capital requirements and bank behaviour empirical evidence for switzerland abstract in recent years regulators have increased their focus on the capital adequacy of banking institutions to enhance the stability of the financial system the purpose of the present paper is to shed some light on whether and how swiss banks react to constraints placed by the regulator on their capital building on previous work by shrieves and dahl cf shrieves r e dahl d 1992 the relationship between risk and capital in commercial banks journal of banking and finance 16 439 457 we use a simultaneous equations model to analyse adjustments in capital and risk at swiss banks when those approach the minimum regulatory capital level our results indicate that regulatory pressure induce banks to increase their capital but does not affect the level of risk

pricing risk adjusted deposit insurance an option based model this paper presents a methodology for arriving at empirical estimates of deposit insurance premiums from market data by using isomorphic relationships betweeen equity and a call option and insurance and a put option the data utilizes the market value of equity to solve for the asset value and its volatility market perceptions of fdic bailout policies are explicitly modeled so as to eliminate the bias in inverted values of assets and their volatility sensitivity analyses are performed to show that rank orderings based on premiums are robust to changes in specification thus facilitating allocation of aggregate premium across banks while economists have long argued in favor of risk adjusted deposit insurance as both more equitable and more efficient than the current system of flatrate premiums various recent developments have further contributed to an increasing dissatisfaction with the current system first both the banking industry and the government seem to be tending to the view that deregulation of the banking industry would be necessary in order to meet more sophisticated future demands on the industry as well as desirable as a policy means of stimulating greater competition among banks moreover a sudden rise in the incidence of bank failures 1 and the vulnerability of the u s banks to the socalled international debt crisis have served to bring to the fore concern about the health of the banking industry in the absence of deposit insurance riskier banks will be able to attract deposits only at higher rates and these higher costs of funding serve as built in market regulated incentives to limit excessive risk taking by banks as introduction of deposit insurance makes deposits equally risk free across banks these incentives disappear and regulation and close supervision of the banking industry must necessarily replace them as deterrents to excessive risk taking thus when insurance is offered at a flat premium regulation is designed to ensure that the risk posed to the insurer both asset and financial risk is appropriately uniform

the wealth effects of deregulation of canadian financial institutions abstract canada like other industrial countries recently introduced various financial reforms to remove the barriers separating the operations and ownership of banks from non bank financial institutions this study analyzes the wealth effects of the reforms on the banks and non bank financial institutions and the changes in their systematic risk resulting from financial deregulation over the period 1984 to 1991 the results indicate that while there was a significant cumulative gain for the insurance industry unlike a number of u s studies there was no evidence of wealth transfer among the institutions during the period of deregulation of the canadian financial system additional tests indicate that although the regulatory changes did not have a significant effect on the risk of the banks the systematic risk of the non bank financial institutions increased significantly during the period of regulatory reforms

oscillating currents the changing rationale for government intervention in the electricity industry the appropriate role for government in the electricity industry has emerged as a major issue throughout the world this is explained using the terms of neoclassical economics by shifts in the rationales for government intervention in that industry the two historic rationales natural monopoly and public good have been diminishing in importance while the need to deal with negative environmental externalities has been given increasing attention this paper details the changes in each rationale and then synthesizes this information to probe the implications for policy a key conclusion is that while there will be pressures toward similar policy responses and similar models for the electricity sector there will remain opportunities and justification for significant differences between regions and countries

diversification in banking is noninterest income the answer this paper assesses potential diversification benefits in the u s banking industry from the steady shift toward activities that generate fee income trading revenue and other types of noninterest income in the aggregate declining volatility of net operating revenue reflects reduced volatility of net interest income not diversification benefits from noninterest income which is quite volatile and increasingly correlated with net interest income at the bank level greater reliance on noninterest income particularly trading revenue is associated with lower risk adjusted profits and higher risk this suggests few obvious diversification benefits from the ongoing shift toward noninterest income

power sector reform in india current issues and prospects power sector reforms in india were initiated at a juncture when the sector was plagued with commercial losses and burgeoning subsidy burden investment in the sector was not able to keep pace with growing demand for electricity this paper takes stock of pre reform situation in indian power sector and identifies key concerns that led to initiation of the process of reform the paper discusses major policy and regulatory changes undertaken since the early 1990s the paper also illustrates changes in the market structure as we move along the reform process we also discuss some of the major provisions of the recently enacted electricity act 2003 that aims to replace the prevailing acts which govern the functioning of the power sector in the country in this context we discuss two issues arising out of it namely open access and multi year tariff that we think would have a significant bearing on the performance of the sector in the near future the paper also evaluates the reform process in the light of some of the regulatory changes undertaken finally the paper briefly discusses the issues involved in introduction of competition in the power sector primarily through development of a market for bulk power

