenders.     

Two stages credit evaluation in bank loan appraisal

Traditionally, banks conduct standard credit evaluation such as credit scoring following the receipt of loan request and make the accept/reject decision accordingly. This research explores the possibility of two stages credit evaluation in lending process. When the evaluation cost drops below the trigger cost, it pays to conduct the second-stage loan appraisal. We derive two trigger cost thresholds for borrowers who are rated as credible and default in the first stage, respectively. Contingent on the share of good borrowers relative to the bad ones, the optimal strategy of the bank can be differentiated to implement second-stage evaluation on either (1) both types, or (2) only one type, or (3) neither type of the borrowers. We find that during severe economic contractions or in geographic areas/industries which are in deep troubles, whilst the borrowers who repay the loan are out-numbered by the borrowers who fail to pay, the trigger cost for good borrower is higher than that of default borrower. In this scenario, the banks are more inclined to undertake the second-stage credit evaluation on good borrowers. On the other hand, if the percentage of credible borrowers is higher than that of default borrowers, the trigger cost for good borrower lies below the trigger cost of default borrower. As a result, the banks are less inclined to undertake the second-stage evaluation on good borrowers.     

Microfinance Beyond Group Lending

Microlending is growing in Eastern Europe, Russia and China as a flexible means of widening access to financial services, both to help alleviate poverty and to encourage private-sector activity. We describe mechanisms that allow these programmes to successfully penetrate new segments of credit markets. These features include direct monitoring, regular repayment schedules, and the use of non-refinancing threats. These mechanisms allow the programmes to generate high repayment rates from low-income borrowers without requiring collateral and without using group lending contracts that feature joint liability.     

Discount rates and credit markets: Theory and evidence from rural india

Three models of credit markets - (1) the permanent income model, (2) upward sloping credit supply to individual borrowers, and (3) constrained credit due to imperfect enforcement - are tested using credit market data and an experimental study of individuals' discount rates in south India. The permanent income model is rejected by both the discount rate and the credit market data. The discount rate data are consistent with either of the other two models, while the credit market data are consistent with a combination of these two models. Other explanations are found to be insufficient to explain the results of this study.     

信息、非正规金融与中小企业融资

各种形式的非正规金融在发展中国家和地区广泛存在。本文认为,由于中小企业信息不透明,且常常不能提供充分的担保或抵押,正规金融机构难以有效克服信息不对称造成的逆向选择问题,而非正规金融则在收集关于中小企业的“软信息”方面具有优势。这种信息优势是非正规金融广泛存在的根本性原因,金融抑制只是一个强化因素,同时非正规金融市场的各种特征也都源于其存在的根本逻辑。本文构建了一个包括异质的中小企业借款者和异质的贷款者(具有不同信息结构的非正规金融和正规金融部门)的金融市场模型,证明非正规金融的存在能够改进整个信贷市场的资金配置效率。     

Screening, cross-border banking, and the allocation of credit

The author analyses competition among banks when banks can use creditworthiness tests that generate (imperfect) information about borrowers. When banks can strategically adjust the test characteristics by investing resources in the screening technology, he shows that credit markets are not easily contestable. An increase in the intensity of competition may have few effects on incumbents» conduct and overall market shares. Moreover, conditions are provided under which screening efforts are reduced by competition. In such situations the quality of the overall loan portfolio declines and the economy incurs higher aggregate risk due to the lower quality of banks» information production. The welfare gains from integrating fragmented loan markets can actually be negative.     

Remittances and rural credit markets: Evidence from Senegal

This study investigates the relationship between remittances and credit markets in Senegal, focusing on rural areas where financial constraints are more challenging. Using a household fixed effects model, the findings show that remittances and credit markets are complements; namely, the receipt of remittances is positively associated with the likelihood of having a loan in a household. This means that migrants can increase the reliability of their family members and close relatives back home through their remittances, insuring them vis‐à‐vis lenders for their credit contracts. They are the collateral or the “element of trust” in the credit contract between the borrower and the lender, representing a potential alternative in case of non‐repayment. This result is robust to alternative models and various robustness tests mitigating the potential endogeneity of remittances. A detailed analysis also shows that the relationship between remittances and credit markets is mainly driven by loans taken for consumption and food, in particular, as well as loans provided by informal institutions.     

