bank spread with uncertain deposit level and risk aversion abstract this paper derives a model of the banking firm under uncertainty and risk aversion the selection of the bank s optimal spread between loan and deposit rates is emphasized the model s results provide some implications for bank asset quality capital regulation and deposit insurance for example it is shown that increases in the level of equity capital tend to increase the bank s spread under dara this implies an improvement in bank asset quality on the other hand as the deposit supply function becomes more volatile the bank s spread narrows which implies a decline in the quality of the bank s assets

financial firm production of monetary services a generalized symmetric baroett variable profit function approach an alternative monetary production model of financial firms is employed to investigate supply side monetary aggregation financial firms are conceived to produce monetary services as outputs through financial intermediation a new method for testing the existence of consistent monetary output aggregates in financial firms production technology is developed in terms of a multiproduct firm s variable profit function and the method does not require homotheticity of the aggregator function we use a generalized symmetric barnett flexible functional form that specification satisfies global curvature conditions and retains its flexibility under the null hypothesis of weak separability neither of those properties is possessed by other flexible functional forms

attitudes toward risk and the risk return paradox prospect theory explanations this study attempted to explain bowman s risk return paradox in terms of recent research in behavioral decision theory and prospect theory the research emphasized the role of reference or target

the impacts of government ideology on innovation what are the main implications abstract this study investigates the relationship between government ideology and technical innovativeness of the whole country by using multinational panel data covering 110 countries from 1995 to 2015 and by employing comprehensive indicators for technical innovation i e trademark and patent application in empirical research we utilize the panel generalized method of moment gmm technique to introduce dynamic variables in order to avoid the bias caused by potential endogeneity next we generate three cross items to examine whether the effect of government ideology on technical innovation differs under different circumstances we then change the measurement of government ideology to assure the reliability of our empirical results further investigate whether the changes of political ideology influence technical innovation and carry out a robustness test by dividing the whole sample into two sub samples based on the level of democracy by employing two samples which limited by 3 main coalition parties in government at most such as re elected government and non alternated government in countries overall the empirical results show that a leftist ruling party inhibits the progress of technical innovation whereas a right wing ruling party promotes the appearance of new technology the effect of government ideology on innovation is not similar under some circumstances more evidence is presented by using two dummy variables to represent left wing and right wing

the upside potential of hiring risky workers evidence from the baseball industry making use of performance data for baseball players this article provides empirical evidence in support of lazear s 1998 theoretical predictions that 1 risky workers will earn a premium for their upside potential 2 this risk premium will be higher the longer a worker s work life and 3 firms must enjoy some comparative advantage in the labor market to be willing to pay a premium to risky workers the validity of lazear s predictions carries implications for wage differentials between young and old workers and between men and women

note and comment keynes plus effective demand and changes in firm level r d an empirical note analysing changes over time in firm level r and d efforts we find that demand growth in a firm s sector of principal activity has a positive influence on changes in a firm s r and d effort confirming schmookler s 1969 demand pull hypothesis this finding points to an aspect of effective demand which has never been directly noticed by keynes or the keynesians such findings are important because of evidence in the literature that a firm s innovation activities are positively related to employment growth export intensity and profits

optimal futures positions for large banking firms in this paper we extend earlier work on hedging models so that uncertainty about both deposit supply and loan demand is incorporated as well as random rates of return on loans and cd s our model suggests that the optimal forward position is the sum of three ratios that should be estimated simultaneously using bank specific data the optimal hedge ratios are estimated in both the pre deregulation and deregulation subperiods our results show that previous studies of bank hedging with interest rate futures have greatly overstated a the volume of short futures positions that banks should take and b the degree of homogeneity of optimal hedge ratios across the banking system similarly deregulation has not uniformly affected the interest rate risk borne by different institutions as the financial futures markets have matured there has been increased interest in the use of these markets to hedge the risks faced by financial intermediaries the literature on hedging with financial futures has grown dramatically with studies by ederington 4 franckle 5 schweser cole and d antonio 17 arak and mccurdy 2 dew and martell 3 picou 13 ho and saunders 6 koppenhaver 8 and morgan and smith 9 10 with the exception of some of the more recent work most articles that have addressed the use of financial futures have described the hedging problem as a relatively simple risk management situation even studies that have focused on intermediaries have viewed the hedging problem as one dimensional the intermediary wants either to hedge a cash position in a security such as a t bill or to hedge an anticipated issue of a cd this viewpoint does not incorporate the complexity of the situation faced by intermediaries or other firms that may be subject to uncertainty from a variety of sources the more recent literature incorporates some of this additional uncertainty by considering quantity risk in lending partial takedown of loan commitments or deposits for which the intermediary acts as a rate setter seldom are both sources of uncertainty incorporated in the same model for example koppenhaver 8 allows for quantity uncertainty in deposits and in the rate that the intermediary will pay on cd s but not for uncertainty in loan rates or loan quantity morgan and smith 9 allow for uncertainty in loan quantity but not in deposit supply in this paper we extend koppenhaver s 8 model and that of morgan and smith 9 so that uncertainty about both deposit supply and loan demand is incorporated as well as random rates of return on loans and cd s