investment in human and nonhuman capital transfers among siblings and the role of government the implications for efficient allocation of parents inability to force transfers among siblings are explored when there are differences in abilities of children within families such transfers may be necessary to achieve a first best solution in the absence of such transfers a tax on earned income and a subsidy to inheritance are useful second best tools whereas subsidies to investments in human capital or physical capital are not desirable

double sided auction mechanism design in electricity based on maximizing social welfare an efficient electricity double sided auction mechanism should control market power and enhance the social welfare of the electricity market based on this goal the paper designs a new double sided auction mechanism in the new mechanism the social welfare contribution of each participant plays a pivotal role because this contribution is the critical factor in market clearing payment settling and transaction matching rules in particular each winner of the auction can gain transfer payments according to his contribution to social welfare in the electricity market and this gives the mechanism the ability to control the market power of some participants at the same time this mechanism ensures that the market organizer balances his budget we then conduct a theoretical and empirical analysis based on the spanish electricity market both of the results show that compared to the uniform pricing mechanism the new mechanism can reduce market power of participants and enhance the social welfare of the electricity market

regulatory performance analysis case study britain s electricity industry the success or failure of the privatisation and liberalisation of electricity supply industries has more often been judged in terms of process than of outcomes in this paper in contrast this performance is assessed in terms of the performance of its associated system of regulatory governance taking the uk s electricity supply industry between 1989 and 2000 as case study initially a vertical cross section of the regulation system gives a finding matrix for the various stakeholders involved and identifying winners and losers from the standpoint of funding flows next a horizontal cross section provides the environmental distributive allocative dynamic and productive efficiencies grid for this system the survey shows that the performance of the british esi regulation system produced benefits although not for all stakeholders and not as fairly as possible the chosen path did not seem sustainable and failed to respect intergenerational transfers as a way of fostering sustainability and equity it was unable to underpin simultaneous improvements in efficiencies over time while redistributing industry s funding flows among the players in a regressive manner

nontraditional activities and the efficiency of us commercial banks abstract in recent years an increasing portion of bank income has been generated through nontraditional activities most studies of bank efficiency do not include any measure of nontraditional activities when measuring outputs in this paper cost revenue and profit efficiency are estimated by using models with and without nontraditional output the results suggest that the standard model which omits nontraditional output understates bank efficiency evidence also surfaces that based on efficiency the relative ranking of individual banks changes when nontraditional activities are included as a type of output

bequests and the size of population when population is endogenous the consequences of interfamily bequests and endogenous population size for optimal and competitive population sizes and bequests are explored when individuals utility is a function of own consumption the number of children and the welfare of their children when a bequest benefits each member of a second generation family we show that competition leads to underprovision for future generations under a separability assumption the number of children is also shown to be too large

banks buffer capital how important is risk abstract most banks hold a capital to asset ratio well above the required minimum defined by the present capital adequacy regulation basel i using bank level panel data from norway important hypotheses concerning the determination of this buffer capital are analyzed focus is on the importance of i risk ii the buffer as an insurance iii the competition effect iv supervisory discipline and v economic growth a negative or non significant risk effect is found which suggests that introducing a more risk sensitive capital regulation basel ii is likely to affect norwegian banks support is found for the hypothesis that buffer capital serves as an insurance against failure to meet the capital requirements

a two factor arch model for deposit institution stock returns this paper specifies a two factor model for a sample of deposit institutions the factors are the market return and an interest rate factor the two factor model is specified with autoregressive conditional heteroskedacity arch modeling strategy and is estimated by generalized method of moments gmm the market and interest rate risks are measured by their time varying betas the results suggest that the market risks have been volatile over the sample period 1977 87 and they increased and became more volatile after 1982 the interest rate risks were more stable and they did not respond to the fed s regime change in monetary policy in 1979 and 1982 specification tests suggest the usefulness of my two factor arch model in the study of deposit institution stock returns copyright 1994 by ohio state university press

