To Separate or not to Separate Investment from Commercial Banking? An Empirical Analysis of Attention Distortion under Multiple Tasks
Reint E. Gropp, K. Park
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 2,
2016
Abstract
In the wake of the 2008/2009 financial crisis, a number of policy reports (Vickers, Liikanen, Volcker) proposed to separate investment banking from commercial banking to increase financial stability. This paper empirically examines one theoretical justification for these proposals, namely attention distortion under multiple tasks as in Holmstrom and Milgrom (1991). Universal banks can be viewed as combining two different tasks (investment banking and commercial banking) in the same organization. We estimate pay-performance sensitivities for different segments within universal banks and for pure investment and commercial banks. We show that the pay-performance sensitivity is higher in investment banking than in commercial banking, no matter whether it is organized as part of a universal bank or in a separate institution. Next, the paper shows that relative pay-performance sensitivities of investment and commercial banking are negatively related to the quality of the loan portfolio in universal banks. Depending on the specification, we obtain a reduction in problem loans when investment banking is removed from commercial banks of up to 12 percent. We interpret the evidence to imply that the higher pay-performance sensitivity in investment banking directs the attention of managers away from commercial banking within universal banks, consistent with Holmstrom and Milgrom (1991). Separation of investment banking and commercial banking may indeed be associated with a reduction in risk in commercial banking.
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26.11.2015 • 43/2015
Political lendings of German Savings Banks
A recent paper of the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) suggests that German local politicians take advantage of their influence on the credit decisions of German savings banks. “German savings banks on average increase the supply of commercial loans by €7.6 million in the year of a local election”, says IWH president Reint E. Gropp. Loans that the savings banks generate during election years also perform worse and lead to lower interest income. The results suggest that local politicians take advantage of savings banks to further their chances of re-election.
Reint E. Gropp
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The Impact of Dark Trading and Visible Fragmentation on Market Quality
Hans Degryse, Frank de Jong, Vincent van Kervel
Review of Finance,
No. 4,
2015
Abstract
Two important characteristics of current equity markets are the large number of competing trading venues with publicly displayed order books and the substantial fraction of dark trading, which takes place outside such visible order books. This article evaluates the impact on liquidity of dark trading and fragmentation in visible order books. Dark trading has a detrimental effect on liquidity. Visible fragmentation improves liquidity aggregated over all visible trading venues but lowers liquidity at the traditional market, meaning that the benefits of fragmentation are not enjoyed by investors who choose to send orders only to the traditional market.
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The Political Determinants of Sovereign Bond Yield Spreads
Stefan Eichler
Journal of International Money and Finance,
No. 46,
2014
Abstract
This paper analyzes the political determinants of sovereign bond yield spreads using data for 27 emerging markets in the period 1996 to 2009. I find strong evidence that countries with parliamentary systems (as opposed to presidential regimes) and a low quality of governance face higher sovereign yield spreads, while the degree of democracy and elections play no significant role. A higher degree of political stability and the power to implement austerity measures significantly reduce sovereign yield spreads particularly in autocratic regimes, while no significant effect is detected for democratic countries. Overall, political determinants have a more pronounced impact on sovereign bond yield spreads in autocratic and closed regimes than in democratic and open countries.
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Im Fokus: Die Entwicklung der Kernkapitalquoten der deutschen Banken seit der Finanzkrise
Manuel Buchholz, Felix Noth
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 3,
2014
Abstract
Seit der Finanzkrise haben die deutschen Banken ihre Kernkapitalquote im Zeitverlauf deutlich erhöht. Der Aufwärtstrend setzte sich mit wenigen Ausnahmen bis zum vierten Quartal 2013 fort. Diese Entwicklung ist vermutlich auch auf die Anforderungen der EU-Stresstests zurückzuführen. Nur jene Banken hatten den Stresstest bestanden, die nach Abzug der simulierten Verluste mindestens eine harte Kernkapitalquote von 6% (im Jahr 2010) bzw. 5% (2011) aufweisen konnten. Jüngste Daten der privaten Geschäftsbanken weisen für das erste Quartal 2014 allerdings einen Rückgang der Quoten aus. Da nicht die aktuellen Zahlen, sondern die des vierten Quartals 2013 in die aktuelle Bilanzqualitätsprüfung (Asset Quality Review) der Europäischen Zentralbank und den sich anschließenden erneuten Stresstest eingehen, scheint für die Banken aktuell kein Anreiz zu bestehen, die Kernkapitalquoten auf dem hohen Niveau zu belassen.
