Suchergebnisse

Credit quality of loans to Italian firms dramatically worsened during the cyclical downturn of 2008–09, compared with the previous period of growth (2006–07). This paper shows that, if credit quality transition matrices (i.e. the change in the actual firms' riskiness, gauged ex post) are mapped to interest rates (i.e. the conditions applied ex ante to the credit), banks appear to have been able at calibrating required risk premiums to actual firms' idiosyncratic risk, both during expansion and recession. However, the uncertainty generated by the crisis emphasized the unexpected component of credit worsening, thus making evident flaws in pricing effectiveness. Moreover, banks' organizational features did matter in driving the pricing effectiveness: the main finding is that larger banking groups were more affected than smaller ones by the sudden deterioration of credit quality, which was poorly reflected in their risk pricing on the eve of the crisis. The bank‐size effect can be tackled through an efficient use of hard or soft information: both the banks using quantitative credit rating models and highly decentralized banks showed an above‐average ability in calibrating rates to upcoming risk, suggesting that a clear‐cut adoption of a consistent lending technique outperforms more ambiguous strategies; banks with a strong relationship with borrowers smoothed the risk–price curve in normal times.

Using a dataset that combines bank organizational variables, information on firms' credit demand and balance sheet indicators, we investigate the impact of lending organization on credit dynamics during the 2008–2009 crisis period. Our main findings suggest that the variables shaping the organization of a bank in its lending to non‐financial firms have a complex impact on its ability to expand credit. Banks that made substantial use of credit scoring techniques actually reduced their credit expansion during the economic downturn. At the same time, banks that delegated more power to their branch managers were likely to expand loans at a higher rate. Finally, contrary to the evidence from the pre‐crisis period, we find that longer branch manager tenure in the same branch is detrimental to the credit growth rate. These findings are robust to a wide set of robustness checks.

The crisis management framework for banks in the European Union (EU) requires the resolution authorities to identify the existence of a public interest to resolve an ailing bank, rather than to open normal insolvency proceedings (NIPs). The Public Interest Assessment (PIA) determines whether resolution objectives, including the safeguard of financial stability, can be better preserved using resolution tools than NIPs .This paper provides a contribution to the ongoing discussion on the implementation of the PIA, by presenting an analytical framework to quantify the potential impact on the real economy stemming from a bank's failure under NIPs through the interruption of the lending activity ("credit channel"). The framework is harmonized across the jurisdictions belonging to the Banking Union and aims to improve the quantitative leg of the PIA, to be coupled with qualitative elements. In a first step, we quantify the potential credit shortfall faced by firms and households due to the abrupt closure of a bank. In a second step, the impact of the credit shortfall on real outcomes is estimated via a FAVAR model and via a micro-econometric model. Reference values are provided to assess the relevance of the estimated outcomes. The illustrative results show that such a harmonized approach can be applied across the Banking Union and to banks of heterogeneous size. In case of mid-sized banks, this common analytical framework could reduce the uncertainty regarding the extent to which the failure of the institution could have a negative impact to the real economy if the lending activity is interrupted as possibly the case under NIPs.