Does the market discipline banks? New evidence from regulatory capital mix

While bank capital requirements permit a bank to freely substitute between equity and subordinated debt, lenders and investors view debt and equity as imperfect substitutes. It follows that, after controlling for the level of regulatory capital, the mix of debt in capital isolates the role that the market plays in disciplining banks. I document that the mix of debt in capital affects bank behavior, but only when investors can impose real constraints. In particular, the mix of debt reduces the probability of failure and future distress for BHC-affiliated institutions (where the investor has control rights through an equity position) and for stand-alone banks before the Basel Accord (when debt issues included restrictive covenants). However, substituting equity for subordinated debt at the bank holding company level or in stand-alone banks since the Basel Accord (where the investor has few protections) only increases the probability of distress and failure.     

Subordinated Debt,Market Discipline,and Bank Risk

This paper demonstrates that subordinated debt (subdebt thereafter) regulation can be an effective mechanism for disciplining banks. By reducing the chance that managers of distressed banks can take value‐destroying actions to benefit themselves, subdebt regulation may encourage banks to lower asset risk. Moreover, subdebt regulation and bank capital requirements can be complements for alleviating the banks’ moral hazard problems. To make subdebt regulation effective, regulators may need impose ceilings on the interest rates of subdebt, prohibit collusion between banks and subdebt investors, and require subdebt to convert into the issuing bank's equity when the government provides assistance to the bank.     

Aligning debt and equity claimant interests: Evidence from dual claim investors

This study investigates how investors that own both equity and debt in the same firm affect other shareholders in the firm. It documents that dual claim investors are quite prevalent among the industrial firms listed in the Russell 3000, with over 20% of them having a bank holding company that owns both debt and equity in the firm. The results imply that shareholders are substantially impacted by the presence of dual claim investors in firms, suggesting that relatively small ownership stakes by dual claim banks are associated with greater conflicts of interest among shareholders and debt holders; while relatively large bank equity stakes may benefit outside shareholders when aligned with loan by dual claim banks because they improve bank monitoring incentives and reduce the agency cost of debt.     

Bank capital and credit market competition: Will competitive pressure lead to higher capital levels?

This paper establishes a theoretical model to study the relationship between credit market competition and bank capital. In the model, bank capital can alleviate the debt overhang problem, and the extent to which banks can enjoy the gain of holding capital is decreasing in the competitive pressure in the credit market. It is shown that credit market competition reduces banks' incentive to hold capital. Deposit insurance also induces banks to hold less capital. In addition, bank capital regulation is welfare improving, and banks may voluntarily hold capital in excess of regulatory minimums.     

Contingent Capital vs. Contingent Reverse Convertibles for Banks and Insurance Companies

During the credit and liquidity crisis in 2007 and 2008, banks found themselves largely unable to raise significant new equity quickly from parties other than sovereign wealth funds and governments. Some banks have thus recently begun to consider contingent capital as a means of pre‐arranging recapitalizations for future crises. Contingent capital is a type of put option that entitles a company to issue new securities on pre‐negotiated terms, often following the occurrence of one or more risk‐based triggering events. This article compares the economic merits of a new security—a “contingent reverse convertible” or CRC—against more traditional forms of contingent capital. In November 2009, Lloyds Banking Group plc issued “Enhanced Capital Notes”—subordinated debt that converts into common stock if Lloyds's core regulatory capital falls below 5% of its regulatory risk‐weigh ted assets. This CRC is not strictly speaking a form of contingent capital, but it does give banks the potential to recapitalize themselves quickly in the face of a crisis without having to turn to governments and taxpayers. One important limitation of CRCs is that because they do not generate new cash for a bank at the time of conversion, they are unlikely to stop a liquidity crisis once it has begun. More traditional contingent capital facilities, by contrast, do put cash in the hands of the issuer at the time the facility is drawn. But even for those inclined to use CRCs, it may be unrealistic to expect many other institutions to imitate the structure of the Lloyds offering. Persuading existing investors to take a more subordinated position in a bank's capital structure and write a put option to the bank on its own stock will be neither cheap nor easy. For this reason, the more traditional solutions used to date may have more success with banks, though arriving at a price that helps issuers and satisfies investors will be a challenge for those structures as well.     

