Suchergebnisse

Using a unique dataset of the Euro area and the U.S. bank lending standards, we find that low (monetary policy) short-term interest rates soften standards, for household and corporate loans. This softening – especially for mortgages – is amplified by securitization activity, weak supervision for bank capital and too low for too long monetary policy rates. Conversely, low long-term interest rates do not soften lending standards. Finally, countries with softer lending standards before the crisis related to negative Taylor-rule residuals experienced a worse economic performance afterwards. These results help shed light on the origins of the crisis and have important policy implications.

We show that risk mitigating incentives dominate risk shifting incentives in fragile banks. Risk shifting could be particularly severe in banking since it is the most opaque industry and banks are one of the most leveraged corporations with very low skin in the game. To analyze this question, we exploit security trading by banks during financial crises, as banks can easily and quickly change their risk exposure within their security portfolio. However, in contrast with the risk shifting hypothesis, we find that less capitalized banks take relatively less risk after financial market stress shocks. We show this using the supervisory ISIN-bank-month level dataset from Italy with all securities for each bank. Our results are over and above capital regulation as we show lower reach-for-yield effects by less capitalized banks within government bonds (with zero risk weights) or within securities with the same rating and maturity in the same month (which determines regulatory capital). Effects are robust to controlling for the covariance with the existence portfolio, and less capitalized banks, if anything, reduce concentration risk. Further, effects are stronger when uncertainty is higher, despite that risk shifting motives may be then higher. Moreover, three separate tests – based on different accounting portfolios (trading book versus held to maturity), the distribution of capital and franchise value – suggest that bank own incentives, instead of supervision, are the main drivers. Results are confirmed if we consider other sources of balance sheet fragility and different measures of risk-taking. Finally, evidence from the recent COVID-19 shock corroborates findings from the Global Financial Crisis and the Euro Area Sovereign Crisis.

We analyse the impact of standard and non-standard monetary policy on bank profitability. We use both proprietary and commercial data on individual euro area bank balance-sheets and market prices. Our results show that a monetary policy easing – a decrease in short-term interest rates and/or a flattening of the yield curve – is not associated with lower bank profits once we control for the endogeneity of the policy measures to expected macroeconomic and financial conditions. Accommodative monetary conditions asymmetrically affect the main components of bank profitability, with a positive impact on loan loss provisions and non-interest income offsetting the negative one on net interest income. A protracted period of low monetary rates has a negative effect on profits that, however, only materializes after a long time period and is counterbalanced by improved macroeconomic conditions. Monetary policy easing surprises during the low interest rate period improve bank stock prices and CDS. ; L.P. acknowledges the financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness [Grant ECO2015-68136-P] and FEDER, UE and from the European Research Council Grant [project 648398].

We identify the relative importance for bank lending of borrower (demand-side) versus bank (supply-side) factors. We submit thousands of fictitious mortgage applications, changing one borrower-level factor at time, to the major Italian online mortgage platform. Each application goes to all banks. Borrower and bank factors are equally strong in causing and explaining loan acceptance. For pricing, borrower factors are instead stronger. Moreover, banks supplying less credit accept riskier borrowers. Exploiting the administrative credit register, there is borrower-lender assortative matching, and the bank-level strength measure estimated on the experimental data is associated to credit supply and risk-taking to real firms. ; This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 648398). Peydró also acknowledges financial support from the PGC2018-102133-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE) grant and from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (CEX2019-000915-S)

We show that negative monetary policy rates induce systemic banks to reach‐for‐yield. For identification, we exploit the introduction of negative deposit rates by the European Central Bank in June 2014 and a novel securities register for the 26 largest euro area banking groups. Banks with more customer deposits are negatively affected by negative rates, as they do not pass negative rates to retail customers, in turn investing more in securities, especially in those yielding higher returns. Effects are stronger for less capitalized banks, private‐sector (financial and nonfinancial) securities and dollar‐denominated securities. Affected banks also take higher risk in loans. ; This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 648398). Peydró also acknowledges financial support from the PGC2018‐102133‐B‐I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE) grant and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (SEV‐2015‐0563). The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the European Central Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, or the Eurosystem.

