Optimal Dynamic Capital Requirements

We characterize welfare maximizing capital requirement policies in a quantitative macrobanking model with household, firm, and bank defaults calibrated to Euro Area data. We optimize on the level of the capital requirements applied to each loan class and their sensitivity to changes in default risk. We find that getting the level right (so that bank failure risk remains contained) is of foremost importance, while the optimal sensitivity to default risk is positive but typically smaller than under Basel internal ratings based (IRB) formulas. Starting from low levels, savers and borrowers benefit from higher capital requirements. At higher levels, only savers prefer tighter requirements.     

Financial Stress Regimes and the Macroeconomy

Some financial stress events lead to macroeconomic downturns, while others appear to be isolated to financial markets. We identify financial stress regimes using a model that explicitly links financial variables to macro‐economic outcomes. The stress regimes are identified using an unbalanced panel of financial variables with an embedded method for variable selection. Our identified stress regimes are associated with corporate credit tightening and with NBER recessions. An exogenous deterioration in our financial conditions index has strong negative effects in economic activity, and negative amplification effects on inflation in the stress regime. These results are obtained with a novel factor‐augmented vector autoregressive model with smooth‐transition regimes (FASTVAR).     

Cross‐Firm Real Earnings Management

Our analysis is rooted in the notion that stockholders can learn about the fundamental value of any firm from observing the earnings reports of its rivals. We argue that such intraindustry information transfers, which have been broadly documented in the empirical literature, may motivate managers to alter stockholders’ beliefs about the value of their firm not only by manipulating their own earnings report but also by influencing the earnings reports of rival firms. Managers obviously do not have access to the accounting system of peer firms, but they can nevertheless influence the earnings reports of rival firms by distorting real transactions that relate to the product market competition. We demonstrate such managerial behavior, which we refer to as cross‐firm real earnings management, and explore its potential consequences and interrelation with the practice of accounting‐based earnings management within an industry setting with imperfect (nonproprietary) accounting information.     

Setting consolidated reporting standards for local government

Under a corporatization trend, traditional financial reporting is generally considered unable to offer a complete view of the economic and financial activities of a group of public entities. Consequently, several reforms and standards have been introduced related to consolidated financial reports. Through interviews with key actors, the authors analysed the normativity process for issuing consolidated reporting standards for local governments in three European countries: Italy, Spain, and Sweden.     

Complementary currencies: what role should they be playing in local and regional government?

The current climate of fiscal austerity has seen a resurgence in ‘complementary currencies’ as local and regional governments look for ways to use under-utilized assets, maintain employment and avoid local economic decline. The authors explore how local and regional governments can facilitate complementary currencies to reduce the impact of external economic shocks and enable their economies to continue to function in the face of austerity. They recommend that localities consider participating in existing complementary currency ‘circles’.     

财政补贴的竞争法审查及其改进——兼论《公平竞争审查制度实施细则（暂行）》

财政补贴是国家干预经济的重要手段,能够促进产业结构调整和转型升级、平衡和加速地区间的经济发展,但极易对市场公平竞争带来消极影响,例如破坏市场结构、误导市场行为、减损市场绩效,等等。《公平竞争审查制度实施细则（暂行）》对此予以重点关注,但缺乏全面性的制度构建。这方面,欧盟国家援助制度值得我们学习和借鉴。欲改进我国财政补贴的竞争法审查,必须落实公平竞争审查制度,坚持必要性原则、公平原则和透明度原则,同时要建立补贴评估机制、豁免机制、信息披露机制和异议机制,以规范财政补贴的实施,平衡财政补贴和竞争政策的冲突,确保市场竞争机制不被财政补贴所扭曲。     

财政教育支出的农村减贫效应研究——基于网络空间结构的分析

运用修正的引力模型测算出我国财政教育支出的空间关联关系,以及财政教育支出对农村减贫的空间关联影响效应。实证结果表明：我国财政教育支出在空间关联上呈现出复杂、多线程的网络结构;区域间财政教育支出差异和人力资本差异与农村贫困联动矩阵呈现显著负相关,区域间技术发展水平差异和经济发展水平差异与农村贫困联动矩阵呈现显著正相关。加强我国农村贫困的治理,需要考虑财政教育支出的空间关联作用,实施定向的、梯度推进的区域协同策略。     

Ownership concentration and bank risk: international study on acquisitions

This paper explores the effects of different types of bank ownership concentration on changes in bank risk during acquisition years. Using multi-country data from 2000 to 2006, during which market failures caused by various crises and government interventions are less influential to acquisition decisions, we collect 505 banking acquisition deals from 23 countries to examine which type of ownership concentration (such as financial intermediary, capital investor, non-financial, and state ownership) brings larger changes to an acquirer’s risk from pre-acquisition year to post-acquisition year (including non-performing loans, capital adequacy ratio, loan loss reserve, and credit rating). The empirical analyses show that acquirer banks with a concentration of shares owned by financial intermediaries and non-financial firms experience larger risk changes during acquisition years. In contrast, the risk changes of acquirer banks with a concentration of capital investors and state ownership are lower. Robustness checks from the random effect estimation, instrumental variables model, reverse causality, and different subsamples of (non-)U.S. or different levels of regulation enforcement confirm these results.     

Bank net interest margins,the yield curve,and the 2007–2009 financial crisis

Using quarterly call report data from 2000 to 2016, we reexamine the relationship between net interest margins (NIM) and the yield curve for more than 5,500 U.S. commercial banks. In the full sample, yield curve and RGDP growth have positive effects on NIM, while inflation and deposit‐to‐loan ratios (D/L) have negative effects. Splitting the sample around the 2007–2009 crisis, we show the impact of yield curve and RGDP growth on NIM increasing during the “recovery” (2009Q3 to 2016Q4), and inflation and D/L changing signs. Positive effects of yield curve on profits vary with bank size and change over time.     

Investments,Credit, and Corporate Financial Distress: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

Although they are instrumental for economic development, productivity-enhancing corporate investments may increase the financial vulnerability of companies, especially in an economic and financial crisis. We employ an instrumental probit model with the aim of finding evidence for the investment and credit patterns that led companies into financial distress during the global financial crisis 2009–2010. The company-level micro-data for our study on three Central and East European countries—Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and two Baltic countries, Latvia and Lithuania—originates from two independent surveys, the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey conducted in 2008 and the Financial Crisis Survey conducted in 2009/2010. Both were carried out jointly by the EBRD and the World Bank. Our results emphasize a substantial adverse impact from investment intensity and debt financing on company financial soundness during a crisis. On top of that, we discover a strong non-linear pattern in the sensitivity of company distress to its investment-financing nexus.