Corporate Tax Enforcement Externalities and the Banking Sector

We explore whether corporate tax enforcement can affect bank lending. Specifically, we hypothesize that tax enforcement efforts aimed at small and midsized enterprises (SME) can improve their information environments, which in turn could lead to increased bank commercial lending. Exploiting the regional structure employed by the IRS until 1999, we find that the corporate tax return audit probability for SMEs is associated with greater commercial lending growth for regionally focused banks. We find similar evidence when exploiting the IRS reorganization from a regional to federal system in 2000. Further results show that tax enforcement's impact on SME informational environments is at least partially responsible for this association: The impact of tax auditing on bank lending is stronger for banks facing greater informational disadvantages and in areas where SMEs face greater hold-up problems. Finally, we find that the tax audit rate is positively associated with loan portfolio quality, suggesting that tax enforcement can lead to better loan decisions. Our findings are consistent with the tax authority's mandate having important externalities on bank lending and SME access to capital, suggesting that the benefits to tax enforcement go beyond improving tax collection.     

Deposit competition and loan markets

Less-intense competition for deposits, by mitigating banks’ incentive to take excessive risks, is traditionally believed to lead to lower non-performing loan (NPL) ratios and more-stable banks. This paper revisits this proposition in a model with borrower moral hazard in which banks’ NPL ratios depend endogenously on their loan pricing. In relatively uncompetitive loan markets, less-fierce competition for deposits (i.e., lower deposit rates) leads to lower loan rates and, thus, safer loans. In more-competitive markets, the opposite can occur: As banks’ deposit-repayment burdens decline, they become less eager to risk-shift; this softens competition for risky loans, leading to higher loan rates and, ultimately, riskier loans. Overall, the model predicts a hump-shaped relationship between banks’ pricing power in deposit markets and their NPL ratios.     

利率市场化、银行竞争与中小企业信贷可获性

金融机构贷款利率全面放开后,大型企业与银行的议价能力提高,而中小企业信贷可获性问题则需要多角度分析。利率市场化从两方面影响中小企业融资问题,一是利率浮动带来的直接影响;二是通过加剧商业银行竞争程度带来的间接影响。文章构建了银企博弈和商业银行竞争两个模型对中小企业信贷可获性进行理论分析,结果表明,无论放开贷款利率上限管制还是下限管制,随着商业银行竞争的加剧,长期来看中小企业信贷可获性都得到了提高。     

中小企业信贷可得性的影响因素

本文利用中国人民银行征信系统的相关数据,实证研究湖南地区中小企业信贷可得性的影响因素,以检验银行对中小企业的贷款技术。实证结果表明:大型和跨区域性银行对中小企业未采取关系型贷款;贷款银行对中小企业的财务特征不太重视;大型和跨区域性银行对中小企业贷款主要采用信用评分技术。作者建议:第一,整合信息资源,发展独立的信用评估机构对中小企业进行信用评估,降低大型和跨区域性银行对中小企业贷款成本和信息不对称程度;第二,大力发展区域性中小商业银行,并鼓励其形成和充分发挥对中小企业进行关系型贷款的比较优势。     

Political risk,project finance,and the participation of development banks in syndicated lending

How should loan contracts for financing projects in countries with high political risk be designed? We argue that non-recourse project finance loans and the participation of development banks in the loan syndicate help mitigate political risk. We test these arguments by conducting a study with a sample of 4978 loans made to borrowers in 64 countries. Our results show that if political risk is higher, then project finance loans are more likely to be used, and development banks are more likely to participate in the syndicate. We also show that the terms of the loan contract depend not only on the political risk but also on the legal and institutional environment as well.     

Debt covenants and asset versus equity acquisitions

We examine whether the presence of loan covenants leads firms to choose either an asset or equity acquisitions. Asset acquisitions involve the selective purchase of a target company's assets, and equity acquisitions involve acquisitions of common stocks. We document that firms with loan covenants are more likely to engage in asset acquisitions as opposed to equity acquisitions. Our results are robust to alternative measures of loan covenants and to endogeneity concerns. Furthermore, the association between loan covenants and asset acquisitions is stronger among firms with greater debt covenant intensity, more severe agency problems, and lower profitability. Acquirers facing more intense competition within their industries are also likely to choose asset acquisitions. Our findings suggest that acquirers' incentives to avoid wealth transfer at the expense of debtholders drive the relation between debt covenants and choice of acquisition structure.     

基于担保机制的网络联保融资模式创新

中小企业因经营规模小、管理不完善、信息披露机制不健全等原因使银企之间出现信息不对称,导致商业银行在贷款时出于风险的考虑不愿意向中小企业放款。网络联保贷款为解决中小企业融资难和降低银行贷款风险提供了一条新路径。但在内外部约束不够强烈的条件下,网络联保运行机制会出现失效,企业倾向于选择策略性违约而给银行带来损失。为进一步降低风险,将担保制度引入到网络联保融资模式中,可以有效降低企业策略性违约的概率。     

Credit unions vs. commercial banks,who takes more risk?