Although recent research shows that the euro has spurred cross-border financial integration, the exact mechanisms remain unknown. We investigate the underlying channels of the euro's effect on financial integration using data on bilateral banking linkages among twenty industrial countries in the past thirty years. We also construct a dataset that records the timing of legislative-regulatory harmonization policies in financial services across the European Union. We find that the euro's impact on financial integration is primarily driven by eliminating the currency risk. Legislative-regulatory convergence has also contributed to the spur of cross-border financial transactions. Trade in goods, while highly correlated with bilateral financial activities, does not play a key role in explaining the euro's positive effect on financial integration.

We investigate the effect of financial integration on the degree of international business cycle synchronization. For identfication, we use a confidential database on banks' bilateral exposure over the past three decades and employ a novel bilateral country-pair panel instrumental vari- ables approach. First, we show that conditional on global shocks and country-pair fixed factors countries that become more financially integrated over time have less synchronized growth pat- terns, in line with the standard theories of output fluctuations. Second, to isolate the one-way impact of financial integration on output co-movement and account for measurement error in the financial integration measure, we exploit variation in the transposition dates of the European Union-wide legislative acts (the Directives) from the Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP). These laws are designed to harmonize regulation of financial markets in the European Union. We find that increases in financial integration stemming from regulatory-legislative harmoniza- tion policies in capital markets are followed by more divergent output cycles, even when we condition on monetary unification. Our results contrast with those of the previous empirical studies. We reconcile the different results by showing that the earlier estimates suffer from the standard identification problems.

Although recent research shows that the euro has spurred cross-border financial integration, the exact mechanisms remain unknown. We investigate the underlying channels of the euro's effect on financial integration using data on bilateral banking linkages among twenty industrial countries in the past thirty years. We also construct a dataset that records the timing of legislative-regulatory harmonization policies in financial services across the European Union. We find that the euro's impact on financial integration is primarily driven by eliminating the currency risk. Legislative-regulatory convergence has also contributed to the spur of cross-border financial transactions. Trade in goods, while highly correlated with bilateral financial activities, does not play a key role in explaining the euro's positive effect on financial integration.

We show that risk mitigating incentives dominate risk shifting incentives in fragile banks. Risk shifting could be particularly severe in banking since it is the most opaque industry and banks are one of the most leveraged corporations with very low skin in the game. To analyze this question, we exploit security trading by banks during financial crises, as banks can easily and quickly change their risk exposure within their security portfolio. However, in contrast with the risk shifting hypothesis, we find that less capitalized banks take relatively less risk after financial market stress shocks. We show this using the supervisory ISIN-bank-month level dataset from Italy with all securities for each bank. Our results are over and above capital regulation as we show lower reach-for-yield effects by less capitalized banks within government bonds (with zero risk weights) or within securities with the same rating and maturity in the same month (which determines regulatory capital). Effects are robust to controlling for the covariance with the existence portfolio, and less capitalized banks, if anything, reduce concentration risk. Further, effects are stronger when uncertainty is higher, despite that risk shifting motives may be then higher. Moreover, three separate tests – based on different accounting portfolios (trading book versus held to maturity), the distribution of capital and franchise value – suggest that bank own incentives, instead of supervision, are the main drivers. Results are confirmed if we consider other sources of balance sheet fragility and different measures of risk-taking. Finally, evidence from the recent COVID-19 shock corroborates findings from the Global Financial Crisis and the Euro Area Sovereign Crisis.

We investigate the connections between bank capital regulation and the prevalence of lightly regulated nonbanks (shadow banks) in the U.S. corporate loan market. For identification, we exploit a supervisory credit register of syndicated loans, loan-time fixed effects, and shocks to capital requirements arising from surprise features of the U.S. implementation of Basel III. We find that less-capitalized banks reduce loan retention, particularly among loans with higher capital requirements and at times when capital is scarce, and nonbanks step in. This reallocation is associated with important adverse effects during the 2008 crisis: loans funded by nonbanks with fragile liabilities are less likely to be rolled over and experience greater price volatility.