merger in the english electricity industry this paper compares consumer prices under vertical integration and verticial separation of the electricity industry in england and wales and considers the costs and benefits of mergers between electricity supply and water companies the impact of vertical integration is important given the proposals for merger between electricity generating and supply companies in 1996 the paper concludes that there could be small benefits to consumers if competition in the electricity industry is limited in a fully competitive industry the impact of vertical integration on the consumer is neutral regarding competition vertical merger might limit the extent of new firm entry in the electricity supply market after liberalisation in 1998 inter industry merger will yield cost savings but may limit new firm entry in electricity supply

impact of reform and privatization on consumers a case study of power sector reform in orissa india abstract orissa is the first state in india to have undergone reform in the power sector with the government withdrawing its control the model of this reform is known as the wb orissa model the goal of this paper is to examine the impact of this reform on consumers of electricity which has been measured using multiple regression models the variables represent the parameters that consumers are most interested in and the regression coefficients represent the weights of the corresponding variables the data were collected using a survey methodology the impact of reform was found to be mixed some groups of consumers saw benefits while others felt a negative impact a focus group study was conducted to identify the variables of interest to consumers of electricity the model was used to estimate consumer benefit and was validated using primary data and structural equation modeling the study revealed beneficial aspects of reform and areas with no benefits

conflict of interest in commercial bank security underwritings canadian evidence abstract the recent repeal of the glass steagall act in the us has cleared the way for commercial banks to enter the securities underwriting business many of the concerns that resulted in the original passage of the glass steagall act however still exist one of these is the possible conflict of interest a universal bank faces this paper provides evidence on this issue from the experience of canada following its removal of restrictions on chartered bank ownership of investment dealers both ex ante bond yield comparisons between commercial and investment bank underwritten issues and equity price reactions to bond issue announcements provide no evidence of a conflict of interest

a cluster analysis study based on profitability and financial indicators in the italian gas retail market in the european union the natural gas market is increasingly being liberalized the liberalization process is aimed at leading to lower prices and higher volumes and hence higher consumer welfare this paper focuses on the changes in performance in the natural gas retail market by analyzing the profit and financial position of the companies concerned over the first three years following the market liberalization the balance sheets of 105 italian companies in this sector are analyzed after which a cluster analysis is performed employing the most significant performance indexes the companies are then analyzed within each cluster with respect to age size geographical location and business diversification the results of our analysis show that the majority of companies attained a high level of performance although this positive outcome was mitigated by the gradual decrease of the average values of performance indicators during the period concerned the companies that achieve the best performances belong to longstanding business groups are medium large sized and are located in the north of the country regarding business diversification in the first two years the specialised companies outperformed the diversified companies

efficiency and economies of scale of large canadian banks the authors measure the economies of scale of canada s six largest banks and their costefficiency over time using a unique panel data set from 1983 to 2003 they estimate pooled translog cost functions and derive measures of relative efficiency and economies of scale

draining the pool the reform of electricity trading in england and wales abstract the british government has decided to abolish the pool the electricity spot market in england and wales and replace it with a series of bilateral markets the government believes that the pool has been biased against coal fired generators and that its price setting rule all generators are paid the bid of the marginal unit has inflated the level of prices in practice many of the perceived problems in the pool are the result of market power not the basic design of the pool which is capable of sending the right price signals to generators efficient bilateral markets could well produce similar results prices could rise however if buyers are more risk averse and less good at trading than sellers

behavior of the firm under regulatory constraint a recent article by akira takayama discusses an earlier paper by harvey averch and leland l johnson on fair rate of return regulation of public utilities although takayama p 255 agrees with averch and johnson s general conclusions that a firm will tend to increase its investment with the introduction of an active constraint on its rate of return he criticizes the a j argument as being confusing ambiguous and in error takayama then attempts a clarification and presents a new formulation which leads to the a j result quoted above this comment will discuss several of takayama s criticisms in addition to showing that the so called a j effect cannot be derived from the basic assumptions made by both averch and johnson and takayama 1 we will show that the very assumptions used to prove the a j effect by defining the region of x require an assumption that the a j effect exists in the first place

