Bank Leverage Limits and Regulatory Arbitrage: Old Question-New Evidence

Banks are regulated more than most firms, making them good subjects to study regulatory arbitrage (avoidance). Their latest arbitrage opportunity may be the new leverage rule covering the largest U.S. banks; leverage rules require equal capital against assets with unequal risks, so banks can effectively relax the leverage constraint by increasing asset risk. Consistent with that conjecture, we find that banks covered by the new rule shifted to riskier, higher yielding securities relative to control banks. The shift began almost precisely when the rule was finalized in 2014, well before it took effect in 2018. Security level analysis suggests banks actively added riskier securities, rather than merely shedding safer ones. Despite the risk shifting, overall bank risk did not increase, evidently because the banks most constrained by the new leverage rule significantly increased leverage capital ratios.     

Imperfect Competition in Bank Retail Markets,Deposit and Loan Rate Dynamics,and Incomplete Pass Through

This paper examines determinants of pass through from the market interest rate to bank retail deposit and loan rates. A dynamic adjustment cost model with imperfect competition implies that these rates depend on own lagged values and on lagged, current, and expected future values of the security rate. Greater competition in retail markets reduces the impact of lagged and expected rates on current retail rates while raising the effect of the current security rate, yielding greater pass through. These results have important implications for both the specifications used in empirical work and biases introduced into estimates of pass‐through effects.     

Average Returns,B/M,and Share Issues

The book‐to‐market ratio (B/M) is a noisy measure of expected stock returns because it also varies with expected cashflows. Our hypothesis is that the evolution of B/M, in terms of past changes in book equity and price, contains independent information about expected cashflows that can be used to improve estimates of expected returns. The tests support this hypothesis, with results that are largely but not entirely similar for Microcap stocks (below the 20^th NYSE market capitalization percentile) and All but Micro stocks (ABM).     

Price Limit Performance: Evidence from the Tokyo Stock Exchange

Price limit advocates claim that price limits decrease stock price volatility, counter overreaction, and do not interfere with trading activity. Conversely, price limit critics claim that price limits cause higher volatility levels on subsequent days (volatility spillover hypothesis), prevent prices from efficiently reaching their equilibrium level (delayed price discovery hypothesis), and interfere with trading due to limitations imposed by price limits (trading interference hypothesis). Empirical research does not provide conclusive support for either positions. We examine the Tokyo Stock Exchange price limit system to test these hypotheses. Our evidence supports all three hypotheses suggesting that price limits may be ineffective.     

Credit Where None Is Due? Authorized‐User Account Status and Piggybacking Credit

“Piggybacking credit” is a new practice that helps consumers improve their credit scores by paying to become “authorized users” on established accounts. Authorized users are not liable for paying an account, but because of Regulation B (which implements the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act), the account's history factors into their credit scores. As a result piggybacking can be used to manipulate the signal of creditworthiness that scores provide and may help borrowers obtain credit for which they would not have otherwise qualified. This article investigates the policy questions raised by piggybacking. First, we evaluate whether the credit history disparities that motivated these provisions of Regulation B have persisted since they were written. Then, we assess the potential for score improvement through piggybacking. Finally, we evaluate the likely score effects of allowing credit scoring models to exclude authorized‐user accounts, the most widely proposed policy response to the emergence of piggybacking.     

WHAT PRICE‐LEVEL DATA CAN TELL US ABOUT PRICING CONDUCT IN SOUTH AFRICA

This article reports the findings of a study of two unique microdata sets, which are the unit level basis of South Africa's measured Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index, over the period December 2001‐December 2007. In particular, based on techniques that have been used in comparable international studies, findings are reported on the frequency and magnitude of price changes, the duration of prices, and heterogeneity in pricing. The results for South Africa are compared with the stylised facts for pricing conduct, which have been presented in recent international studies. The article offers an illustration of how microdata‐based findings on pricing conduct may impact on the modelling of monetary policy by introducing micro‐founded results into an open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for the South African economy. The article concludes by identifying areas for further research, where it has not as yet been determined how South African pricing conduct compares with certain stylised pricing facts identified in the international literature.