Knowledge that Transforms

We develop a model for defaultable bonds incorporating both uncertainty about corporate earnings and uncertainty due to climate-related risks, which determine downward jumps in the firm value. In particular, we study how bond pricing is affected by transition risks, such as those coming from an abrupt change of climate policies. We show how the issuer’s credit quality changes as a result of its engagement in projects funded by green bonds and study the impact of green bonds on investors’ portfolio allocation. The way ‘green’ bonds may contribute to financial stability is also discussed.

We examine the influence of both organizational and geographical religiosity, as important ethical parameters moderating a bank’s decision to securitize their assets. The study employs a unique database of banks located within countries marked by high (low) religious adherence. Our results provide evidence that different measures of religiosity affect a bank’s decision to securitize their assets: Banks located in countries with high religious adherence are less likely to engage with securitization compared to banks in countries with lower religiosity, while Islamic banks have a higher likelihood of embarking on a highly monitored model of asset securitization in contrast to conventional banks. When examining the motives underlying a bank’s decision to securitize assets, there is strong evidence that Islamic banks securitize their assets to improve their portfolio diversification, financial performance, and regulatory compliance. This study highlights the importance of considering informal ethical mechanisms, such as religiosity, at both the country and firm levels, when studying bank risk-taking and trading decisions, especially in countries with dual banking systems.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic halted economic activity worldwide, hurting firms and pushing many of them toward bankruptcy. This paper discusses four central issues that have emerged in the academic and policy debates related to firm financing during the downturn. First, the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic is radically different from past crises, with important consequences for optimal policy responses. Second, it is important to preserve firms’ relationships with key stakeholders (e.g., workers, suppliers, customers, and creditors) to avoid inefficient bankruptcies and long-term detrimental economic effects. Third, firms can benefit from “hibernation,” incurring the minimum bare expenses necessary to withstand the pandemic while using credit to remain alive until the crisis subdues. Fourth, the existing legal and regulatory infrastructure is ill-equipped to deal with an exogenous systemic shock like a pandemic. Financial sector policies can help channel credit to firms, but they are hard to implement and entail different trade-offs.

The financial system plays a major role in the transition to a low-carbon economy. We shed light on this analyzing recent developments in the bond and debt markets. First, we study the pricing of green bonds at issuance. We find a premium for green bonds issued by supranational institutions and corporates but no yield differences in case of issuances by financial institutions. We also document an effect for external review and repeated access to the green bond market. Second, we show that banks that issue green bonds reduce lending towards carbon-intensive sectors, but limited to the loan amounts granted in the role of lead bank in the deal. This mixed evidence about lending suggests that, at the time of issuance, investors may not be able to identify a clear link between the green bond issued by a financial institution and a specific green investment project, which would explain the absence of a green premium for financial issuers.

Using an ecological macrofinancial model, we explore the potential impact of the ‘green supporting factor’ (GSF) and the ‘dirty penalising factor’ (DPF) on climate-related financial risks. We identify the transmission channels by which these green differentiated capital requirements (GDCRs) can affect credit provision and loan spreads, and we analyse these channels within a dynamic framework in which climate and macrofinancial feedback effects play a key role. Our main findings are as follows. First, GDCRs can reduce the pace of global warming and decrease thereby the physical financial risks. This reduction is quantitatively small, but is enhanced when the GSF and the DPF are implemented simultaneously or in combination with green fiscal policies. Second, the DPF reduces banks’ credit provision and leverage, making them less fragile. Third, both the DPF and the GSF generate some transition risks: the GSF increases bank leverage because it boosts green credit and the DPF increases loan defaults since it reduces economic activity. These effects are small in quantitative terms and are attenuated when there is a simultaneous implementation of the DPF and the GSF. Fourth, fiscal policies that boost green investment amplify the transition risks of the GSF and reduce the transition risks of the DPF; the combination of green fiscal policy with the DPF is thereby a potentially effective climate policy mix from a financial stability point of view.

