Subordinated debt,market discipline,and banks' risk taking

The present paper demonstrates the ambiguous impact of subordinated debt on the risk-taking incentives of banks. It is shown that in comparison with full deposit insurance, subordinated debt reduces risk only if banks can credibly commit to a given level of risk. If, however, banks are not able to commit, subordinated debt leads to an increase in risk. This is because due to limited liability banks always have an incentive to increase their risk after the interest rate is contracted in order to reduce the expected costs of debt. Rational debt holders anticipate this behavior and accordingly require a higher risk premium ex ante. The higher interest rates in turn further aggravate the excessive risk-taking incentives of banks.     

Monitoring and Controlling Bank Risk: Does Risky Debt Help?

We examine whether mandating banks to issue subordinated debt would enhance market monitoring and control risk taking. To evaluate whether subordinated debt enhances risk monitoring, we extract the credit‐spread curve for each banking firm in our sample and examine whether changes in credit spreads reflect changes in bank risk variables, after controlling for changes in market and liquidity variables. We do not find strong and consistent evidence that they do. To evaluate whether subordinated debt controls risk taking, we examine whether the first issue of subordinated debt changes the risk‐taking behavior of a bank. We find that it does not.     

Basel II and the Need for Bank Distress Resolution Procedures*

It is argued that without increased market discipline Basel II is not likely to resolve the regulatory problem caused by explicit and implicit guarantees of depositors and other creditors of banks. One way to enhance market discipline is to implement proposals for mandatory subordinated debt. For these proposals to achieve their objective, the non‐insurance of holders of subordinated debt must be credible. Increased credibility of non‐insurance of one or several groups of creditors could be enhanced if distress resolution procedures for banks were pre‐specified, and if they made possible bank failures without serious disruption of the financial system. The existence of rules for dealing with banks in distress not only enhances the credibility of non‐insurance of some creditors, it also allows for predictability of distress resolution costs for shareholders and management of banks. Such costs—if predictable—reduce the moral hazard incentives caused by deposit insurance schemes.     

AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF BANK STANDBY LETTERS OF CREDIT RISK

Bank exposure to off-balance sheet activities in general and Standby Letters of Credit (SLCs) in particular has become a major concern to regulators. The risk-exposure of SLCs has been re-examined by employing option pricing methodologies to calculate implied asset risk from bank equity and flat deposit insurance, and from risk-premia on bank subordinated debt. The results indicate that SLC reduce systematic risk, equity risk, and implied asset risk. It appears that Standby Letters of Credit contribute to the overall diversification of bank's assets.     

Can subordinated debt constrain banks’ risk taking?

This paper presents a model in which requiring banks to issue a proper amount of subordinated debt can constrain their risk taking both before and after debt issuance. The main idea is that the prospect of issuing debt motivates banks to invest in safe assets before debt issuance; holding such assets then constrains their risk taking after debt issuance. The model helps understand the existing empirical findings, and offers a new testable prediction. It also suggests that: (1) regulators should set the amount of subordinated debt within a range; and (2) subordinated debt cannot entirely substitute for equity capital.     

Financial consolidation: Dangers and opportunities

This paper argues that although financial consolidation creates some dangers because it is leading to larger institutions who might expose the US financial system to increased systemic risk, these dangers can be handled by vigilant supervision and a government safety net with an appropriate amount of constructive ambiguity. Financial consolidation also opens up opportunities to dramatically reduce the scope of deposit insurance and limit it to narrow bank accounts, thus substantially reducing the moral hazard created by the government safety net. Reducing the scope of deposit insurance, however, does not eliminate the need for a government safety net, and thus there is still a strong need for adequate prudential supervision of the financial system. Moving to a world in which we have larger, nationwide, diversified financial institutions and in which deposit insurance plays a very limited role, should improve the efficiency of the financial system. However, it is no panacea: the job of financial regulators and supervisors will continue to be highly challenging in the future.     

The Effect of Credit Risk on Bank and Bank Holding Company Bond Yields: Evidence from the Post-FDICIA Period

In this article we examine whether the federal safety net is viewed by the market as being extended beyond de jure deposits to other bank debt and even the debt of bank holding companies (BHCs). We extend previous research by focusing on the post‐FDICIA period and by examining the risk‐return relation of bonds issued directly by banks, not BHCs. Our results provide evidence that both bank and BHC bonds are priced by the secondary market in relation to their underlying credit risk, particularly for less capitalized issuers, suggesting that proposals requiring banks to issue subordinated debt may enhance market monitoring and discipline and be useful in supplementing regulatory discipline.     

