Mortgage Companies and Regulatory Arbitrage
Yuliya Demyanyk, Elena Loutskina
Journal of Financial Economics,
Nr. 2,
2016
Abstract
Mortgage companies (MCs) do not fall under the strict regulatory regime of depository institutions. We empirically show that this gap resulted in regulatory arbitrage and allowed bank holding companies (BHCs) to circumvent consumer compliance regulations, mitigate capital requirements, and reduce exposure to loan-related losses. Compared to bank subsidiaries, MC subsidiaries of BHCs originated riskier mortgages to borrowers with lower credit scores, lower incomes, higher loan-to-income ratios, and higher default rates. Our results imply that precrisis regulations had the capacity to mitigate the deterioration of lending standards if consistently applied and enforced for all types of intermediaries.
Artikel Lesen
Bank Recapitalization, Regulatory Intervention, and Repayment
Thomas Kick, Michael Koetter, Tigran Poghosyan
Journal of Money, Credit and Banking,
Nr. 7,
2016
Abstract
We use prudential supervisory data for all German banks during 1994–2010 to test if regulatory interventions affect the likelihood that bailed-out banks repay capital support. Accounting for the selection bias inherent in nonrandom bank bailouts by insurance schemes and the endogenous administration of regulatory interventions, we show that regulators can increase the likelihood of repayment substantially. An increase in intervention frequencies by one standard deviation increases the annual probability of capital support repayment by 7%. Sturdy interventions, like restructuring orders, are effective, whereas weak measures reduce repayment probabilities. Intervention effects last up to 5 years.
Artikel Lesen
International Banking and Cross-border Effects of Regulation: Lessons from Germany
Jana Ohls, Markus Pramor, Lena Tonzer
Abstract
We analyze the inward and outward transmission of regulatory changes through German banks’ (international) loan portfolio. Overall, our results provide evidence for international spillovers of prudential instruments, these spillovers are however quite heterogeneous between types of banks and can only be observed for some instruments. For instance, foreign banks located in Germany reduce their loan growth to the German economy in response to a tightening of sector-specific capital buffers, local reserve requirements and loan to value ratios in their home country. Furthermore, from the point of view of foreign countries, tightening reserve requirements was effective in reducing lending inflows from German banks. Finally, we find that business and financial cycles matter for lending decisions.
Artikel Lesen
Lend Global, Fund Local? Price and Funding Cost Margins in Multinational Banking
Rients Galema, Michael Koetter, C. Liesegang
Review of Finance,
Nr. 5,
2016
Abstract
In a proposed model of a multinational bank, interest margins determine local lending by foreign affiliates and the internal funding by parent banks. We exploit detailed parent-affiliate-level data of all German banks to empirically test our theoretical predictions in pre-crisis times. Local lending by affiliates depends negatively on price margins, the difference between lending and deposit rates in foreign markets. The effect of funding cost margins, the gap between local deposit rates faced by affiliates abroad and the funding costs of their parents, on internal capital market funding is positive but statistically weak. Interest margins are central to explain the interaction between internal capital markets and foreign affiliates lending.
Artikel Lesen
Banks and Sovereign Risk: A Granular View
Claudia M. Buch, Michael Koetter, Jana Ohls
Journal of Financial Stability,
2016
Abstract
We investigate the determinants of sovereign bond holdings of German banks and the implications of such holdings for bank risk. We use granular information on all German banks and all sovereign debt exposures in the years 2005–2013. As regards the determinants of sovereign bond holdings of banks, we find that these are larger for weakly capitalized banks, banks that are active on capital markets, and for large banks. Yet, only around two thirds of all German banks hold sovereign bonds. Macroeconomic fundamentals were significant drivers of sovereign bond holdings only after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. With the outbreak of the sovereign debt crisis, German banks reallocated their portfolios toward sovereigns with lower debt ratios and bonds with lower yields. With regard to the implications for bank risk, we find that low-risk government bonds decreased the risk of German banks, especially for savings and cooperative banks. Holdings of high-risk government bonds, in turn, increased the risk of commercial banks during the sovereign debt crisis.