term structure intermediation by depository institutions abstract term structure intermediation in which institutions purchase assets and sell liabilities of different maturities is analyzed theoretically and the results are applied to current policy issues the theoretical model allows the identification of alternative reasons for mismatched portfolios including risk loving utility functions interest rate forecasts that differ from the market s forward rates and risk premia in the yield curve the risk premia case appears empirically relevant and intermediation in which lending is long earning the risk premium and borrowing is short not paying a risk premium may offset capital market imperfections but such intermediation is also risky creating a dilemma for bank regulators

insuring banks against liquidity shocks the role of deposit insurance and lending of last resort it has long been recognized that banks simultaneous provision of monitoring and liquidity services is advantageous but leaves them susceptible to liquidity shocks that may culminate in a system failure because a system failure is costly this provides a rationale for adopting arrangements including a lender of last resort and deposit insurance di to insure banks against liquidity shocks these arrangements have proven themselves very successful but they have also been the source of problems researchers have identified some of the main sources of these problems and have suggested ways to improve the design of these arrangements but there are still many issues that remain unaddressed this paper reviews the literature on the two arrangements that most countries have adopted to insure banks against liquidity shocks a lender of last resort and di and compares the design of these arrangements across countries the paper ends with a brief summary of the key lessons learned about the design of these arrangements and the issues related to them that remain unaddressed copyright blackwell publishers ltd 2006

growth opportunities and risk taking by financial intermediaries we show that growth opportunities which cannot be converted to cash under conditions of financial distress gz are a critical determinant of an intermediary s choice of risk financial institutions in which gz is a low proportion of total assets will be much more likely to engage in go for broke behavior the model leads to a reevaluation of the effectiveness of several traditional remedies for dealing with banks that take excessive risks such as raising insurance premiums intervening before capital is depleted and restricting investment options the model also has implications about a new approach to the examination of financial intermediaries the insuring agencies are painfully aware that when a bank is at or near insolvency it has an incentive to take greater risks stanley silverberg 1984 p 100 director of research at the federal deposit insurance corporation has observed that under such conditions it is generally in the interest of managers and owners to gamble in an effort to recoup if the bank rolls the dice and loses the fdic typically bears the loss of course bank shareholders like shareholders in other limited liability corporations have an incentive to take larger gambles than if their activities were financed entirely by equity what distinguishes go for broke behavior however is that a firm in go for broke mode will be willing to play with dice loaded against it go for broke behavior occurs when a firm chooses an operating strategy that will lower the expected value of its assets a firm in go for broke mode causes a loss to society since it will allocate resources to uses that have a lower expected return than the opportunity cost of funds in this paper we examine the conditions under which a bank has an incentive to adopt go for broke behavior and the challenge faced by regulators in controlling such behavior we show that weakly capitalized banks with negligible opportunities for profitable growth pose the greatest threat and that traditional supervisory remedies are least effective against such banks

the evolution of a free banking system the institutional features of models of unregulated monetary systems have often been arbitrarily and implausibly assumed this paper instead provides realistic grounding for important features by constructing a logical evolutionary account of free banking sophisticated and orderly arrangements are shown to emerge from competition and the pursuit of less costly methods of payment the emergence of standardized commodity money is followed by the development in turn of basic money transfer banking easily transferable bank liubilities and clearinghouses the features of an evolved free banking system differ from those assumed in recent models of competitive payments systems