A unique feature of the financial services industry is that both shareholder-owned banks and member-owned credit unions coexist and compete against each other. In this study, we investigate two research questions. First, we compare risk-taking by banks and credit unions, with an additional consideration as to how regulatory oversight (state or federal) relates to such risk-taking. Second, we examine how competition affects the difference in risk-taking between these two types of financial institutions. To answer both questions, we rely on a matched sample (by loan type, size, and county) of commercial banks and credit unions, covering the period between 2010 and 2017. We use three empirical proxies for risk-taking, the Z-score, measuring an institution’s insolvency risk, as well as the ratios of non-performing loans to total loans and loan charge-offs to total loans, measuring the credit risk. Our results suggest that banks tend to engage in more risk-taking than credit unions; however, state regulatory oversight reduces the risk-taking gap, especially in terms of the Z-score. We further find that competition induces different risk-taking behaviors in banks and credit unions. Our results are robust to several alternative specifications.     

Herd behavior in the Japanese loan market: Evidence from bank panel data

This paper investigates whether Japanese banks had been following herd behavior in the domestic loan market from 1975 through 2000. Applying the technique developed by Lakonishok, Shleifer, and Vishny [Lakonishok, J., Shleifer, A., Vishny, R.V., 1992. The impact of institutional trading on stock prices, J. Finan. Econ. 32, 23–43] to the data from loans outstanding to different types of borrowers, we obtain evidence indicative of the existence of herding. City banks in Japan had been following a cyclical pattern of herding with one of the peaks around the bubble period in the late 1980s. Adjusting further for herding resulting from rational behavior, evidence indicative of the existence of irrational herding was observed only in the bubble period. Our estimate indicates that a total of some 5 trillion yen of loan increase by city banks during the period of 1987–1989 can be attributed to irrational herd behavior. The results imply that irrational bank behavior in the late 1980s might have contributed to the problems Japanese banks had with non-performing loans. We also obtained evidence for herding among regional banks and among geographically proximate banks.     

Macroeconomic and bank-specific determinants of non-performing loans in Greece: A comparative study of mortgage,business and consumer loan portfolios

This paper uses dynamic panel data methods to examine the determinants of non-performing loans (NPLs) in the Greek banking sector, separately for each loan category (consumer loans, business loans and mortgages). The study is motivated by the hypothesis that both macroeconomic and bank-specific variables have an effect on loan quality and that these effects vary between different loan categories. The results show that, for all loan categories, NPLs in the Greek banking system can be explained mainly by macroeconomic variables (GDP, unemployment, interest rates, public debt) and management quality. Differences in the quantitative impact of macroeconomic factors among loan categories are evident, with non-performing mortgages being the least responsive to changes in the macroeconomic conditions.     

When time is not on our side: The costs of regulatory forbearance in the closure of insolvent banks

In this paper, we empirically estimate the costs of delay in the FDIC's closures of 433 commercial banks between 2007 and 2014 based upon a counterfactual closure regime. We find that the costs of delay could have been as high as $18.5 billion, or 37% of the FDIC's estimated costs of closure of $49.8 billion. We think that these findings call for a more aggressive stance by bank regulators with respect to the provisions for loan losses and write-downs of banks’ non-performing assets. More aggressive (and earlier) provisions and write-downs, or adoption of a capital ratio that penalizes nonperforming loans, would allow the concept of “prompt corrective action” (PCA) to play the role that it was meant to play in reducing FDIC losses from insolvent banks.     

Government guarantees of loans to small businesses: Effects on banks’ risk-taking and non-guaranteed lending

We analyzed the loan guarantees that the Japanese government provided for banks’ loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We modeled and estimated how much and under what conditions loan guarantees affected banks’ risk-taking and banks’ non-guaranteed lending.In the presence of controls for bank capital and other factors that might affect supplies of bank credit, our estimates supported our model's implications that loan guarantees increased banks’ risk-taking.Consistent with our model, our estimates imply that, when banks initially had fewer guaranteed loans and then got more guaranteed loans, guaranteed loans were complements to, rather than substitutes for, non-guaranteed loans. As complements, loan guarantees could be “high-powered” in that they generated increases not only in guaranteed loans, but also increases in non-guaranteed loans that were a multiple of the increases in guaranteed loans. In addition, banks’ having more capital was associated with doing more non-guaranteed lending.     