Artikel Lesen
Time-varying Volatility, Financial Intermediation and Monetary Policy
S. Eickmeier, N. Metiu, Esteban Prieto
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 19,
2016
Abstract
We document that expansionary monetary policy shocks are less effective at stimulating output and investment in periods of high volatility compared to periods of low volatility, using a regime-switching vector autoregression. Exogenous policy changes are identified by adapting an external instruments approach to the non-linear model. The lower effectiveness of monetary policy can be linked to weaker responses of credit costs, suggesting a financial accelerator mechanism that is weaker in high volatility periods. To rationalize our robust empirical results, we use a macroeconomic model in which financial intermediaries endogenously choose their capital structure. In the model, the leverage choice of banks depends on the volatility of aggregate shocks. In low volatility periods, financial intermediaries lever up, which makes their balance sheets more sensitive to aggregate shocks and the financial accelerator more effective. On the contrary, in high volatility periods, banks decrease leverage, which renders the financial accelerator less effective; this in turn decreases the ability of monetary policy to improve funding conditions and credit supply, and thereby to stimulate the economy. Hence, we provide a novel explanation for the non-linear effects of monetary stimuli observed in the data, linking the effectiveness of monetary policy to the procyclicality of leverage.
Artikel Lesen
Networks and the Macroeconomy: An Empirical Exploration
Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit, William R. Kerr
NBER Macroeconomics Annual,
2015
Abstract
How small shocks are amplified and propagated through the economy to cause sizable fluctuations is at the heart of much macroeconomic research. Potential mechanisms that have been proposed range from investment and capital accumulation responses in real business-cycle models (e.g., Kydland and Prescott 1982) to Keynesian multipliers (e.g., Diamond 1982; Kiyotaki 1988; Blanchard and Kiyotaki 1987; Hall 2009; Christiano, Eichenbaum, and Rebelo 2011); to credit market frictions facing firms, households, or banks (e.g., Bernanke and Gertler 1989; Kiyotaki and Moore 1997; Guerrieri and Lorenzoni 2012; Mian, Rao, and Sufi 2013); to the role of real and nominal rigidities and their interplay (Ball and Romer 1990); and to the consequences of (potentially inappropriate or constrained) monetary policy (e.g., Friedman and Schwartz 1971; Eggertsson and Woodford 2003; Farhi and Werning 2013).
Artikel Lesen
How Effective is Macroprudential Policy during Financial Downturns? Evidence from Caps on Banks' Leverage
Manuel Buchholz
Working Papers of Eesti Pank,
Nr. 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.
Artikel Lesen
International Banking and Liquidity Risk Transmission: Evidence from Canada
James Chapman, H. Evren Damar
IMF Economic Review,
Nr. 3,
2015
Abstract
This paper investigates how liquidity conditions in Canada may affect domestic and/or foreign lending of globally active Canadian banks, and whether this transmission is influenced by individual bank characteristics. It finds that Canadian banks expanded their foreign lending during the recent financial crisis, often through acquisitions of foreign banks. It also finds evidence that internal capital markets play a role in the lending activities of globally active Canadian banks during times of heightened liquidity risk.
Artikel Lesen
Banks and Sovereign Risk: A Granular View
Claudia M. Buch, Michael Koetter, Jana Ohls
Abstract
We identify the determinants of all German banks’ sovereign debt exposures between 2005 and 2013 and test for the implications of these exposures for bank risk. Larger, more capital market affine, and less capitalised banks hold more sovereign bonds. Around 15% of all German banks never hold sovereign bonds during the sample period. The sensitivity of sovereign bond holdings by banks to eurozone membership and inflation increased significantly since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Since the outbreak of the sovereign debt crisis, banks prefer sovereigns with lower debt ratios and lower bond yields. Finally, we find that riskiness of government bond holdings affects bank risk only since 2010. This confirms the existence of a nexus between government debt and bank risk.
Artikel Lesen
