Initial proposals for contingent convertibles (CoCos) envisioned that these bonds would convert to equity when the issuing bank’s stock price declined to a prespecified trigger. Subsequent research has claimed that doing so causes the stock price to have multiple equilibria or no equilibrium. We show that when CoCos are perpetuities, which characterizes most actual CoCos, a unique stock price equilibrium exists, except under unrealistic conditions. Unique equilibria occur when conversion favors or disfavors CoCo investors, when CoCos convert to equity or are written down, and when CoCos are callable. We also analyze a bank’s risk choices before and after conversion. Received November 29, 2016; editorial decision July 15, 2018 by Editor Itay Goldstein.

This paper considers a model where banks may improve the returns on loans by monitoring borrowers. Bank regulation, together with competitive deposit and equity financing, can give banks an incentive to sell loans, but the extent of their loan selling is limited by a moral‐hazard problem. A solution is given for the optimal design of the bank‐loan buyer contract that alleviates this moral‐hazard problem. An explanation is also given as to why some banks might buy loans and why loan sales volume has recently increased.

Traditional measures of interest rate risk assume that prices of financial assets and liabilities are set in perfectly competitive markets. However, evidence suggests that many retail financial markets do not follow the competitive paradigm. In this paper, we employ a general contingent claims framework to value rents earned by banks in demandable retail deposit markets. Our analysis provides a natural and economically meaningful measure of interest rate risk for these imperfectly competitive markets. Using monthly survey data on NOW accounts and MMDAs, we estimate the value of retail deposit rents and deposit durations for more than 200 commercial banks.

This paper extends the standard single-period model of deposit insurance to a mutliperiod setting. It incorporates a variety of features describing bank and regulator behavior, such as endogenous capital adjustments and regulatory forbearance. Budgetary costs of deposit insurance are found using contingent claims techniques. We show how the market value of a bank′s net worth, a critical input of the model, can be estimated using accounting cash flow data and information from aggregate bank stock prices. Using Call Report data on U.S. commercial banks, we provide empirical estimates of the aggregate cost of deposit insurance under alternative regulatory policies. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: G13, G21, G28, H61.

Because Brazil's legal system lacked protection for minority shareholders and trading of Brazilian shares flowed to U.S. exchanges, in 2001 the São Paulo Stock Exchange, Bovespa, created three premium exchange listings that require more stringent shareholder protections. This paper examines the effects of a commitment to improved corporate disclosure and governance by firms' voluntary migration to these premium listings. Our analysis finds that a firm's migration brings positive abnormal returns to its shareholders, particularly when its shares did not have a prior cross-listing on a U.S. exchange and also when the firm chooses a premium listing with the highest standards. Migration to a premium listing also leads to a significant increase in the trading volume of non-voting shares. Firms that choose a premium listing tend to have growth opportunities that they finance with subsequent seasoned equity offerings. These results suggest that a premium listing is a mechanism for bonding to improved corporate behavior that can be less costly than cross-listing on a U.S. exchange.

We examine whether U.S. banks whose uninsured deposits were subject to greater risk of loss prior to the March 2023 banking crisis used institutional mechanisms to expand their deposit insurance or accessed government funding after the crisis. We construct a bank-level measure of pre-crisis uninsured depositor risk incorporating financial statements, unrealized security losses, and estimates of unrealized loan losses that predicts a bank’s post-crisis loss of uninsured deposits. We find that riskier small and midsize banks tended to utilize reciprocal, sweep, and brokered deposits, but not listing service deposits, to attract more insured deposits. Riskier small and midsize banks temporarily accessed FHLB advances while only risky midsize banks borrowed from the Discount Window. Risk did not predict banks’ use of Fed BTFP funding. Riskier banks, particularly small and midsize ones, paid relatively higher interest rates on many types of deposits.

Stijn Claessens, George Pennacchi, Estimating the Likelihood of Mexican Default from the Market Prices of Brady Bonds, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Mar., 1996), pp. 109-126

Until the 1970s, both banks and nonfinancial corporations relied on performance targets linked to their earnings per share (EPS). Over the next few decades, banks rapidly changed to emphasize return on equity (ROE) as a performance target. Investors seem aware of this change because ROE growth (EPS growth) better explains banks’ (nonfinancials’) stock market values. Also, manager compensation linked to ROE is more common for banks than for nonfinancials. This paper presents a model of a bank subject to fixed-rate deposit insurance and facing increasing competition that erodes its charter value. When the bank chooses its capital to maximize its shareholder value, its performance based on ROE appears better than its performance based on EPS. Thus, the increase in competition that started in the 1970s, along with fixed-rate deposit insurance, may explain banks’ growing preference for ROE over EPS as a performance target.

A model of multimarket spatial competition is developed where small, single-market banks compete with large, multimarket banks (LMBs) for retail loans and deposits. Consistent with empirical evidence, LMBs are assumed to set retail interest rates uniformly across markets, have different operating costs, and have access to wholesale funding. If LMBs have significant funding advantages that offset potential loan operating cost disadvantages, then market-extension mergers by LMBs promote loan competition, especially in concentrated markets. However, such mergers reduce retail deposit competition, especially in less concentrated markets. Prior empirical research and our own analysis of retail deposit rates support the model's predictions.