不良贷款高企：形成机理与制度重构——以A市农信社为例

2003年启动的农信社改革成效明显,目前农信社系统整体不良贷款率处于合理区间。但部分农信社尽管采取了完善法人治理、不良贷款稀释等多种方式和手段,不良贷款率仍处于很高的水平。本文对A市农信社不良贷款形成机理、担保及担保创新的有效性、不良贷款稀释的负面效应等进行了分析,探讨了农信社信用放款的可行性,并针对贷款＂合谋＂行为提出了基于＂双第一责任人＂的制度重构思路。在当前银行信贷资产质量整体下滑的背景下,希望对于商业银行防范信贷风险、控制不良贷款上升有所裨益。     

Within-syndicate conflicts,loan covenants,and syndicate formation

We study how conflicts within a lending syndicate affect loan contract and syndicate formation. We argue that loan provisions serve an important dual function: In addition to moderating borrower–lender conflicts, they reduce within-syndicate conflicts. We show that greater potential for within-syndicate conflicts is associated with more and stricter covenants. Loans are less restrictive when the interests of participants and the lead arrangers are better aligned, for example, when participant–banks have stronger relationships with the lead arranger or hold borrower's equity (indirectly). Overall, our results show that covenant choice, syndicate formation, and lead arranger's loan allocation all play an important role in reducing within-syndicate conflicts.     

后危机时代商业银行不良资产形成因素的实证研究——基于江西省数据的经验分析

2009年,我国信贷高增长引致未来银行不良资产大量积聚的潜在风险引起了各方关注。在后金融危机背景下,研究商业银行不良贷款的现状,发掘不良贷款存在的根源,对信贷风险管理具有重要的现实意义。本文在回顾以前研究成果的基础上,试图以更加全面的视角,从宏观经济金融环境、宏观调控政策以及银行业运行情况等三个方面深入分析商业银行不良资产的影响因素。文章运用协整分析、格兰杰因素检验和脉冲响应模型对资产价格、固定资产投资、通胀率、存款准备金率、基准利率、银行利润等指标与不良贷款率（或不良贷款余额）的因果关系、影响程度进行了实证分析。结果表明,宏观经济金融形势的变化和货币政策调整都是影响不良贷款变化的重要原因,而不良贷款率的变化对商业银行利润影响明显。     

Securitization and optimal foreclosure

Does securitization distort the foreclosure decisions of non-performing mortgages? In a model of mortgage-backed securitization with an endogenous foreclosure policy, we find that the securitizing bank adopts a tougher foreclosure policy than the first-best, despite resulting in higher loan losses. This is optimal because foreclosure mitigates the adverse selection problem in securitization by making the optimal security, a risky debt, less information-sensitive. We further show that policies that limit mortgage foreclosure would discourage the bank’s ex ante screening effort, reducing the quality of securitized mortgages. Our model yields novel testable predictions on the effect of mortgage securitization on foreclosure rates, loan performance, and mortgage servicing.     

Securitization,competition and monitoring

We analyze the impact of loan securitization on competition in the loan market. Using a dynamic loan market competition model where borrowers face both exogenous and endogenous costs to switch between banks, we uncover a competition softening effect of securitization that allows banks to extract rents in the primary loan market. By reducing monitoring incentives, securitization mitigates winner’s curse effects in future stages of competition thereby decreasing ex ante competition for initial market share. Due to this competition softening effect, securitization can adversely affect loan market efficiency while leading to higher equilibrium profits for banks. This effect is driven by primary loan market competition, not by the exploitation of informational asymmetries in the secondary market for loans. We also argue that banks can use securitization as a strategic response to an increase in competition, as a tool to signal a reduction in monitoring intensity for the sole purpose of softening ex ante competition. Our result suggests that securitization reforms focusing exclusively on informational asymmetries in markets for securitized products may overlook competitive conditions in the primary market.     

我国上市银行市值影响因素探讨

运用杜邦财务体系,选用贷款、存款、手续费收入、不良贷款率、流通股份等指标,引入Feltham-Ohlson估值模型对银行类上市公司进行实证分析,实证结果显示,传统存贷款业务的利润差仍然是中国上市银行的利润和价值来源,不良贷款率对银行价值有负面影响,该指标在中国由于政策因素的影响并不显著。     

Relationship-based debt financing of Chinese private sector firms: The role of social connections to banks versus political connections

We study whether a firm's social connections to banks can augment its political connections to help it obtain loans. In China, Regulation No. 18 (announced in 2013) prohibits all high-level government officials from being independent directors of firms. As a result, many firms lost their political connections. We find that after firms lose their politically connected independent directors, firms having no social connections to banks experience, on average, a 12% decrease in the bank loan ratio relative to the median ratio; but those whose board chairs or CEOs are socially connected to local bank branch heads experience a 22% increase in the loan ratio relative to the median. However, this positive effect is short lived and thus not a new equilibrium. Overall, our findings support the hypothesis that a firm's social connections to banks can augment its political connections to help it get bank financing.     

对不良贷款的再思考

经过十几年的努力,中国银行业的贷款质量得到了很大改善,大规模地处置问题贷款的时期基本结束了,新增违约贷款逐年减少,每年贷款的劣变额、劣变率都在降低。在这种情况下,如何深入认识和把控不良贷款,管理好银行的信贷资产质量,就成为人们需要关注的新问题。