Knowledge that Transforms

We examine interest rate pass-through in the euro area over the 2008–2016 period and investigate the effects of financial market fragmentation, European Central Bank balance sheet policies and negative rates on the nature of pass-through. We use heterogeneous panel cointegration methods and bank interest rates for four different loan categories: small and large firm loans, housing loans and consumer loans. We find that interest rate pass-through is complete only for small firm loans; it is thus incomplete for other loan categories. Our results suggest that while interest rate pass-through has been weakened by higher sovereign credit risk, the European Central Bank's balance sheet policies helped curb these adverse effects on pass-through. Lower financial market fragmentation translated into lower lending rates. In addition, we fail to find evidence that bank interest rates became less responsive to market rates when market rates became negative.

Many studies examine the use of false news as a method of stock price manipulation. Empirical research shows, for example, that false news generates persistent abnormal returns and affects trading volume. Studies also show that institutions often know about news before it breaks. However, the role institutions play in false news events is still unclear. To understand that role, we track institutional order flow around the release of false news in the Chinese stock market. We find that institutions seem to have early information about false news releases. Their prerelease order flows predict false news sentiments and market reactions. We further find that the early information may come from the media outlets reporting the false news. We also find evidence that institutions reverse their positions several days after the denial releases rather than when the news breaks. In turn, our evidence shows which trading patterns could bring more potential profits than reversing right on the news breaks. Our results provide unique insights into price movements and institutional reactions on false news, as well as evidence regarding regulating institutions, media platforms, and information manipulation in the stock market.

One of the most important elements of the post-crisis financial reforms was to establish credible resolution frameworks allowing for creditor bail-in when banks are entering resolution. Despite the obvious benefits of shifting the burden of resolution from taxpayers to bank creditors, bank bail-ins may also give rise to costs as the financial consequences for bank shareholders and creditors being bailed in could endanger their own financial situation and potentially entail systemic implications. Using granular data on the securities cross-holdings among the largest euro area banking groups, we construct a multi-layered network model where each layer represents bail-inable securities of a specific seniority layer of the creditor hierarchy. The model can be a useful tool for resolution authorities to inform the policy discussion on both the composition and level of loss absorbing capacity of banks and the direct contagion risk following a bail-in. We find that due to low levels of securities cross-holdings in the interbank network there is no direct contagion in terms of creditor banks failing as a result of another bank being bailed in. At the same time, we document that a bail-in will have pecuniary consequences on the different liability holders and our framework allows for an exact quantification of those effects. In addition, we show that recapitalisations following a bail-in will change the network structure and hence the embedded contagion risk.

In this study we use a matched dataset of Japanese banks and firms to examine how bank-driven terminations of bank-borrower relationships affect the investments of the borrowers. We find that bank-driven terminations significantly decrease investment, exerting an effect that exceeds that due to credit reductions within continuing relationships. Our results also show that the unwanted effect of bank-driven terminations grows as the loan market deteriorates as a whole, which prevents firms from obtaining funding from other sources after their relationships with banks are terminated. Our findings coincide with previous literature emphasizing financial frictions in the matching process and the importance of relation-specific assets in credit markets.

Using a unique sample of mortgage loans for the UK buy-to-let market, we estimate a “double trigger” default model which links originating debt service and loan-to-value ratios to ex post default. We investigate whether the relationship between these ratios and default can be informative in the calibration of macro-prudential limits. We find default increasing with originating loan-to-value and falling in the origination debt service ratio. A non-linear cubic spline model is used to identify threshold effects and we identify clear turning points in these relationships. This analysis could provide one input into supervisory considerations when setting limits in a macro prudential context. In addition, we investigate how multiple loan portfolios interact with these thresholds with strong evidence to support tighter macroprudential restrictions on loans for second and subsequent properties.

We propose that credit ratings act as an information channel which, combined with more power being given to creditors by countries strengthening creditor rights, leads to an increase in the supply of public debt. From a firm-level dataset covering 51 developed and developing countries for 1989 through 2013, we find that in countries with stronger creditor rights, firms tend to have higher credit ratings. We confirm that in these countries, firms with higher credit ratings exhibit a greater issuance of public debt than that of equity. As further evidence that credit ratings reduce agency costs of debt, we find that improvements in creditor rights and resulting higher credit ratings increase capital expenditures among firms experiencing severe bondholder-shareholder conflicts.

We simulate shocks to the real sector and evaluate how the financial system reacts and amplifies these events using unique Brazilian loan-level data between banks and banks and firms. Our analysis considers the feedback behavior that exists between the financial and real sectors through a micro-level financial accelerator. We find a strong “network effect” in which the network structure can either attenuate or amplify shocks from the real sector and thus plays a major role in contagion processes. We also find that government-owned banks are the most susceptible banks to receiving shocks from firms of any economic sector. There is empirical evidence to support the claim that more diversified portfolios of banks contribute to higher sector riskiness levels. Our results suggest that systemic risk models should account for the interconnectedness among economic agents—such as the interbank and real and financial sector linkages—in a multilayer approach. Overall, we show that the feedback between the real and financial sector matters in systemic risk estimation and most models that do not take into consideration could be severely underestimating systemic risk.

Research on interbank networks and systemic importance is starting to recognise that the web of exposures linking banks’ balance sheets is more complex than the single-layer-of-exposure approach suggests. We use data on exposures between large European banks, broken down by both maturity and instrument type, to characterise the main features of the multiplex (or multi-layered) structure of the network of large European banks. Banks that are well connected or important in one network, tend to also be well connected in other networks (i.e. the network features positively correlated multiplexity). The different layers exhibit a high degree of similarity, stemming both from standard similarity analyses as well as a core-periphery analyses at the layer level. We propose measures of systemic importance that fit the case in which banks are connected through an arbitrary number of layers (be it by instrument, maturity or a combination of both). Such measures allow for a decomposition of the global systemic importance index for any bank into the contributions of each of the sub-networks, providing a potentially useful tool for banking regulators and supervisors in identifying tailored policy responses. We use the dataset of exposures between large European banks to illustrate that both the methodology and the specific level of network aggregation may matter both in the determination of interconnectedness and in the policy making process.

We find that multi-bank holding companies (MBHCs) in the U.S. have lower insolvency risk than single-bank holding companies (SBHCs) at the parent level, but have significantly higher insolvency risk than the latter at the subsidiary level. Our results suggest that MBHC parents tend to benefit from the internal capital market while allowing for more risk-taking at the individual levels. We further find that the higher risk for MBHC affiliates is because of the organizational and geographic complexity at the MBHC parent level. Our results highlight the importance of government regulation on banks at both parent and subsidiary levels.

In comparison to bank financing, public debt market may allow firms to more readily match maturity and risk structures between their assets and liabilities. We test whether new issuers on the European corporate bond markets experience a change in their interest rate sensitivity upon their bond issuance. We find that stock returns have become significantly less sensitive to interest rate fluctuations for firms that enter the publicly traded bond market. Our findings support the notion that firms manage their interest rate risk with new debt issues.