Do subordinated debt holders discipline bank risk-taking? Evidence from risk management decisions

I test the market discipline of bank risk hypothesis by examining whether banks choose risk management policies that account for the risk preferences of subordinated debt holders. Using around 500,000 quarterly observations on the population of U.S. insured commercial banks over the 1995–2009 period, I document that the ratio of subordinated debt affects bank risk management decisions consistent with the market discipline hypothesis only when subordinated debt is held by the parent holding company. In particular, the subordinated debt ratio increases the likelihood and the extent of interest rate derivatives use for risk management purposes at bank holding company (BHC)-affiliated banks, where subordinated debt holders have a better access to information needed for monitoring and control rights provided by equity ownership. At non-affiliated banks, a higher subordinated debt ratio leads to risk management decisions consistent with moral hazard behavior. The analysis also shows that the too-big-to-fail protection prevents market discipline even at BHC-affiliated banks.     

Market discipline and deposit insurance

Cross-country evidence presented in this paper suggests that explicit deposit insurance reduces required deposit interest rates, while at the same time it lowers market discipline on bank risk taking. Internationally, deposit insurance schemes vary widely in their coverage, funding, and management. This reflects that there are widely differing views on how deposit insurance should optimally be structured. To inform this debate, we use a newly constructed data set of deposit insurance design features to examine how different design features affect deposit interest rates and market discipline.     

How does deposit insurance affect bank risk? Evidence from the recent crisis

Deposit insurance is widely offered in a number of countries as part of a financial system safety net to promote stability. An unintended consequence of deposit insurance is the reduction in the incentive of depositors to monitor banks which lead to excessive risk-taking. We examine the relation between deposit insurance and bank risk and systemic fragility in the years leading up to and during the recent financial crisis. We find that generous financial safety nets increase bank risk and systemic fragility in the years leading up to the global financial crisis. However, during the crisis, bank risk is lower and systemic stability is greater in countries with deposit insurance coverage. Our findings suggest that the “moral hazard effect” of deposit insurance dominates in good times while the “stabilization effect” of deposit insurance dominates in turbulent times. The overall effect of deposit insurance over the full sample we study remains negative since the destabilizing effect during normal times is greater in magnitude compared to the stabilizing effect during global turbulence. In addition, we find that good bank supervision can alleviate the unintended consequences of deposit insurance on bank systemic risk during good times, suggesting that fostering the appropriate incentive framework is very important for ensuring systemic stability.     

Market Pricing of Deposit Insurance

We provide an approach to the market valuation of deposit insurance that is based on reduced-form methods for the pricing of fixed-income securities under default risk. By reference to bank debt prices as well as qualitative-response models of the probability of bank failure, we suggest how a risk-neutral valuation model for deposit insurance can be applied both to the calculation of fair-market deposit insurance premia and to the valuation of long-term claims against the insurer.     

存款保险制度关键要素比较分析

存款保险制度是市场经济体系中保障银行业稳健发展的基础性制度安排、国家金融安全网的重要组成部分。本文在对存款保险制度要素架构国际经验比较的基础上,针对目前我国在存款保险制度构建过程中存在的一些分歧和争议,提出应着重解决六个关键问题,及早以明确的存款保险制度取代政府隐性保险。     

The pricing of deposit insurance in the presence of systematic risk

Based on the Merton (1977) put option framework, we develop a deposit insurance pricing model that incorporates asset correlations, a measurement for the systematic risk of a bank, to account for the risk of joint bank failures. Estimates from our model suggest that actuarially fair risk-based deposit insurance that considers only individual bank failure risk is underpriced, leaving insurance providers exposed to net losses. Our estimates also capture the size premium where big banks are priced with higher deposit insurance than small banks. This result is particularly relevant to the current regulatory concerns on big banks that are too-big-to-fail. Above all, our approach provides a unifying framework for integrating risk-based deposit insurance with risk-based Basel capital requirements.     