Why European Banks Are Undercapitalized and What Should Be Done About It

Major European banks are significantly undercapitalized as compared to large American banks, and, more importantly, as compared to the capital levels they would need to survive another severe financial crisis. Bank capital shortfalls in Italy, Spain, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, in particular, are largely the consequence of European bank regulations that: (1) apply static risk weights to assets like mortgages and sovereign debt; (2) fail to require an overall market‐based capital ratio that is high enough to enable banks to survive a severe financial crisis; (3) fail to get banks to promptly write down their impaired assets to market value; (4) subject banks to weak stress tests that can create a false impression of capital adequacy; and (5) fail to compel banks to retain sufficient earnings and to raise sufficient capital externally to eliminate capital shortfalls promptly, all apparently out of fear that being tougher might cause investors and customers to lose confidence in the banks. This article summarizes important recent independent bank stress testing that has quantified the capital shortfalls in European banks. The recent highly publicized regulatory interventions to resolve failing European banks were inevitable due to these shortfalls. The authors recommend steps European bank regulators should take to address the problem and to eliminate the risk of serious capital shortfalls. In the absence of such steps, bank depositors, customers, and security holders should be prepared to expect further unwelcome surprises as the risks inherent in allowing undercapitalized banks to operate will continue to materialize in more bank failures.     

How prompt was regulatory corrective action during the financial crisis?

This paper empirically investigates the incidence of regulatory forbearance during the financial crisis. Using an option pricing technique in concert with valuation data gathered from failed bank sales, I find that failed banks consistently underreported the level of impairment in loan portfolios during the financial crisis period of 2008–2010, helping these market value insolvent banks to report adequate capital for regulatory purposes. Impairment-adjusted capital ratios provide evidence of regulatory forbearance for up to 18 months prior to seizure. Analyses of bank coverage ratios reveal that coverage ratios are negatively and significantly related to impairment levels and are significantly lower for banks with critically low levels of capital.     

外资股权、外币资产负债结构对我国银行稳定性影响的研究

目前,国际资本流动影响我国银行稳定性主要通过两条路径：一是通过持有我国商业银行股权,二是通过改变商业银行的资产负债结构。本文运用15家股份制商业银行2006—2012年面板数据,从微观角度探讨了外资股权结构、外币资产负债结构对其稳定性造成的影响。实证结果表明：（1）外资股权对商业银行稳定性影响在不同银行之间存在着一定差异;（2）外币资产负债结构对于我国商业银行稳定性有明显影响。据此,本文从外资股权、外币资产负债结构方面提出了商业银行稳定性管理的建议。     

Liquidity Provision,Bank Capital,and the Macroeconomy

New bank equity must come from somewhere. In general equilibrium, raising bank capital requirements means either that banks produce less short‐term debt (as debt holders must become shareholders), or short‐term debt is not reduced and the banking system acquires nonbank equity (as the shareholders in nonbanks become shareholders in banks). The welfare effects involve a trade‐off because bank debt is special as it is used for transactions purposes, but more bank capital can reduce the chance of bank failure (producing welfare losses).     

Trade in Financial Services and Capital Movements

International financial liberalization may alter saving–investment imbalances and patterns of capital flows across countries. Using a panel of OECD countries for 1990–1996, I examine how the liberalization of capital movements and financial services trade affects net private capital flows. Capital inflows tend to fall (rise) with the liberalization of commercial presence in banking and securities (insurance) services, possibly reflecting an increase (decrease) in saving. I find that capital account liberalization stimulates capital inflows, suggesting that better access to external financing helps sustain larger current account deficits. When cross-border trade is liberalized, capital inflows change insignificantly.     

Asymmetric information and the mode of entry in foreign credit markets

In a newly liberalized credit market, foreign banks with cost advantages are likely to be less informed than domestic banks that hold information on credit risks. These relative advantages may generate incentives for a foreign bank to negotiate acquisition of a domestic bank in order to capture information endowments. However, if it is difficult to assess the value of information held by banks, the foreign bank will face important choices about the optimal mode of entry and what acquisition price to pay. These choices have implications for the survival of domestic banks and how capital is allocated after liberalization.     

Corporate valuation and the resolution of bank insolvency in East Asia

We examine the valuation effect of the resolution of a bank’s insolvency on commercial clients. Our sample includes 29 insolvent banks in Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand that serve as main creditors for 269 publicly traded companies. Our findings suggest that a bank relationship adds value to a firm, and that this value depends on investors’ certainty in the continuity of the banking relationship. Significant cumulative returns for 50 days following the event date suggest that the type of resolution has real effects on the performance of related firms above initial expectations.     

The deregulation of capital markets in France

This paper investigates how the deregulation of French capital markets affected corporate investment in the 1980s. Access to public financial markets may be less important in countries that have traditionally relied on institutional investors to finance their corporate investment projects. This should be true for France where, contrary to the US, banks and government agencies have always been involved in firms’ long term activities. In this study, French firms are categorized based on their ownership structure and trading characteristics. Two investment models are augmented with measures of corporate liquidity in order to test the role of internal funds on investment. Empirical results show that only small French firms trading on the secondary stock market have to rely on liquid assets to finance their capital expenditures. French firms with strong bank ties avoid this constraint since they are allowed to maintain higher debt levels.     