maturity intermediation and intertemporal lending policies of financial intermediaries this paper considers the maturity intermediation and intertemporal lending decisions of risk averse financial intermediaries in particular the maturity mismatch problem and the fixed versus variable rate lending decision are modeled when the major source of risk involves uncertain future interest rates the results imply that the strategy of matching the maturity of assets and liabilities is not generally optimal or even minimum risk this is due primarily to the built in hedge that the intermediary has as a result of rolling over short term loans while continuing to finance long term loans intertemporal dependencies between loan demand and costs or both also have an effect on the optimal degree of maturity mismatching and provide one rationale for making loans at rates below current marginal cost

the modern view of macroeconomics some critical reflections david romer has proposed a new basic macroeconomic framework the is mp ia model its proponents claim that it represents the modern view of macroeconomics we show that the new framework remains closely attached to the neoclassical synthesis and in addition does not take account of i the empirical evidence on the output inflation trade off ii the evidence on the interdependence of aggregate demand and supply iii the institutional limits of monetary policy and iv the implications for macroeconomic policy of i ii and iii once these aspects have been incorporated short run stabilisation policy is not neutral in the long run the notion of a natural rate of interest becomes untenable and aggregate demand turns into the crucial exogenous variable copyright 2005 oxford university press

the impact of loan prepayment risk and deposit withdrawal risk on the optimal intermediation margin abstract numerous studies have analyzed how a bank s intermediation margin varies with respect to such factors as credit quality funding risk bank capital deposit insurance and other factors however these studies ignore the potential that loans tend to prepay if interest rates decline and deposits tend to be withdrawn if interest rates rise taking this very fundamental fact into account we derive optimal loan rates and deposit rates when the bank is subject to loan prepayments and deposit withdrawals among other things we find that greater volatility of interest rates tends to increase the margin the strength of the correlation between the level of interest rates and the propensity to prepay loans withdraw deposits also plays an interesting role

an instantaneous control model of bank reserves and federal funds management abstract empirical evidence indicates that large banks are generally net buyers of federal funds while small banks tend to be net sellers asymmetric information bank monopoly power or risk aversion arguments have been offered for this phenomenon however these models do not address the close link between bank reserves and federal funds purchases as alternative means of liquidity management our stochastic control model focuses on this link and has three main implications 1 it analyzes interaction between the above mentioned influences 2 it identifies three additional reasons for banks federal funds activity and 3 it examines the transmission of monetary policy in a dynamic framework

how does equity capital cost affect bank performance during a financial crisis this article theoretically examines how equity capital cost affects return performance and safety of a bank and how this effect varies across a financial crisis comparing to a normal time when the bank manager s performance reveals the like of higher equity return and the dislike of higher equity risk we derive two main results first an increase in the bank s equity capital cost from an increase of the interest rate of the federal funds results in a reduced loan risk taking at an increased optimal bank interest margin implying better bank performance second by ignoring the dislike we find that the better performance is reinforced during a financial crisis but is reduced during a normal time financial crises and the dislike preference as such contribute a relatively low return and the stability of banking activities

choosing the devil you don t know evidence for limited sensitivity to sample size based uncertainty when it offers an advantage many decision makers seek to optimize choices between uncertain options such as strategies employees or products when performance targets must be met attending to observed past performance is not enough to optimize choices option uncertainty must also be considered for example for stretch targets that exceed observed performance more uncertain options are often better bets a significant determinant of option uncertainty is sample size for a given option the smaller the sample of information we have about it the greater the uncertainty in two studies choices were made between pairs of uncertain options with the goal of exceeding a specified performance target information about the options differed in the size of the sample drawn from them sample size and the observed performance of those samples the proportion of successes or hits in the sample we found people to be sensitive to sample size based uncertainty only when differences in observed performance were negligible we conclude that

