Knowledge that Transforms

The implementation of tighter regulation and more powerful supervision may impose large social costs due to the strong reliance on supervisory information that requires direct assessment by a supervisor (i.e. Mandatory Supervision). We show that by introducing a Flexible Supervision contract, which is designed to be chosen by those banks that have incentives to capture the supervisor and allows them to bypass Mandatory Supervision, the most efficient regulation under asymmetric information may be implemented. Benevolent regulators should introduce Flexible Supervision regimes for the less risky, more capitalized and transparent banks in addition to the traditional Mandatory Supervision regime.

Financial networks have shown to be important in understanding systemic events in credit markets. In this paper, we investigate how the structure of those networks can affect the capacity of regulators to assess the level of systemic risk. We introduce a model to compute the individual and systemic probability of default in a system of banks connected in a generic network of credit contracts and exposed to external shocks with a generic correlation structure. Even in the presence of complete knowledge, we identify conditions on the network for the emergence of multiple equilibria. Multiple equilibria give rise to uncertainty in the determination of the default probability. We show how this uncertainty can affect the estimation of systemic risk in terms of expected losses. We further quantify the effects of cyclicality, leverage, volatility and correlations. Our results are relevant to the current policy discussions on new regulatory framework to deal with systemic events of distress as well as on the desirable level of regulatory data disclosure.

This paper shows that the revised loan loss provisioning based on the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) implies a reduction of Tier 1 capital. The paper finds in a counterfactual analysis that these changes are more severe (i) during economic downturns, (ii) for credit portfolios of low quality, (iii) for banks that do not tighten capital standards during downturns, and (iv) under a more comprehensive definition of significant increase in credit risk (SICR) under IFRS. The provisioning rules further increase the procyclicality of bank capital requirements. Adjustments of the SICR threshold or capital buffers are suggested as ways to mitigate a regulatory pressure that may emerges due to the reduction of regulatory capital.

This paper analyzes various channels of shock transmission in an economy subject to financial frictions, by incorporating liquidity and default effects on asset prices. We develop a framework in which we can assess financial stability policy by introducing a simplified model of exchange and financial intermediation that captures the effects of shocks on financial and real sectors of the economy. The model allows us to explain essential mechanisms and interactions of financial and real economic variables in a comprehensive, yet intuitive fashion. Our results suggest that liquidity and default in the credit markets should be analyzed contemporaneously when financial, monetary and productivity shocks affect financial stability as well as the real economy.

This paper aims at providing policymakers with a set of early warning indicators helpful in guiding decisions on when to activate macroprudential tools targeting excessive credit growth and leverage. To robustly select the key indicators we apply the “Random Forest” method, which bootstraps and aggregates a multitude of decision trees. On these identified key indicators we grow a binary classification tree which derives the associated optimal early warning thresholds. By using credit to GDP gaps, credit to GDP ratios and credit growth rates, as well as real estate variables in addition to a set of other conditioning variables, the model is designed to not only predict banking crises, but also to give an indication on which macro-prudential policy instrument would be best suited to address specific vulnerabilities.

In this paper we examine the valuation effects of equity carve-outs in Europe. We demonstrate that equity carve-out announcements yield significant abnormal returns for the shareholders of parent firms. This positive market reaction is stronger in countries that better protect minority shareholder rights. However, a remarkable price reversal is detected in the aftermath of a carve-out transaction that lasts up to two years. In contrast, parent-firm operating performance improves as long as the disposal of subsidiary assets is proven to be an optimal corporate decision. Subsidiaries stemming from the restructuring transaction also experience an initial positive market reaction which then reverses to severe price losses within a few months of the first day of listing.

During the global financial crisis, a large number of banks worldwide either failed or received financial aid thus inflicting substantial losses on the system. We contribute to the early warning literature by constructing a dynamic competing risks hazard model that explores the joint determination of the probability of a distressed bank to face a licence withdrawal or to be bailed out. The underlying patterns of distress are analysed based on a broad range of bank-level and environmental factors. We find that institutions with inadequate capital, illiquid and risky assets, poor management, low levels of earnings and high sensitivity to market conditions have a higher probability to go bankrupt. Bailed out banks, on the other hand, face both capital and liquidity shortages, experience low earnings, and are highly exposed to market products; however, neither the managerial expertise, nor the quality of assets is relevant to the odds of bailout. We further document that large and complex banks are less likely to fail and more likely to be bailed out and also that authorities are more prone to provide support to a distressed bank, which is well-connected with politicians and political parties and less prone to let it go bankrupt. Importantly, our model outperforms the commonly used logit model in terms of forecasting power in all the in- and out-of-sample tests we conduct.

This paper examines how the lending of all foreign banks (branches and subsidiaries) in the US responds to foreign monetary policy actions in their parents’ home countries. Using a rarely studied bank-level dataset covering US-based foreign bank offices over the 1997–2014 period, I find strong evidence of a bank lending channel of inward monetary policy transmission: In response to home country monetary tightening, foreign banks with less access to liquid funds reduce their business lending in the US substantially more than foreign banks with more funding access. This inward transmission is strongest for the pre-crisis period, and for foreign banks originating from Europe.

We examine the effect of economic policy uncertainty on the relation between investment and the cost of capital. Using the news-based index developed by Baker et al. (2016) for twenty-one countries, we find that the strength of the negative relation between investment and the cost of capital decreases during times of high economic policy uncertainty. An increase in policy uncertainty reduces the sensitivity of investment to the cost of capital most for firms operating in industries that depend strongly on government subsidies and government consumption as well as in countries with high state ownership. Consistent with the price informativeness channel, we find that an increase in policy uncertainty reduces the investment-cost of capital sensitivity for firms from more opaque countries, firms with low analyst coverage, firms with no credit rating, and small firms. We conclude that economic policy uncertainty distorts the fundamental relation between investment and the cost of capital.