Knowledge that Transforms

This paper shows that the effects of financial liberalization on the credit market of a small and capital constrained economy depend on the market structure of domestic banks prior to liberalization. Specifically, under perfect competition in the domestic credit market prior to liberalization, liberalization leads to lower domestic interest rates, in turn leading to increased credit penetration. However, when the initial market structure is one of imperfect competition, liberalization can lead to the exclusion of less wealthy entrepreneurs from the credit market. This provides a rationale for the mixed empirical evidence concerning the effects of liberalization on access to credit in developing markets. Moreover, the analysis provides new insights into the consequences of foreign lenders’ entry into developing economies.

This paper studies the role of a large trader in a dynamic currency attack model based on Abreu and Brunnermeier (2003), who study stock market bubbles and crashes in a dynamic model with a continuum of rational small traders. We introduce a large trader into their model and apply it to currency attacks. In an attack against a fixed exchange rate regime with a gradually overvalued currency, traders lack common knowledge about the time when the overvaluation starts and need to coordinate to break a peg. Both the inability of traders to synchronize their attack and their incentive to time the collapse of the regime lead to the persistent overvaluation of the currency. We find that the presence of a large trader with perfect information induces small traders to attack sooner and leads to an accelerated collapse of the regime. But the presence of a large trader with noisy information may delay the collapse of the regime ex post. Moreover, a large trader with precise information tends to be at the rear of an attack. With noisy information, he could attack earlier or later than small traders. In both cases, the large trader affects market dynamics of the attack substantially.

We investigate stock returns, market quality, and options market activity around the flash crash of May 6, 2010. Abnormal returns are negative on the day of and the day after the flash crash for stocks that had trades that executed during the crash subsequently cancelled by either Nasdaq or NYSE Arca. Consistent with studies that suggest that other sources of liquidity withdrew from the markets during the flash crash, we find that the fraction of trades executed by the NYSE increases during this volatile period. Market quality deteriorates following the flash crash as bid-ask spreads increase and quote depths decrease. Evidence from the options markets indicates that investor uncertainty increased around the time of the crash and remained elevated for several days.

Using bank level measures of competition and co-dependence, we show a robust negative relationship between bank competition and systemic risk. Whereas much of the extant literature has focused on the relationship between competition and the absolute level of risk of individual banks, in this paper we examine the correlation in the risk taking behavior of banks. We find that greater competition encourages banks to take on more diversified risks, making the banking system less fragile to shocks. Examining the impact of the institutional and regulatory environment on bank systemic risk shows that banking systems are more fragile in countries with weak supervision and private monitoring, greater government ownership of banks, and with public policies that restrict competition. We also find that the negative effect of lack of competition can be mitigated by a strong institutional environment that allows for efficient public and private monitoring of financial institutions.