data envelopment analysis truncated regression and double bootstrap for panel data with application to chinese banking we investigate the impact of earning asset diversification on chinese bank efficiency from 2006 to 2011 we do this by adapting the current two stage data envelopment analysis approach to a panel data setting so that we can account for technology change over time our monte carlo experiments illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed new algorithm over the conventional approach when applied to chinese banking data the regression results reveal that increasing the asset share of other earning assets including securities and derivatives is positively associated with bank efficiency decreasing the share of nonearning assets in total assets or increasing total equity has a similar impact our results also suggest that financial reforms currently being undertaken in china including removing the regulatory requirement concerning the ratio of loans to deposits a draft amendment to the existing commercial banking law and interest rate liberalization a proposed draft amendment are likely to have a positive effect on bank efficiency in china

the commercial banking firm a simple model a commercial bank must decide its volume of illiquid loans and investments without full knowledge of its deposits in case withdrawals exceed its defensive position in liquid assets the bank incurs extra costs in meeting reserve requirements penalties in borrowing or losses in disposing of illiquid assets in case of good luck on deposits an unnecessarily large defensive position sacrifices profits from more remunerative but less liquid assets the paper presents a simple model of this precautionary portfolio decision by a profit maximizing bank the effects of variations in monetary policy banking regulations and competitive structure are traced reserve requirements access to central bank credit deposit interest rate ceilings monopolistic power in loan and deposit markets relative importance of capital and time deposit liabilities size and nature of illiquidity penalties and degree of deposit uncertainty commercial banks are the most important kind of financial intermediary their liabilities are the closest privately issued substitutes for government currency demand deposits serve as means of payment generally acceptable for most transactions for several reasons depositors bear very little of the risks of the loans the banks make there are economies of scale in pooling of default risks specific to borrowers and in specialized administration and appraisal of the loans the banks shareholders assume the residual risk only after their equity is wiped out would depositors claims be jeopardized finally the government stands behind bank deposit liabilities both as lender of last resort to tide banks over crises of illiquidity and as insurer of deposits against the contingency of insolvency government monetary and credit policy operates mainly through the commercial banking system and this is the main reason today to give special attention to commercial banks historically the first reason for government intervention in the banking business was to protect depositors or in older times bank note holders against the risks of bank illiquidity and insolvency but the public regulations and institutions established for this purpose can also be used to regulate credit markets in the interests of economic stabilization maintenance of the value of the currency or other government objectives as the protective purpose of government intervenscand j of economics 1982 this content downloaded from 207 46 13 172 on fri 07 oct 2016 06 13 42 utc all use subject to http about jstor org terms

capital regulation and deposit insurance abstract a model of deposit insurance in which the bank closure rule can systematically deviate from the economic insolvency condition used in earlier models is developed simulation of that model for plausible parameter values suggests that the failure to close banks on a timely basis has a profound effect in increasing the insurer s liability the implications of these results for capital regulation are discussed

the economics of workout lending lenders are forced to consider a workout loan when a borrower loses access to financial markets and must seek loans from existing creditors to continue servicing outstanding loans a model of the loan decision is developed that distinguishes socially useful from socially wasteful workout loans the analysis is extended to examine two collective action problems that may arise when many lenders have claims on a troubled borrower the paper concludes with a consideration of the implications of the model for the establishment of prudential lending limits and of policies to stimulate new lending to troubled debtor countries copyright 1989 by ohio state university press

variable rate deposit insurance a re examination abstract this paper investigates the impact of variable rate deposit insurance on the financial and real sectors of the economy and its role as an absorber of bankruptcy risk within these sectors a variable rate system raises the cost of funds to the real sector and increases probability of bankruptcy of the borrowing firms when such bankruptcies occur society experiences a dead weight loss we argue that appropriate deposit insurance pricing must weigh the social costs connected with both financial firm failure and real sector bankruptcy

a multinomial logit analysis of problem loan resolution choices in banking this paper presents a conceptual framework of problem loan resolution choices that is a function of the combined borrower and lender decisions a bank will choose a workout option if its expected value is greater than the outcome under a no workout plan for the borrower if the reputational penalty due to a default is less than the opportunity cost of the best new alternative the borrower will have an incentive to default if the reverse holds then the borrower will be better off with a loan workout using a unique data set composed of borrower lender and economic factors we empirically examine the problem loan resolution choices the results provide support for our conceptual framework that problem loan choices are based on combined borrower lender variables copyright 1995 by ohio state university press