a new index for electricity spot markets abstract different indexes are used in electricity markets worldwide to represent the daily behavior of spot prices however the peculiarities of these markets require a careful choice of the index based on mathematical formulation and its statistical properties choosing a bad index may influence the financial policies of market players since derivative pricing and hedging performance can be deeply affected in this paper with an initial theoretical analysis we intend to show that the most widely used indexes simple arithmetic average and weighted average with current volumes are poor representatives of the spot market we will then perform an analysis of the hedging strategy on a derivative instrument an asian option written on a reference index the resulting simulations applied to omel spain and eex germany are sufficiently clear cut to suggest that the decision to adopt an index to represent properly a market must be taken very carefully finally we will propose a new index fast index and after comparing it with the previous indexes will show that both theoretically and practically this index can be taken as a good electricity market synthetic indicator

the impact of regulatory quality and corruption on residential electricity prices in the context of electricity market reforms abstract the european electricity markets have been undergoing significant regulatory reforms since the introduction of the first liberalisation directive in 1996 theory predicts that liberalisation promotes cost efficient production and competition and hence leads to lower prices the goal of this paper is to assess the impact of regulatory quality and non compliance with the law on electricity prices in the context of electricity market reforms we address problems of endogeneity by using the blundell blond system gmm estimator and find that vertical integration and market concentration lower end user prices all else equal moreover improving regulatory quality and reducing corruption both have a negative impact on prices when holding other factors constant the intensity of the reforms has limited impact on electricity prices when these reforms are introduced in an institutional environment characterised by high levels of corruption and low quality regulation

the impact of off balance sheet activities on banks returns an application of the arch m to canadian data abstract this paper revisits the impact of off balance sheet obs activities on banks risk return trade off recent studies e g stiroh and rumble 2006 show that increasing obs activities does not necessarily yield straightforward diversification benefits for banks however introducing a risk premium in the standard banks returns models and resorting to an arch m procedure canadian data suggest that banks risk return trade off displays a structural break around 1997 in the second subperiod of our sample 1997 2007 we find that the noninterest income generated by obs activities no longer impacts banks returns negatively while during the first period 1988 1996 the volatility variable is not significant in any returns equations a risk premium eventually emerges pricing the risk associated to obs activities

a portfolio view of banking with interest and noninterest activities this paper uses a portfolio framework to evaluate the impact of increased noninterest income on equity market measures of return and risk of u s bank holding companies from 1997 to 2004 the results indicate that the banks most reliant on activities that generate noninterest income do not earn higher average equity returns but are much more risky as measured by return volatility both total and idiosyncratic and market betas this suggests that the pervasive shift toward noninterest income has not improved the risk return outcomes of u s banks in recent years

on pitfalls in the construction of family based models of population growth a note abstract it is known that there are pitfalls in the way of attempts to construct an economic theory of population and growth based on formal models of the family of the type developed by becker it is shown that these pitfalls can be avoided by going slightly outside becker s model modifying the typical family s budget constraint to allow explicitly for the cost of raising children

theoretical ambiguity and the weight of historical heritage a comparative study of the british and norwegian electricity liberalisation britain and norway have been european pioneers in liberalising their electricity systems but they have done so in very different ways both attempted to create a system in which the potentially competitive activities generation and supply to final consumers were opened up to market forces however britain has liberalised by privatisation leaving generation largely concentrated in a few companies norway has maintained a dominant public ownership but has sought to create a competitive environment through a decentralised production structure the british capitalist and the norwegian structuralist approaches both exhibit clear market oriented features but with the dynamics placed respectively on the ownership side and on decentralised competition yet the two models are also reflections of two historical heritages the differences in political style help to explain the more dramatic and controversial character of the british reform as compared to the rather pragmatic norwegian process the difference between the two reform models also has a bearing on their strengths and weaknesses the norwegian model with its small scale municipal orientation is almost ideal for a competitive free trade market in a closed economy but problematic in a larger international competitive context for the british model the concentration and advanced capitalist ownership strategies create regulatory dilemmas such as the current wave of takeovers that are not easily handled

market failure and energy policy a rationale for selective conservation abstract appropriate activities for the government in the energy sector of the us economy are suggested on the basis of market failures in this sector alleged market failures are explored and specifically targeted remedies proposed where indicated the resulting government policies can be characterized as selectively conservationist designed to induce lower levels of use of particular fuels sometimes in particular industries

the determinants of net interest income in the mexican banking system an integrated model abstract this paper analyzes net interest income in the mexican banking system over the period 1993 2005 taking as reference the seminal work by ho and saunders ho t saunders a 1981 the determinants of banks interest margins theory and empirical evidence journal of financial and quantitative analysis xvi 4 581 600 and subsequent extensions by other authors our study models the net interest margin simultaneously including operating costs and diversification and specialization as determinants of the margin the results referring to the mexican case show that its high margins can be explained mainly by average operating costs and by market power although non interest income has increased in recent years its economic impact is low

