Using a novel measure of the degree of information asymmetry across firms, this study shows that information-related financial market imperfections do matter for a firm’s access to external finance. Prior studies of the importance of liquidity constraints faced by nonfinancial firms have suffered from a glaring weakness. They have been based on a sample of publicly traded firms, omitting precisely those firms most likely to be liquidity constrained. Furthermore, they have tended to rely on indirect measures of the degree of information asymmetry, such as firm size. We overcome these limitations by focusing on the banking sector. Unlike the nonfinancial sector, the banking sector has balance sheet and income data available for all firms, whether or not they are publicly traded. This allows the use of a superior measure of the degree of information asymmetry across firms by distinguishing between publicly traded and non-publicly traded banks. We focus on changes in monetary policy that represent exogenous (to the banks) changes in the financing constraints they face. We find that publicly traded banks, which exhibit a lower degree of information asymmetry, are better able to overcome information-based financial market frictions, compared to the relatively opaque non-publicly traded banks, when monetary policy is tightened. Lending by the more transparent publicly traded banks is less affected by a monetary policy tightening in large part due to their relative advantage in raising external funds by issuing uninsured large time deposits. These results are obtained controlling for bank (and bank holding company) size, a dimension commonly used in the literature as the measure of the degree of firm access to external finance. Moreover, we show that the distinction between publicly traded and non-publicly traded banks dominates bank size as an indicator of the degree of access to external funds.

One of the weaknesses of current bank efficiency models is a disagreement as to the role of deposits in the bank production process. Some models view deposits as an input, while others view them as an output. Such disparity of approaches results in inconsistent efficiency estimates. In this study we propose an alternative Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) bank efficiency model that treats deposits as an intermediate product, thus emphasizing the dual role of deposits in the bank production process. Consequently, the effect of the amount of deposits on bank efficiency depends on the efficiency at both stages of the bank production process. The main advantage of our model is that it does not require a researcher to make a judgment call as to whether having more (production approach) or less (intermediation approach) deposits is “better” for bank efficiency. Our unified framework has the potential to produce more consistent efficiency estimates.

This study investigates if market risk-based capital requirements (MRR) implemented in 1998 mitigated bank risk associated with trading activities. Recognizing that only banks with sufficiently high trading activities are subject to the MRR (regulated), we implement a difference-in-difference (DID) approach to show that in the post-MRR period, unregulated banks experienced an increase in risk associated with trading activity, while their regulated counterparts enjoyed no appreciable change in trading-related risk. We interpret the resulting negative DID coefficient as the evidence of a risk-mitigating effect of the MRR. This effect disappears at already well-capitalized banks. We also show that upon the implementation of the MRR, unregulated banks exhibit a significantly larger increase in contribution of opaque trading activity to bid-ask spreads, compared to regulated banks, for which the association between trading activity and bid-ask spreads actually declines. Our results are consistent with the view that the MRR significantly reduced moral hazard and adverse selection problems associated with opaque trading activities.

In this study, we explore the hedge fund activist (HFA) influence on managerial decisions in the opaque banking industry. Focusing on loan loss provisions (LLPs), an accounting item that is subject to considerable managerial discretion as well as scrutiny from various regulatory agencies, we find that HFAs alleviate the agency problems associated with bank loan loss provisioning decisions. The findings show that HFA influence leads to a substantial reduction in overstatements, but not understatements, of LLPs at target banks. This results in a prompt increase in bottom-line profitability and stock returns, while pointing to no appreciable change in bank risk. We conclude that the disciplinary effect of HFAs contributes to shareholder value by leading to a reduction in excessive loan loss provisioning consistent with a realignment of LLP decisions with target bank shareholders’ interests.