single equation multiple regression methodology is it an appropriate methodology for the estimation of the structure performance relationship in banking abstract tests of the structure performance paradigm of the industrial organization literature have been carried out almost exclusively using a single equation multiple regression methodology the purpose of this paper is to suggest that where the firms being considered are multiple product in nature and may pursue objectives in addition to maximizing the value of the firm such a methodology may be inappropriate the results presented in this paper suggest that the absence of a consistently strong positive and statistically significant relationship between market concentration and bank profitability may be traced in part to such an inappropriate methodology

venture capital contracting under asymmetric information abstract a model is developed wherein entrepreneurs and venture capitalists contract under symmetric information asymmetric information may arise following first contracting it is shown this can lead to debt infeasibility and preferred equity usage control is linked to choice between common and preferred results are robust to multiperiod extensions roles of convertible preferred retained equity and debt in ipos are considered an empirical survey of venture capital firms is presented demonstrating preferred dominates in early financing debt and common are used far less generally at later stages under lower probability of asymmetric information these results agree with the theory s implications

risk in banking and capital regulation this paper investigates the role of bank capital regulation in risk control it is known that banks choose portfolios of higher risk because of inefficiently priced deposit insurance bank capital regulation is a way to redress this bias toward risk utilizing the mean variance model the following results are shown a the use of simple capital ratios in regulation is an ineffective means to bound the insolvency risk of banks b as a solution to problems of the capital ratio regulation the theoretically correct risk weights under the risk based capital plan are explicitly derived and c the theoretically correct risk weights are restrictions on asset composition which alters the optimal portfolio choice of banking firms the recent increase in bank failures especially after the 1980 and 1982 deregulatory acts has again ignited a controversy over the risk portfolio of the banking industry given the importance of this sector there has been increased scrutiny of the industry s motives for risk taking and possible regulatory changes to improve its stability these investigations have centered around two rather complementary areas the first of these is the role of deposit insurance and how its current pricing procedure encourages risk taking and justifies current bank regulations the works of buser chen and kane 4 kane 9 and benston et al 2 have made substantive contributions the authors demonstrates the way in which our current fixed rate insurance system rewards risk taking by the firm and insulates it through deposit insurance from the market discipline that needs to exist to ensure proper risk evaluation this realization has led these authors to propose a series of regulatory changes to encourage proper portfolio choice within the industry these include a shift to market value accounting risk based deposit insurance premiums and additional capital regulation the last of these serves as a method of coinsurance whereby higher capital levels require the bank to absorb greater losses in the event of failure and encourage additional prudence in management in essense it is one method of risk reduction that may offset the risk preference imposed on the industry due to the inappropriate insurance pricing because the amount of capital influences the probability of bank insolvency and thus the soundness of the entire banking system the regulators ceteris paribus prefer more capital to

loan commitment contracts terms of lending and credit allocation this paper analyzes the structure of loan commitment contracts and the interrelationships among their component parameters lenders offer borrowers a set of loan packages from which the latter may choose that package found to be most appealing borrowers may trade off changes in any loan parameter in exchange for other adjustments the borrower at this time may purchase a larger credit ration for a price supporting empirical evidence is presented recently researchers have begun to study the determinants of loan commitment or line of credit contracts such contracts play an extremely important role in bank credit allocation according to the federal reserve bulletin over 70 of u s commercial and industrial loans are made under loan commitment contracts given the central importance of the institution it is not surprising that it is the subject of a growing literature loan commitment contracts have importance both at the micro level in terms of the bank customer relationship and at the marco level in terms of the channels of operation of monetary policy in this paper we seek to present and test empirically an analytic model of loan commitment contracts our paper differs from most previous work in that we include empirical analysis of credit allocation moreover most previous theoretical work on the subject has concentrated on the specific issue of pricing of the contracts often using an approach based on option theory and not on the quantity allocation of credit and its determinants we are particularly interested in the determinants of the quantitative allocation of credit to bank customers and in the composition of and trade offs among the various parameters comprising such a loan commitment package our model helps explain how contract terms are established in the market and will illuminate the institutional framework of commercial lending a view of the credit contract as a package of loan terms has been implied recently in connection with the credit rationing problem studies by azzi and cox 21 arzac schwartz and whitcomb 11 and koskela 81 show that the

