Financial System Adaptability and Resilience

This research group investigates critical aspects of financial system adaptability and resilience. First, it analyses the impact of natural disasters on financial systems. Second, the group aims to investigate the effects of political preferences for the green transition. Third, the group's research analyses the role of culture in economies.

Research Cluster
Financial Resilience and Regulation

Your contact

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

EXTERNAL FUNDING

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
Professor Dr Steffen Müller

01.2015 ‐ 12.2019

Interactions between Bank-specific Risk and Macroeconomic Performance

German Research Foundation (DFG)

Professor Dr Felix Noth

Refereed Publications

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Cultural Norms and Corporate Fraud: Evidence from the Volkswagen Scandal

Iftekhar Hasan Felix Noth Lena Tonzer

in: Journal of Corporate Finance, October 2023

Abstract

We examine a corporate governance role of local culture via its impact on consumer behavior following corporate scandals. Our proxy for culture is the presence of local Protestantism. Exploiting the unexpected nature of the Volkswagen (VW) diesel scandal in September 2015, we show that new registrations of VW cars decline significantly in German counties with a Protestant majority following the VW scandal. Further survey evidence shows that, compared to Catholics, Protestants respond significantly more negatively to fraud but not to environmental issues. Our findings suggest that the enforcement culture in Protestantism facilitates penalizing corporate fraud.

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What Makes the Difference? Microfinance Versus Commercial Banks

Afsheen Abrar Iftekhar Hasan Rezaul Kabir

in: Borsa Istanbul Review, No. 4, 2023

Abstract

We make a comparison of microfinance banks (MBs) and commercial banks (CBs) in terms of efficiency, business orientation, stability, and asset quality by analyzing a large sample of banks from 60 countries around the world. Our findings indicate that microfinance banks have higher intermediation, non-interest income, wholesale funding and liquidity, but lower efficiency and asset quality. These significant variations are influenced by smaller microfinance banks and are driven mostly to African and Latin American microfinance banks.

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Political Ties and the Yield Curve

Gene Ambrocio Iftekhar Hasan

in: Economics Letters, July 2023

Abstract

We examine the effect of political ties with the US on sovereign yields and ratings at various horizons. We find beneficial effects across both short- and long-term yields and ratings. Specifically, we find that stronger political ties with the US affect mainly the level of the yield curve of foreign sovereign bonds. These results imply that the market perceives political ties with the US as having both near- and long-term beneficial consequences.

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Natural Disasters and Bank Stability: Evidence from the U.S. Financial System

Felix Noth Ulrich Schüwer

in: Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, May 2023

Abstract

We show that weather-related natural disasters in the United States significantly weaken the financial stability of banks with business activities in affected regions. This is reflected in higher probabilities of default, lower z-scores, higher non-performing assets ratios, higher foreclosure ratios, lower returns on assets and lower equity ratios of affected banks in the years following a natural disaster. The effects are economically relevant and highlight the financial vulnerability of banks and their borrowers despite insurances and public aid programs.

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The Impact of Lowering Carbon Emissions on Corporate Labour Investment: A Quasi-Natural Experiment

June Cao Iftekhar Hasan Wenwen Li

in: Energy Economics, May 2023

Abstract

We examine the impact of low-carbon city (LCC) initiatives on labour investment decisions (quantity, quality, and well-being). Using a time-varying difference-in-differences approach based on staggered implementations of such a pilot program, we report an inefficient outcome - absolute deviation of labour investment from the optimal net hiring – especially for firms in labour-intensive industries and firms with high financial slack or adjustment costs. We, however, observe increased investments in highly skilled personnel and compensated with employee stock ownership, especially by firms under intense pressure to reduce carbon emissions. Such initiatives are also closely associated with the significant enhancement of workplace safety. Overall, LCC helps to upgrade the corporate labour structure by hiring more skilled employees through reduced agency problems and heightened green innovation.