In November 2011, the Financial Stability Board, in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund, published a list of 29 "systemically important financial institutions" (SIFIs, now referred to as "globally systemically important banks" or G-SIBs), institutions whose failure, by virtue of "their size, complexity, and systemic interconnectedness", could have dramatic negative consequences for the global financial system. While "size" and "interconnectedness" have been the subject of much quantitative analysis, less attention has been paid to measuring "complexity." Yet without a consistent way to measure complexity, there is little guarantee that the designated SIFIs capture the complexity that the FSB is concerned about, and little hope of mitigating the consequences that the FSB warns of. In this paper we propose the structure of an individual firm's majority-control hierarchy as a proxy for institutional complexity. We demonstrate as a proof-of-concept how this method might be used by bank supervisors, particularly the Federal Reserve under its authority as consolidated supervisor, using a data set containing information on the majority-control hierarchies of many of the designated SIFIs. Our mathematical intrafirm network representation (and various associated metrics we propose) provides a uniform way to compare firms with often very disparate organizational structures – one that is distinct from a simple size comparison.

Systemic risk is a multi-layer network phenomenon. Layers represent various types of direct financial exposure of various types, including interbank liabilities and derivative- or foreign exchange exposures. An important layer of systemic risk emerges through common asset holdings of financial institutions. Strongly overlapping portfolios lead to similar exposures that are caused by price movements of the underlying financial assets. Based on the knowledge of individual portfolio holdings of financial agents, we quantify the systemic risk of overlapping portfolios. We then present an optimization procedure whereby we minimize the systemic risk in a given financial market by optimally rearranging overlapping portfolio networks. The optimization is performed under the constraints that the expected returns and risk of the individual portfolios are unchanged. We explicitly demonstrate the power of the method on the overlapping portfolio network of sovereign exposure between major European banks, using data from the European Banking Authority stress test of 2016. Systemic risk can be reduced by more than a factor of two, without any detrimental effects for the individual banks. These results are confirmed by a simple simulation of fire sales in the government bond market. In particular, we show that the contagion probability is dramatically reduced in the optimized network. We comment on the efficiency of the network optimization approach in comparison to equity-injection-based ways to reduce systemic risk. To obtain the same risk levels that are obtained in the network optimization, it would be necessary to increase the actual available capital by two thirds. This shows the immense potential of network-based systemic risk management.

This study examines the interplay between political influence and regulatory decision-making. Political influence is captured based on whether a bank is headquartered in a state where an elected official holds a chair position on a congressional committee related to the banking and financial services industry. Using data of US commercial banks over the period 2000–2015, we show that our measure of political influence reduces a bank's probability of receiving a formal regulatory enforcement action. Results are robust to the use of alternative model specifications and the sample restrictions. However, we find that various bank and environmental characteristics are important conditional factors.

In this paper, we investigate the interest rate setting behaviour of the Bank of England (BoE) over the 16 year period covering both the Great Moderation and the 2008−9 Global Financial Crisis and Great Recession. We contribute to the literature by using the BoE’s own inflation projections in our estimations. Also, we develop a novel measure of the output gap to encapsulate the array of real variables that the Monetary Policy Committee of the BoE reviews. In order to assess the BoE’s responsiveness to financial markets, we estimate a new financial conditions index that covers a wide range of financial indicators that feature in the Inflation Report. Our study provides some new insights into the BoE’s monetary policy behaviour. We show that the BoE was concerned not only with price stability but also output, employment and financial conditions during the Great Moderation. In contrast to previous studies, we find that the BoE responds relatively less to financial conditions and relatively more to inflation projections when the 2008−9 Global Financial Crisis and Great Recession period is included.

This paper investigates the nexus between climate-related variables, commodity price co-movements and financial stability. First, we project the commodity price time series onto a multilayer network. Centrality measures computed on the network are used to detect the existence of common trends between the series and to characterize the role of different nodes during phases of market downturns and upturns, unveiling the onset of financial instability. Then, an econometric analysis is introduced to show how climate-related variables affect financial stability by influencing co-movements of commodity prices. Overall, the paper reveals how synthetic indicators of commodity price co-movements generate valuable signals to study the nexus between climate-related conditions and the dynamics of financial systems.