Financial System Adaptability and Resilience

Financial Systems differ between countries. Their configuration is sticky and does not change suddenly. A well-functioning financial system is essential for economic development by efficiently allocating capital to the highest net present value projects. 

However, the resilience of financial systems is frequently challenged. For example, the Great Financial Crisis of 2007/08 was a large blow from within the system: New financial instruments fuelled a credit bubble in the United States' housing markets, which almost brought down the global financial system when it eventually burst. The crisis triggered hefty government interventions and regulatory actions to make financial systems more resilient. 

More frequently, challenges like the Covid-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and the green transition of economies, and the energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine, again highlight the crucial importance of resilient financial systems that adapt themselves and facilitate adequate responses to shocks of the real economy alike. 

The research group “Financial System Adaptability and Resilience” investigates three critical aspects of financial system adaptability and resilience. First, it uses the occurrence of major natural disasters in the United States and Germany to analyse the impact of these events on financial systems. Natural disasters are becoming more frequent and more severe because of climate change. Therefore, evidence about the role of banks in providing funding to spur economic recovery is critical. 

Investigations across different configurations of financial systems, such as bank- vs. market-based economies (e. g., Germany vs. the United States), allow for highlighting which components of financial systems seem better equipped to increase financial systems resiliency. 

Second, the climate crisis requires economies to transform production technologies in order to source sustainable and renewable energy inputs. By using micro-data on German plants and their headquarters' banking relationships and information about the local and federal state leading political parties in Germany, the group aims to investigate the effects of political preferences for the green transition. This group's research will thereby enhance our understanding how climate policies balance the necessary need to reduce emissions with the economic burden imposed on agents during any large-scale transition of societies.

Third, the group's research analyses the role of culture in economies. The idea is that various aspects of culture, like religion, can work as a device that holds societies together and facilitate economic transactions. Using well-established empirical laboratories coming from significant natural disasters (for example, Hurricane Katrina in 2005), the group investigates whether local economies with a higher cultural imprint coming from religion found it easier to recover faster. Other incidents for which culture can play a vital role are big corporate scandals. 

Using the Volkswagen Scandal from 2015, research by this group analyses the essential role of cultural imprints for consumer reactions in responding to large corporate scandals. This is important since government and regulatory intervention tend to come late or insufficient to punish corporate wrongdoings.  

Workpackage 1: Development of Financial Systems after Significant Natural Disasters

Workpackage 2: Financial Systems' Role in the Economies' Green Transition

Workpackage 3: Cultural Aspects within Financial Systems

Research Cluster
Financial Resilience and Regulation

Your contact

Professor Dr Felix Noth
Professor Dr Felix Noth
- Department Financial Markets
Send Message +49 345 7753-702 Personal page

EXTERNAL FUNDING

08.2022 ‐ 07.2025

OVERHANG: Debt overhang and green investments - the role of banks in climate-friendly management of emission-intensive fixed assets

The collaborative project “Debt Overhang and Green Investments” (OVERHANG) aims to investigate the role of banks in the climate-friendly management of emission-intensive fixed assets. This will identify policy-relevant insights on financial regulation, government-controlled lending and financial stability, as well as raise awareness among indebted stakeholders.

See project page

Professor Michael Koetter, PhD

01.2015 ‐ 12.2019

Interactions between Bank-specific Risk and Macroeconomic Performance

Professor Dr Felix Noth

07.2016 ‐ 12.2018

Relationship Lenders and Unorthodox Monetary Policy: Investment, Employment, and Resource Reallocation Effects

Leibniz Association

We combine a number of unique and proprietary data sources to measure the impact of relationship lenders and unconventional monetary policy during and after the European sovereign debt crisis on the real economy. Establishing systematic links between different research data centers (Forschungsdatenzentren, FDZ) and central banks with detailed micro-level information on both financial and real activity is the stand-alone proposition of our proposal. The main objective is to permit the identification of causal effects, or their absence, regarding which policies were conducive to mitigate financial shocks and stimulate real economic activities, such as employment, investment, or the closure of plants.