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Working Papers

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Banks Fearing the Drought? Liquidity Hoarding as a Response to Idiosyncratic Interbank Funding Dry-ups

Helge Littke Matias Ossandon Busch

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 12, 2018

Abstract

Since the global financial crisis, economic literature has highlighted banks’ inclination to bolster up their liquid asset positions once the aggregate interbank funding market experiences a dry-up. To this regard, we show that liquidity hoarding and its detrimental effects on credit can also be triggered by idiosyncratic, i.e. bankspecific, interbank funding shocks with implications for monetary policy. Combining a unique data set of the Brazilian banking sector with a novel identification strategy enables us to overcome previous limitations for studying this phenomenon as a bankspecific event. This strategy further helps us to analyse how disruptions in the bank headquarters’ interbank market can lead to liquidity and lending adjustments at the regional bank branch level. From the perspective of the policy maker, understanding this market-to-market spillover effect is important as local bank branch markets are characterised by market concentration and relationship lending.

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Flooded Through the Back Door: Firm-level Effects of Banks‘ Lending Shifts

Oliver Rehbein

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 4, 2018

Abstract

I show that natural disasters transmit to firms in non-disaster areas via their banks. This spillover of non-financial shocks through the banking system is stronger for banks with less regulatory capital. Firms connected to a disaster-exposed bank with below median capital reduce their employment by 11% and their fixed assets by 20% compared to firms in the same region without such a bank during the 2013 flooding in Germany. Relationship banking and higher firm capital also mitigate the effects of such negative cross-regional spillovers.

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Bank-specific Shocks and House Price Growth in the U.S.

Franziska Bremus Thomas Krause Felix Noth

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 3, 2017

Abstract

This paper investigates the link between mortgage supply shocks at the banklevel and regional house price growth in the U.S. using micro-level data on mortgage markets from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act for the 1990-2014 period. Our results suggest that bank-specific mortgage supply shocks indeed affect house price growth at the regional level. The larger the idiosyncratic shocks to newly issued mortgages, the stronger is house price growth. We show that the positive link between idiosyncratic mortgage shocks and regional house price growth is very robust and economically meaningful, however not very persistent since it fades out after two years.

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How Effective is Macroprudential Policy during Financial Downturns? Evidence from Caps on Banks' Leverage

Manuel Buchholz

in: Working Papers of Eesti Pank, No. 7, 2015

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of a macroprudential policy instrument, caps on banks' leverage, on domestic credit to the private sector since the Global Financial Crisis. Applying a difference-in-differences approach to a panel of 69 advanced and emerging economies over 2002–2014, we show that real credit grew after the crisis at considerably higher rates in countries which had implemented the leverage cap prior to the crisis. This stabilising effect is more pronounced for countries in which banks had a higher pre-crisis capital ratio, which suggests that after the crisis, banks were able to draw on buffers built up prior to the crisis due to the regulation. The results are robust to different choices of subsamples as well as to competing explanations such as standard adjustment to the pre-crisis credit boom.

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Monetary Policy under the Microscope: Intra-bank Transmission of Asset Purchase Programs of the ECB

L. Cycon Michael Koetter

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 9, 2015

Abstract

With a unique loan portfolio maintained by a top-20 universal bank in Germany, this study tests whether unconventional monetary policy by the European Central Bank (ECB) reduced corporate borrowing costs. We decompose corporate lending rates into refinancing costs, as determined by money markets, and markups that the bank is able to charge its customers in regional markets. This decomposition reveals how banks transmit monetary policy within their organizations. To identify policy effects on loan rate components, we exploit the co-existence of eurozone-wide security purchase programs and regional fiscal policies at the district level. ECB purchase programs reduced refinancing costs significantly, even in an economy not specifically targeted for sovereign debt stress relief, but not loan rates themselves. However, asset purchases mitigated those loan price hikes due to additional credit demand stimulated by regional tax policy and enabled the bank to realize larger economic margins.

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