Competitive equilibrium in the credit market under asymmetric information

We study a competitive credit market equilibrium in which all agents are risk neutral and lenders a priori unaware of borrowers' default probabilities. Admissible credit contracts are characterized by the credit granting probability, the loan quantity, the loan interest rate and the collateral required. The principal result is that in equilibrium lower risk borrowers pay higher interest rates than higher risk borrowers; moreover, the lower risk borrowers get more credit in equilibrium than they would with full information. No credit is rationed and collateral requirements are higher for the lower risk borrowers.     

Information production, banking industry structure and credit allocation

We analyse credit allocation when limited-liable banks can engage in costly information production about borrowers. When perfectly diversified credit portfolios cannot be constructed, we show that credit allocation depends on bank capital and the number of banks that can operate in the same market. A concentrated banking industry, one where bank capital is held by few banks, is shown to lead to credit allocation closer to the social optimum. Moreover, in the absence of banking industry consolidation, we find that the removal of intra-state entry barriers reduces welfare and not all independent banking organizations that were viable in formerly protected markets remain so when markets are integrated.     

Regulating Exclusion from Financial Markets

We study optimal enforcement in credit markets in which the only threat facing a defaulting borrower is restricted access to financial markets. We solve for the optimal level of exclusion, and link it to observed institutional arrangements. Regulation in this environment must accomplish two objectives. First, it must prevent borrowers from defaulting on one bank and transferring their resources to another bank. Second, and less obviously, it must give banks the incentive to make sizeable loans, and to honour their promises of future credit. We establish that the optimal regulation resembles observed laws governing default on debt. Moreover, if debtors have the right to a "fresh start" after bankruptcy then this must be balanced by enforceable provisions against fraudulent conveyance. Our optimal regulation is robust, in that it can be implemented in a way that does not require the regulator to have information about either the borrower or lender. Our results isolate the way in which specific institutions surrounding bankruptcy–namely rules governing asset garnishment and fraudulent conveyances–support loan markets in which borrowers have no collateral.     

The signaling effects of education in the online lending market: Evidence from China

In this study, we use data from an online lending platform named Xinxindai in China to empirically study the signaling effects of education for the default risk of borrowers. Three dependent variables are created, namely, the probability of default, overdue payments and overdue amount, and probit models, count models and Tobit models are employed correspondingly. The number of universities in the “211 Project” of China at the city level is employed as the instrumental variable. The empirical evidence shows that education generally plays a strong signaling role in the identification of borrowers’ default risk in China. The negative marginal effect of education declines as borrowing times increase and as the marketization of regions deepens. This study helps to fill an important gap in the existing literature. Platforms and lenders can use educational level for reference in identifying the default risk of borrowers.     

Information sharing and lending market competition with switching costs and poaching

We analyze information sharing with repeated banking competition. In the presence of switching costs we find that information sharing renders poaching more profitable in future rounds of competition, since the poaching activities can be targeted towards (more) creditworthy borrowers. We find that information sharing reduces relationship benefits, and, therefore relaxes competition for initial market shares. Information sharing introduces a welfare tradeoff by promoting equilibrium profits at the expense of talented entrepreneurs whenever market power persists in credit market, whereas it is a matter of indifference without market power. Thus information sharing may induce exclusion of creditworthy borrowers from credit markets.     

Capacity-constrained Collusive Price Discrimination in the Informal Rural Credit Markets of Nepal

The author tests two alternative models of price determination in informal rural credit markets, using LSMS data from Nepal. Strong support is found for a capacity-constrained collusive oligopoly model, where lenders have full information about actual borrowers and charge heterogeneous interest rates. Only marginal support is found for a competitive cost-pricing model with imperfect information. Interest rates vary with the observable characteristics of caste, installment period, and geographical region; and they decrease as village lending capacity increases up to a certain level. Interest rates do not depend on risk related variables such as land value and loan size.