Bank credit default swaps and deposit insurance around the world

We investigate the impact of deposit insurance schemes on banks' credit risk – a predictor of failure and a key element in the current financial crisis. Unlike most studies, which use balance sheet measurements of risk, we adopt a forward-looking and market-based measure of bank credit risk: the credit default swap (CDS) spread. We find that banks in countries with explicit deposit insurance systems have higher CDS spreads, supporting the “moral hazard” view. The results suggest that deposit insurance design features that lessen the adverse impact are risk-adjusted premium, coinsurance systems, government-established systems, “risk-minimizing” systems, and systems with dual-funding sources. Full coverage appears to stabilize bank risk only during the financial crisis period. More stringent bank regulation, such as capital adequacy regulation and independent supervision, could reduce the undesirable impact of deposit insurance. Deposit insurance seems to help stabilize volatile markets, as evidenced during the financial crisis and in countries with greater market volatility. In addition, we find that the adverse impact of deposit insurance on bank credit risk is more pronounced for banks with low asset quality and low liquidity.     

Bank Competition,Risk, and Subordinated Debt

This paper studies a dynamic model of banking in which banks compete for insured deposits, issue subordinated debt, and invest in either a prudent or a gambling asset. The model allows banks to choose their level of risk after the interest rate on subordinated debt is contracted. We show that requiring banks to issue a small amount of subordinated debt can reduce their gambling incentives. Moreover, when equity capital is more expensive than subordinated debt, adding a subordinated debt requirement to a policy regime that only uses equity capital requirements is Pareto improving.

差别化存款保险费率与银行风险承担——基于我国农村银行的经验证据

本文拓展了Freixas and Rochet(2008)的理论模型,证明存款保险差别化费率机制对银行风险承担具有抑制作用,在此基础上选取我国农村银行为研究对象,运用2015—2019年某省119家法人投保机构进行实证检验。研究发现:引入差别化费率设计显著降低了农村银行的风险承担;这一作用存在异质性,对于自身风险承担水平较低、资产规模较大的农村银行来说,抑制作用更为明显。进一步研究发现,差别化费率机制在一定程度上缓和了农信社改制短期内对农商行风险可能造成的不利影响。本文结论对加强存款保险制度的早期纠正功能、防范化解金融风险以及深化农村金融机构改革具有一定的理论意义和参考价值。     

Wealth and Risk Effects of Adopting Deposit Insurance in Canada: Evidence of Risk Shifting by Banks and Trust Companies

This paper confirms that adopting explicit deposit insurance expanded risk-shifting incentives for Canadian Banks and Trust Companies. By transferring responsibility for monitoring non-systematic risk to the Canadian Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC), deposit insurance eliminated the compensation previously paid to large-block stockholder monitors. This transfer fueled a redistribution of insured-institution stock from poorly diversified large-block shareholders to diversified investors. Also, subsequent changes in market volatility support the hypothesis that CDIC insurance and the absorption of catastrophic risk it provided reduced systematic risk in the stock market as a whole even as it increased non-systematic risk in the banking and trust-company sector.     

Does Subordinated Debt Play a Role for Market Discipline?

This paper examines the link between the issuance of subordinated debt by commercial banks and market discipline. Using cross-sectional and time-series data from 2002 to 2007, we empirically examine the relationship between banks' risk level and their decisions to issue subordinated debts in Taiwan. In particular, we test the hypothesis that the commercial banks with low risk levels prefer to issue subordinated debts more than high-risk banks do, and we reject the hypothesis. We conclude that the application of subordinated debt is not a mature channel for providing market discipline for commercial banks in Taiwan. We offer potential reasons for this finding and discuss the policy implications of our findings.     

Value-at-risk vs. building block regulation in banking

Existing regulatory capital requirements are often criticized for only being loosely linked to the economic risk of the banks' assets. In view of the attempts of international regulators to introduce more risk sensitive capital requirements, we theoretically examine the effect of specific regulatory capital requirements on the risk-taking behavior of banks. More precisely, we develop a continuous time framework where the banks' choice of asset risk is endogenously determined. We compare regulation based on the Basel I building block approach to value-at-risk or ‘internal model’-based capital requirements with respect to risk taking behavior, deposit insurance liability, and shareholder value. The main findings are: (i) value-at-risk-based capital regulation creates a stronger incentive to reduce asset risk when banks are solvent, (ii) solvent banks that reduce their asset risk reduce the current value of the deposit insurance liability significantly, (iii) under value-at-risk regulation the risk reduction behavior of banks is less sensitive to changes in their investment opportunity set, and (iv) banks' equityholders can benefit from risk-based capital requirements.