Dynamic inconsistency of capital forbearance: Long-run vs. short-run effects of too-big-to-fail policymaking

This paper begins by reviewing the costs and benefits that fully informed creditors would consider in deciding whether to recapitalize or liquidate an insolvent corporation. It goes on to identify the additional concerns and conflicts of interest that incompletely informed taxpayers face when short-horizoned government regulators manage the insolvency of giant banks. Regulatory decisions may exhibit dynamic inconsistency because opportunistic forbearance offers personal and bureaucratic rewards and officials who confront bank insolvency in a timely way are threatened with substantial reputational and career penalties. However, the model also indicates that dynamically inconsistent capital forbearance could emerge because current taxpayers believe they can shift the costs of resolving bank insolvencies to future taxpayers.     

The value of bank capital buffers in maintaining financial system resilience

There is a current controversy concerning the appropriate size of banks’ capital requirements, and the trade-off between the costs and benefits of implementing higher capital requirements. We quantify the size of capital buffers required to reduce system-wide losses using confidential regulatory data for Australian banks from 2002 to 2014 and annual public accounts from 1978 to 2014. We find that a moderate increase in bank capital buffers is sufficient to maintain financial system resilience, even after taking economic downturns into consideration. Furthermore, while banks benefit from paying a lower cost of debt when they have a higher capital buffer, lending volumes are lower indicating that credit supply may be hampered if bank capital levels are too high within a financial system.     

强制性次级债与商业银行的公司治理

对于商业银行而言,次级债除了具有补充资本、融通资金的功能外,还具有特殊的公司治理功效。基于这一视角,本文对次级债在商业银行公司治理中功效的比较优势进行了论述,介绍了强制性次级债市场约束效用的两步骤分析框架,并就强制性次级债政策提供了相应评论。本文得出以下研究结论:恰当的强制性次级债政策有助于商业银行公司治理的完善以及国内金融生态的改善;为了确保MSDP(MandatorySubordinatedDebtPolicy)的投资者确实具备对银行风险变化进行监督和有所反应的动机,应该对由“内部人”持有的债券数量进行限制并完善信息披露制度;加快推进国有商业银行的股份制改革,培育市场化的发债主体和机构投资者是实施MSDP的必要基础条件。     

Building Relationships Early: Banks in Venture Capital

This paper examines bank behavior in venture capital. It considersthe relation between a bank's venture capital investments andits subsequent lending, which can be thought of as intertemporalcross-selling. Theory suggests that unlike independent venturecapital firms, banks may be strategic investors who seek complementaritiesbetween venture capital and lending activities. We find evidencethat banks use venture capital investments to build lendingrelationships. Having a prior relationship with a company inthe venture capital market increases a bank's chance of subsequentlygranting a loan to that company. Companies can benefit fromthese relationships through more favorable loan pricing.     

所有权结构对我国银行业绩的影响研究

本文运用我国29家银行2000-2010年业绩及所有权结构指标定量地衡量了所有权结构对银行的盈利能力、资产质量和净利润增长率产生的静态效应、选择效应和动态效应。研究结果表明,在静态效应方面,业绩最优的是城市商业银行;在选择效应方面,被选择进行股份制改革的银行之前业绩较差,被境外投资者选择的银行之前业绩则较好;在动态效应方面,股份制改革和公开上市有利于银行资本充足率的提升。最后本文提出发展城市商业银行体系、健全现代化经营管理体制、规范并加强资本充足率的管理、引入战略投资者以优化银行所有权结构、促进银行业绩增长等建议。     

Measures of the riskiness of banking organizations: Subordinated debt yields,risk-based capital,and examination ratings

Recently there have been a number of recommendations to increase the role of subordinated debt (SND) in satisfying bank capital requirements as a preferred means to discipline the risk-taking behavior of systemically important banks. One such proposal recommended using SND yield spreads as the triggers for mandatory supervisory action under prompt corrective action guidelines introduced in US banking legislation in the early 1990s. Currently such action is prompted by bank capital ratios. Evidence from previous research suggests that yield information may be a better predictor of bank problems. This paper empirically analyzes potential costs and benefits of using SND signals to trigger prompt corrective action.     

On the Costs of a Bank-Centered Financial System: Evidence from the Changing Main Bank Relations in Japan

We examine the effects of bank–firm relationships on firm performance in Japan. When access to capital markets is limited, close bank–firm ties increase the availability of capital to borrowing firms, but do not lead to higher profitability or growth. The cost of capital of firms with close bank ties is higher than that of their peers. This indicates that most of the benefits from these relationships are appropriated by the banks. Finally, the slow growth rates of bank clients suggest that banks discourage firms from investing in risky, profitable projects. However, liberalization of financial markets reduces the banks' market power.