liberalisation of the russian power sector abstract the paper discusses the russian power sector reform plan approved by the government in july 2001 which outlines the framework for competition and changes in ownership structure the paper focuses on the following issues related to the plan price reform restructuring of regional energos and large generating companies restructuring of transmission and system operation the mechanism for introducing competition competition for residential consumers and reform sequencing one key message of the paper is that price and regulatory reform is central to success of market liberalisation a second key message is that the restructuring of energos should not create companies with market power ideally local generation and distribution companies would be owned separately with multiple generators in each region at a minimum commonly owned companies should keep separate accounts with regulation of generation a possibility where there is market power regarding transmission and dispatch common ownership would not be a problem given that transmission and generation are separately owned on competition a fully fledged pool may not be appropriate in the case of russia with the alternative of a market based on bilateral contracts with a balancing pool functioning better in a context of non payment and constrained institutional capacity and providing security for investments regarding competition for residential consumers this is not a priority in the short to medium term lastly on sequencing it is better that structural and institutional change takes place before competition begins

incentive regulation of electricity distribution networks lessons of experience from britain this paper reviews the recent experience of the uk electricity distribution sector under incentive regulation the uk has a significant and transparent history in implementing incentive regulation in the period since 1990 we demonstrate the successes of this period in reducing costs prices and energy losses while maintaining quality of service we also draw out the lessons for other countries in implementing distribution sector reform we conclude by discussing the place of incentive regulation of networks within the wider reform context the required legislative framework the need for appropriate unbundling the importance of quality of service incentives the regulatory information requirements and the role of sector rationalisation

contestability vs competition analyzes the ultra free entry as normative contribution to industrial organization ultra free entry in context of the evolving field of industrial organization assessment of the conceptual validity of william baumol elizabeth bailey john panzar and robert willig s analysis in representing the nature of competition empirical issues in measuring and testing ultra free entry ebsco

why basel ii may need a leverage ratio restriction abstract we analyze regulatory capital requirements where the amount of required capital depends on the level of risk reported by the banks it is shown that if the supervisors have a limited ability to identify or to sanction dishonest banks an additional risk independent leverage ratio restriction may be necessary to induce truthful risk reporting the leverage ratio helps to offset the banks potential capital savings of understating their risks by i reducing banks put option value of limited liability ex ante and by ii increasing the banks net worth which in turn enhances the supervisors ability to sanction banks ex post

market definition and dominant position abuse under the new electricity trading arrangements in england and wales abstract the electricity regulator in england and wales has published a consultation paper on the application of the uk competition act 1998 to the energy sectors the consultation is vital the law and economics of detecting anti trust violations in energy are still evolving in both the us and europe at the heart of anti trust analysis are the reasons why prices deviate from marginal cost scarcity rent static market power and dynamic tacit collusion under the new electricity trading arrangements neta market definition could be quite confusing and the absence of an indicator of locational value clouds the signals for investments in generation and transmission moreover large players in a pay as bid auction as applied in neta possess an informational advantage which helps establish a dominant position the irony is that many of the policy difficulties associated with market definition and dominant position abuse under the pool the market instituted upon privatisation in 1990 are unlikely to be resolved completely under neta

three pitfalls in the construction of family based models of population growth abstract the construction of family based models of population growth is subject to several pitfalls which must be avoided if internal consistency and empirical relevance are to be maintained the pitfalls are described it is shown that the pitfalls can be avoided by imposing suitable restrictions on utility and production functions

banks non traditional activities under regulatory changes impact on risk performance and capital adequacy using the big six canadian chartered banks quarterly financial statements and daily stock market data from 1982 to 2018 we examine the impact of non interest income on canadian banks risk perfor

market valuation of bank assets and deposit insurance in canada we examine a sample of canadian banks and use option pricing theory to infer the market value of a bank s assets from the observed market value and volatility of its equity we find that market value estimates are significantly different from corresponding book values these differences vary significantly across banks suggesting that market values provide bank specific information not found in book values we also derive that risk adjusted deposit insurance premia for these banks our results suggest that the current fixed rate deposit insurance premium system has resulted in significant