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Regulation, Innovation and Technology Diffusion - Evidence from Building Energy E fficiency Standards in Germany
Makram El-Shagi, Claus Michelsen, Sebastian Rosenschon
Discussionpapers des DIW Berlin,
No. 1371,
2014
Abstract
The impact of environmental regulation on technology diffusion and innovations is studied using a unique data set of German residential buildings. We analyze how energy effi ciency regulations, in terms of minimum standards, affects energy-use in newly constructed buildings and how it induces innovation in the residential-building industry. The data used consists of a large sample of German apartment houses built between 1950 and 2005. Based on this information, we determine their real energy requirements from energy performance certificates and energy billing information. We develop a new measure for regulation intensity and apply a panel-error-correction regression model to energy requirements of low and high quality housing. Our findings suggest that regulation significantly impacts technology adoption in low quality housing. This, in turn, induces improvements in the high quality segment where innovators respond to market signals.
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The Determinants of Inward Foreign Direct Investment in Business Services Across European Regions
Davide Castellani
Finanza e Statistica 104/2012,
2012
Abstract
The paper accounts for the determinants of inward foreign direct investment in business services across the EU-27 regions. Together with the traditional variables considered in the literature (market size, market quality, agglomeration economies, labour cost, technology, human capital), we focus on the role of forward linkages with manufacturing sectors and other service sectors as
attractors of business services FDI at the regional level. This hypothesis is based on the evidence that the growth of business services is mostly due to increasing intermediate demand by other services industries and by manufacturing industries and on the importance of geographical proximity for forward linkages in services.
To our knowledge, there are no studies investigating the role of forward linkages for the location of FDI. This paper aims therefore to fill this gap and add to the FDI literature by providing a picture of the specificities of the determinants of FDI in business services at the regional level. The empirical analysis draws upon the database fDi Markets, from which we selected projects having as a destination NUTS 2 European regions in the sectors of Business services over the period 2003-2008. Data on FDI have been matched with data drawn from the Eurostat Regio
database. Forward linkages have been constructed using the OECD Input/Output database. By estimating a negative binomial model, we find that regions specialised in those (manufacturing) sectors that are high potential users of business services attract more FDI than other regions. This confirms the role of forward linkages for the localisation of business service FDI, particularly in the case of manufacturing.
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Greater Efficiency through More Competition in the Health Care Sector?
Ingmar Kumpmann
WSI-Mitteilungen,
No. 4,
2012
Abstract
More competition among health insurers is often recommended as a means towards enhancing efficiency in the health care sector. In this paper the effects of competition among health insurers on costs and quality of medical services are discussed. It is argued that if insurers competed with each other, costs would not decrease - on the contrary, they would increase since competing organisations are less capable of counterbalancing the strong market position of health care providers than the state or a cartel of health insurers. In addition, competition may lead to a segmentation of the market: on the one hand insurers with low premiums who only offer access to rather unpopular physicians. On the other hand insurers who guarantee free choice of medical practitioners but have higher premiums. A restriction of the free choice of medical practitioners weakens competition among physicians for patients.
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Do Government Owned Banks Trade Market Power for Slack?
Andreas Hackethal, Michael Koetter, Oliver Vins
Applied Economics,
No. 33,
2012
Abstract
The ‘Quiet Life Hypothesis (QLH)’ posits that banks with market power have less incentives to maximize revenues and minimize cost. Especially government owned banks with a public mandate precluding profit maximization might succumb to a quiet life. We use a unified approach that simultaneously measures market power and efficiency to test the quiet life hypothesis of German savings banks. We find that average local market power declined between 1996 and 2006. Cost and profit efficiency remained constant. Nonparametric correlations are consistent with a quiet life regarding cost efficiency but not regarding profit efficiency. The quiet life on the cost side is negatively correlated with bank size, quality of loan portfolio and local per capita income. The last result indicates that the quiet cost life is therefore potentially due to benevolent excess consumption of local input factors by public savings banks.
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Effects of Entrepreneurship Education at Universities
S. Laspita, H. Patzelt, Viktor Slavtchev
Jena Economic Research Papers, Nr. 2012-025,
No. 25,
2012
Abstract
This study analyzes the impact of entrepreneurship education at universities on the intentions of students to become entrepreneurs or self-employed in the short-term (immediately after graduation) and in the long-term (five years after graduation). A difference-in-differences approach is applied that relates changes in entrepreneurial intentions to changes in the attendance of entrepreneurship classes in the same period. To account for a potential bias due to self-selection into entrepreneurship classes, only individuals having no prior entrepreneurial intentions are analyzed. Our results indicate a stimulating effect of entrepreneurship education on students’ intentions to become entrepreneurs or self-employed in the long-term but a discouraging effect on their intentions in the short-term. These results support the conjecture that entrepreneurship education provides more realistic perspectives on what it takes to be an entrepreneur, resulting in ‘sorting’. Overall, the results indicate that entrepreneurship education may improve the quality of labor market matches, the allocation of resources and talent, and increase social welfare. Not distinguishing between short- and long-term intentions may lead to misleading conclusions regarding the economic and social impact of entrepreneurship education.
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