Knowledge that Transforms

We find that dividend paying firms demonstrate superior corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in the subsequent year than non-paying firms. This effect can be explained by stakeholder relationship management through CSR, as dividend payout reflects the inherent conflict between shareholders and stakeholders. Specifically, for dividend payers, we find an increase in CSR performance after states adopt constituency statutes which encourage board’s attention on stakeholders, supporting a causal inference of the stakeholder relationship management’s effect on CSR. The increase in dividend payers’ CSR around the constituency statute adoption is more pronounced when management is friendlier to CSR, which lends further support for the stakeholder relationship management channel. We find no support for the short-termism view of dividends or the notion that CSR is solely an outcome of agency problems within firms. In conclusion, our findings suggest that dividend payout serves as a mechanism for balancing shareholder and stakeholder interests, leading to improved CSR performance among dividend-paying firms.

This paper demonstrates that existing quantile regression models used for jointly forecasting Value-at-Risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES) are sensitive to initial conditions. Given the importance of these measures in financial systems, this sensitivity is a critical issue. A new Bayesian quantile regression approach is proposed for estimating joint VaR and ES models. By treating the initial values as unknown parameters, sensitivity issues can be dealt with. Furthermore, new additive-type models are developed for the ES component that are more robust to initial conditions. A novel approach using the open-faced sandwich (OFS) method is proposed which improves uncertainty quantification in risk forecasts. Simulation and empirical results highlight the improvements in risk forecasts ensuing from the proposed methods.

I examine the role of bank’s distance to the borrower and the proximity of other lenders for the transmission of financial shocks across the bank network. I use a novel dataset of small business lending based on information from the Community Reinvestment Act, which measures lending at census tract groups within each county and yields rich variation in the bank–borrower and borrower–competitor distance. I document that small banks with increased liquidity from proximity to local oil booms, originate more loans to firms far from these booms, and lenders with above-average geographic exposure to residential booms reduce lending in census tract groups with stable house prices. Bank–borrower distance is important for credit expansions, with closer firms receiving more credit, but not for contractions. Proximity of competitors plays a key role: consistent with theoretical predictions, both credit expansions and contractions disproportionately affect markets where the bank faces higher competition.

This study investigates the effects of bank safety-oriented cultures on loan contracts. We regress stock returns during the 1998 Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) crisis on these risk-taking characteristics and obtain a residual component to proxy the safety-oriented culture of banks. Our empirical results show that banks with a safety-oriented culture increase the probability of signing a contract with low risk borrowers and that they charge lower loan spreads. We also find that these banks ask for more loan covenants to protect their creditor’s rights. Finally, banks with a safety-oriented culture suffer less from borrowers’ defaults and have higher market responses around the dates of loan announcements. Also, our findings reject the alternative hypothesis that banks with a safety-oriented culture only accept less risky lending due to their conservative risk attitude, thus destroying market value for banks.

This paper investigates the effects and conduct of macroprudential policies in China compared to those of monetary policy. Two types of structural VAR models, one with recursive zero restrictions and the other with sign restrictions on impulse responses, are used with monthly data. The main results of this paper are as follows. First, macroprudential policy has substantial effects on financial variables such as credit and house prices and macro variables such as output and inflation rate, as monetary policy does. Second, contractionary macroprudential policy is taken to stabilize credit in response to credit shocks, but monetary policy is not.

Banks play a crucial role in providing liquidity to borrowers, particularly during crises (Kashyap et al., 2002 [33]). The existence of multiple lending relationships between banks and borrowers has been seen as an element that reduces the risk of liquidity shortage for debtors (Detragiache et al., 2000). In this paper, we aim to show how the interaction of these two aspects with solvency and liquidity requirements might have implications for the stability of the banking system, which might still need to be fully analyzed. We show that if other sources of liquidity are unavailable or too costly for banks, multiple lending might be a key element in a systemic liquidity shortage and a large drop in lending to the economy. These findings are particularly relevant for understanding how macroeconomic shocks, such as the relatively recent outbreak of COVID-19, could impact the real economy, as well as for assessing the implications of alternative banking resolution mechanisms.

Climate-related risks have become a major concern for financial regulators and can pose a significant threat to financial stability. In this paper, we first propose a theoretical framework for the transmission of climate risks to financial institutions and the financial system. We then estimate the influence of physical and transition risks on the European financial system through bank-level and system-wide measures of financial stability. We find that Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, chronic and acute climate risks negatively affect financial stability at both the financial institution and system levels. Temperature anomalies, heat waves, wildfires and droughts are among the most significant risks. As Europe warms twice as fast as the rest of the world, our theoretical and empirical results urge regulators to mandatorily require the assessment and disclosure of corporate climate risks to allow banks to adjust their prudential capital requirements.

There is growing recognition that prolonged U.S. monetary policy easing has extraterritorial spillovers, driving up financial system leverage elsewhere in the world. Faced with financial stability threats that are not of their own making, what can these countries do? Specifically, is there a role for macroprudential tools, capital controls or foreign exchange intervention in safeguarding financial stability from risks arising externally? We examine the efficacy of these policy interventions by exploring whether preventative or reactive policy interventions can mitigate such risks. Using a sample of 950 bank and nonbank financial firms across 28 non-U.S. economies over the past two decades, we show that if policymakers are able to implement policies prior to an additional consecutive decline in U.S. interest rates, financial institutions do not increase their leverage by as much as they otherwise would. By contrast, it is more difficult to counter the spillovers with reactive policy interventions.

This paper investigates the effects of operational hedging on commodity price risks. It explores a novel type of operational hedging, i.e., the natural operational hedge position between upstream crude oil production and downstream activities in the supply chain. Using hand-collected data from 293 unique oil-producing firms, we find that operational hedging is sufficiently effective in reducing firms’ exposure to oil-price risk. We also find an inverse relationship between operational and financial hedging, suggesting that they can substitute for each other.