Optimal Capital Utilization by Financial Firms: Evidence from the Property-Liability Insurance Industry

Capitalization levels in the property-liability insurance industry have increased dramatically in recent years—the capital-to-assets ratio rose from 25% in 1989 to 35% by 1999. This paper investigates the use of capital by insurers to provide evidence on whether the capital increase represents a legitimate response to changing market conditions or a true inefficiency that leads to performance penalties for insurers. We estimate best practice technical, cost, and revenue frontiers for a sample of insurers over the period 1993–1998, using data envelopment analysis, a non-parametric technique. The results indicate that most insurers significantly over-utilized equity capital during the sample period. Regression analysis provides evidence that capital over-utilization primarily represents an inefficiency for which insurers incur significant revenue penalties.     

How Firms Should Hedge

Substantial academic research explains why firms should hedge,but little work has addressed how firms should hedge. We assumethat firms can experience costly states of nature and deriveoptimal hedging strategies using vanilla derivatives (e.g.,forwards and options) and custom "exotic" derivative contractsfor a value-maximizing firm facing both hedgable (price) andunhedgable (quantity) risks. Customized exotic derivatives aretypically better than vanilla contracts when correlations betweenprices and quantities are large in magnitude and when quantityrisks are substantially greater than price risks. Finally, wediscuss how our model may be applied in practice.     

Was Expansionary Monetary Policy Feasible during the Great Contraction? An Examination of the Gold Standard Constraint

The recent consensus view that the gold standard was the leading cause of the worldwide Great Depression 1929-1933 stems from the two propositions: (1) Under the gold standard, deflationary shocks were transmitted between countries and, (2) for most countries, continued adherence to gold prevented monetary authorities from offsetting banking panics and blocked their recoveries. In this article we contend that the second proposition applies only to small open economies with limited gold reserves. This was not the case for the United States, the largest country in the world, holding massive gold reserves. The United States was not constrained from using expansionary policy to offset banking panics, deflation, and declining economic activity. Simulations, based on a model of a large open economy, indicate that expansionary open market operations by the Federal Reserve at two critical junctures (October 1930 to February 1931; September 1931 through January 1932) would have been successful in averting the banking panics that occurred, without endangering convertibility. Indeed had expansionary open market purchases been conducted in 1930, the contraction would not have led to the international crises that followed.     

Theory and evidence of the impact of Equal Credit Opportunity: An agnostic review of the literature

As amended in 1976, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) outlawed discrimination in granting credit on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex or marital status, and age. This article examines the difficulties of transforming the goals of the act into effective regulation, looks at what economic theory implies about the possibility of discriminatory behavior in credit markets, and reviews existing statistical evidence concerning discrimination in consumer credit markets. On balance, theory predicts little impact for the act, although a few cases are identified in which the ECOA could have an effect. Available studies have failed to produce much evidence of systematic discrimination. Moreover, there is little evidence that membership in ECOA-protected groups provides information about lack of creditworthiness or that the act has increased credit availability to anyone. Thus, the ECOA would not appear to have a profound effect on the operation of consumer credit markets.The views expressed in this article are those of the authors, not of the Federal Reserve Board or its staff.     

The irrelevance of organisational boundaries of owner-managed firms

Empirical researchers and analysts of small or owner-managed businesses generally behave as if the selected organisational form and the consequent legal and accounting boundaries of owner-managed firms are meaningful. This paper discusses selected aspects of this notion, and provides some empirical evidence concerning loan securities, and treatments of debts and assets, which justify rejecting the relevance of the organisational types and implied boundaries in many contexts relating to owner-managed firms. These include analyses employing traditional accounting disclosures and studies that view the firm as defined by some formal organisational structure. Emphasis is on the treatment and effects of private debts and assets.     

Scale economies in compliance costs for federal consumer credit regulations

This study investigates scale economies in compliance costs for Regulations Z (Truth in Lending) and B (Equal Credit Opportunity) at commercial banks. The major finding of the study is that there are large economies of scale at the lowest output levels, in terms of the volume of consumer credit accounts. This suggests that Regulations Z and B impose a competitive disadvantage on banks with small consumer credit portfolios. However, scale economies decrease rapidly. Thus, the costs of complying with consumer protection regulations do not appear to be a factor that would lead to much greater concentration in consumer lending at banks.