Professor Michael Koetter, PhD

Refereed Publications

cover_journal-of-banking-and-finance.jpg

Senior Debt and Market Discipline: Evidence from Bank-to-bank Loans

Bill Francis Iftekhar Hasan Liuling Liu Haizhi Wang

in: Journal of Banking and Finance, 2019

Abstract

We empirically investigate whether taking senior bank loans would enhance market discipline and control risk-taking among borrowing banks. Controlling for endogeneity concern arising from borrowing bank self-select into taking senior bank debt, we document that both the spreads and covenants in loan contracts are sensitive to bank risk variables. Our analysis also reveals that borrowing banks reduce their risk exposure after their first issuance of senior bank debt. We also find that lending banks significantly increase their collaboration with borrowing banks and increase their presence in the home markets of borrowing banks.

read publication

cover_journal-of-banking-and-finance.jpg

Accounting Quality in Banking: The Role of Regulatory Interventions

Manthos D. Delis Iftekhar Hasan Maria Iosifidi Lingxiang Li

in: Journal of Banking and Finance, 2018

Abstract

Using the full sample of U.S. banks and hand-collected data on enforcement actions over 2000–2014, we analyze the role of these interventions in promoting several aspects of accounting quality. We find that enforcement actions issued for both risk-related and accounting-related reasons lead to significant improvements in accounting quality. This improvement is consistently found for earnings smoothing, big-bath accounting, timely recognition of future loan losses, the association of loan loss provisions with future loan charge offs, loss avoidance, and cash flow predictability and earnings persistence. Most of the effects are somewhat more potent in the crisis period and survive in several sensitivity tests. Our findings highlight the imperative role of regulatory interventions in promoting bank accounting quality.

read publication

cover_journal-of-financial-stability.gif

SMEs and Access to Bank Credit: Evidence on the Regional Propagation of the Financial Crisis in the UK

Hans Degryse Kent Matthews Tianshu Zhao

in: Journal of Financial Stability, 2018

Abstract

We study the sensitivity of banks’ credit supply to small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in the UK with respect to the banks’ financial condition before and during the financial crisis. Employing unique data on the geographical location of all bank branches in the UK, we connect firms’ access to bank credit to the financial condition (i.e., bank health and the use of core deposits) of all bank branches in the vicinity of the firm for the period 2004–2011. Before the crisis, banks’ local financial conditions did not influence credit availability irrespective of the functional distance (i.e., the distance between bank branch and bank headquarters). However, during the crisis, we find that SMEs with banks within their vicinity that have stronger financial conditions faced greater credit availability when the functional distance is close. Our results point to a “flight to headquarters” effect during the financial crisis.

read publication

cover_international-journal-of-central-banking.jpg

Crises and Rescues: Liquidity Transmission Through Global Banks

Michael Koetter Claudia M. Buch C. T. Koch

in: International Journal of Central Banking, No. 4, 2018

Abstract

This paper shows that global banks transmit liquidity shocks via their network of foreign affiliates. We use the (unexpected) access of German banks' affiliates located in the United States to the Federal Reserve's Term Auction Facility. We condition on the parent banks' U.S. dollar funding needs in order to examine how affiliates located outside the United States adjusted their balance sheets when the U.S. affiliate of the same parent tapped into TAF liquidity. Our research has three main findings. First, affiliates tied to parents with higher U.S. dollar funding needs expanded their foreign assets during periods of active TAF borrowing. Second, the overall effects are driven by affiliates located in financial centers. Third, U.S.- dollar-denominated lending particularly increased in response to the TAF program.