We analyze a small, new credit facility of a Spanish state-owned bank during the crisis, using its continuous credit scoring system, its firm-level scores, and the credit register. Compared to privately-owned banks, the state-owned bank faces worse applicants, (softens) tightens its credit supply to (un)observed riskier firms, and has much higher defaults, especially driven by unobserved ex-ante borrower risk. In a regression discontinuity design, the supply of public credit causes: large positive real effects to financially-constrained firms (whose relationship banks reduced substantially credit supply); crowding-in of new private-bank credit; and positive spillovers to other firms. Private returns of the credit facility are negative, while social returns are positive. Overall, our results provide evidence on the existence of significant adverse selection problems in credit markets.

We analyze new lending to firms by a state-owned bank in crisis times, the potential adverse selection faced by the bank, and the causal real effects associated to its lending. For identification, we exploit: (i) a new credit facility set up in Spain by its state-owned bank during the credit crunch of 2010-2012; (ii) the bank s continuous scoring system, together with firms' individual credit scores and the threshold for granting vs. rejecting loan applications; (iii) the rich credit register matched with firm- and bank-level data. We show that, compared to privately-owned banks, the state-owned bank faces a worse pool of applicants, is tighter (softer) in lending to firms with observable (unobservable) riskier characteristics, and has substantial higher loan defaults. Using a regression discontinuity approach around the threshold, we show that the supply of credit causes large positive real effects on firm survival, employment, investment, total assets, sales, and productivity, as well as crowding-in of new credit by private banks.

We show that Quantitative Easing (QE) stimulates investment via a corporate-bond lending channel. Fed's large-scale asset purchases of MBS and treasuries through QE creates a vacuum of safe assets, prompting safer firms to invest more by issuing relatively "safe" bonds. Using micro-data around QE, we find that QE increases firm-level investment by 7.4 percentage points for firms with bond market access. This growth is financed with senior bonds. We find no evidence of higher shareholders' payouts associated to QE. The robust findings are consistent with a model in which reducing the supply of government debt lowers "safe" corporate bond yields, stimulating investment

We show that loan origination time is crucial for bank lending standards over the credit cycle, as well as for ex-post loan-level defaults and bank-level failures. We use the credit register in Spain for the business loans over the 2002-15 period focusing on the time of a loan application and its granting. When VIX is low (proxying for good times) banks shorten the time to originate a loan, particularly to less-capitalized (riskier) firms. Bank moral hazard incentives are a key mechanism. Shorter loan origination time to ex-ante riskier firms in good times is especially stronger for: (i) banks with less capital (proxying for moral hazard problems between bank owners and taxpayers/debtholders); (ii) non-listed banks (proxying for moral hazard problems between bank management and shareholders); (iii) loans to firms in geographical areas which do not form the bank's main market and experience a real estate bubble (proxying for moral hazard problems between local loan officers and the bank headquarter), mainly if those areas have more bank competition; or, relatedly, stronger effects on loans granted to firms operating in industries which the bank is not most specialized at, proxying for moral hazard problems between different parts within the bank. Moreover, shorter origination time is associated with higher ex-post defaults at the loan-level, and aggregated at the bank-level, with higher likelihood of bank failure or other strong bank distress events, overall consistent with lower screening (time). ; This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 648398). Peydró also acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (CEX2019-000915-S).

We show that Quantitative Easing (QE) stimulates investment via a corporate-bond lending channel. Fedâ s large-scale asset purchases of MBS and treasuries through QE creates a vacuum of safe assets, prompting safer firms to invest more by issuing relatively "safe" bonds. Using micro-data around QE, we find that QE increases firm-level investment by 7.4 percentage points for firms with bond market access. This growth is financed with senior bonds. We find no evidence of higher shareholdersâ payouts associated to QE. The robust findings are consistent with a model in which reducing the supply of government debt lowers "safe" corporate bond yields, stimulating investment.