read publication

cover_economics-letters.gif

Market Power and Risk: Evidence from the U.S. Mortgage Market

Carola Müller Felix Noth

in: Economics Letters, 2018

Abstract

We use mortgage loan application data of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) to shed light on the role of banks’ market power on their presumably insufficient risk screening activities in the U.S. mortgage market in the pre-crisis era. We find that banks with higher market power protect their charter value. The effect is stronger for banks that have more information about local markets.

read publication

Working Papers

cover_DP_2022-15.jpg

Capital Requirements, Market Structure, and Heterogeneous Banks

Carola Müller

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 15, 2022

Abstract

Bank regulators interfere with the efficient allocation of resources for the sake of financial stability. Based on this trade-off, I compare how different capital requirements affect default probabilities and the allocation of market shares across heterogeneous banks. In the model, banks‘ productivity determines their optimal strategy in oligopolistic markets. Higher productivity gives banks higher profit margins that lower their default risk. Hence, capital requirements indirectly aiming at high-productivity banks are less effective. They also bear a distortionary cost: Because incumbents increase interest rates, new entrants with low productivity are attracted and thus average productivity in the banking market decreases.

read publication

cover_norges-bank-working-papers.jpg

Covered Bonds and Bank Portfolio Rebalancing

Jin Cao Ragnar E. Juelsrud Talina Sondershaus

in: Norges Bank Working Papers, No. 6, 2021

Abstract

We use administrative and supervisory data at the bank and loan level to investigate the impact of the introduction of covered bonds on the composition of bank balance sheets and bank risk. Covered bonds, despite being collateralized by mortgages, lead to a shift in bank lending from mortgages to corporate loans. Young and low-rated firms in particular receive more credit, suggesting that overall credit risk increases. At the same time, we find that total balance sheet liquidity increases. We identify the channel in a theoretical model and provide empirical evidence: Banks with low initial liquidity and banks with sufficiently high risk-adjusted return on firm lending drive the results.

read publication

cover_DP_2021-3.jpg

Lender-specific Mortgage Supply Shocks and Macroeconomic Performance in the United States

Franziska Bremus Thomas Krause Felix Noth

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 3, 2021

Abstract

This paper provides evidence for the propagation of idiosyncratic mortgage supply shocks to the macroeconomy. Based on micro-level data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act for the 1990-2016 period, our results suggest that lender-specific mortgage supply shocks affect aggregate mortgage, house price, and employment dynamics at the regional level. The larger the idiosyncratic shocks to newly issued mortgages, the stronger are mortgage, house price, and employment growth. While shocks at the level of shadow banks significantly affect mortgage and house price dynamics, too, they do not matter much for employment.

read publication

cover_DP_2020-15.jpg

Trade Shocks, Credit Reallocation and the Role of Specialisation: Evidence from Syndicated Lending

Isabella Müller

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 15, 2020

Abstract

This paper provides evidence that banks cut lending to US borrowers as a consequence of a trade shock. This adverse reaction is stronger for banks with higher ex-ante lending to US industries hit by the trade shock. Importantly, I document large heterogeneity in banks‘ reaction depending on their sectoral specialisation. Banks shield industries in which they are specialised in and at the same time reduce the availability of credit to industries they are not specialised in. The latter is driven by low-capital banks and lending to firms that are themselves hit by the trade shock. Banks‘ adjustments have adverse real effects.

read publication

cover_DP_2019-22.jpg

Spillovers of Asset Purchases Within the Real Sector: Win-Win or Joy and Sorrow?

Talina Sondershaus

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 22, 2019

Abstract

Events which have an adverse or positive effect on some firms can disseminate through the economy to firms which are not directly affected. By exploiting the first large sovereign bond purchase programme of the ECB, this paper investigates whether more lending to some firms spill over to firms in the surroundings of direct beneficiaries. Firms operating in the same industry and region invest less and reduce employment. The paper shows the importance to consider spillover effects when assessing unconventional monetary policies: Differences between treatment and control groups can be entirely attributed to negative effects on the control group.

read publication
Mitglied der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft LogoTotal-Equality-LogoSupported by the BMWK