the credit crunch in east asia what can bank excess liquid assets tell us abstract the paper proposes a two step approach to assess the extent to which the fall in credit in crisis stricken east asian countries was a supply or demand induced phenomenon the first step is based on the estimation of demand function for excess liquid assets by commercial banks such a function is derived analytically in the first part of the paper the second step consists of establishing dynamic projections for the periods following the crisis and assessing whether or not residuals are large enough to be viewed as indicators of involuntary accumulation of excess reserves results for thailand indicate that the contraction in bank lending that accompanied the crisis was the result of supply factors

federal deposit insurance regulatory policy and optimal bank capital this paper seeks to explain the combination of explicit and implicit pricing for deposit insurance employed by the fdic essentially the fdic sells two products insurance and regulation to span the product space it must and does set two prices we argue that the need to establish regulatory disincentives to bank risk taking is the heart of the controversy over the adequacy of bank capital and that the ability to close risky banks before exhausting their charter value i e the value of their right to continue in business stands at the center of these disincentives and in front of the fdic s insurance reserves just as a book shouldn t be judged by its cover a government agency shouldn t be judged by the words behind its initials with the fdic federal deposit insurance corporation the agency s name describes only part of its formal operations the fdic is quasi governmental has a regional structure and sells deposit insurance however the initials fail to convey the fdic s critical place in the governmental regulatory structure as the sole federal overseer of the approximately 8900 state chartered commercial banks that have chosen not to belong the federal reserve system reflecting the federal reserve s membership problem the number of these banks is growing year by year besides selling deposit insurance at bargain explicit rates the fdic performs four regulatory functions 1 entry regulation it passes on new banks applications for deposit insurance and on branch and merger proposals as well thereby protecting the value of existing bank charters 2 examination two thirds of fdic employees are concerned with inspecting bank records and supervising managerial activity 3 regulation of deposit rates and conditions for withdrawal by tradition fdic policies on these matters conform entirely with regulations applicable to federal reserve member banks and 4 disposition of failed banks when an insured bank fails the fdic usually chooses not to liquidate it 2

regulatory reform in european banking abstract a stylized model of the role of banks in a context of imperfect financial markets where the potential for market failure exists is proposed the specificity of banking is analyzed and the need of regulation explained the study of regulatory responses highlights the importance of their associated side effects particular attention is devoted to the interaction of regulation and competition in a strategic context the effects of deregulation and european integration of financial markets on banking competition are dealt with in the proposed framework

to be different or to be the same it s a question and theory of strategic balance this paper addresses the performance consequences of firm level strategic similarity past research observed that firms face pressures to be different and to be the same by differentiating firms reduce competition by conforming firms demonstrate their legitimacy both reduced competition and legitimacy improve performance this paper begins building a theory of strategic balance by synthesizing the differentiation and conformity perspectives the theory directs attention to intermediate levels of strategic similarity where firms balance the pressures of competition and legitimation empirical support for the theory is found in a longitudinal study of commercial banks several suggestions for developing a theory of strategic balance conclude the paper the theory s major implication is that firms should be as different as legitimately possible copyright 1999 john wiley sons ltd

financial innovation new assets and the behavior of money demand abstract two fundamental changes in us banking regulations have affected the behavior of money demand m1 the first authorized checkable deposit accounts paying explicit interest rates the second allowed these rates to be market determined the theoretical literature does not directly address the impact of these events suggesting that they are primarily an empirical issue however the empirical literature has yet to agree on the impact of financial innovation on money demand for example several studies report an increase in the elasticity of money demand several others report a decline this paper uses a lancaster type choice model to analyze formally the expected impact of these two changes on the demand for money the model derives specific conditions under which i the demand for money increases as new assets are introduced and ii the impact of either the introduction of new assets or the elimination of interest rate restrictions on the elasticity of money demand

on matching book a problem in banking and corporate finance in each of the asset and liability markets in which the banking firm is an intermediary typically there are instruments with differing maturities the bank matching book problem is to manage the term structures of assets and liabilities in our first model the bank borrows and lends only short run in our second model the bank borrows only short run but can lend short run and long run the criterion in both models is the expected value of the present value of dividends issued both models yield dynamic programming problems broad aspects of optimal policies are indicated

firm characteristics and the cyclicality of r d investments the aim of this study is to combine micro aspects of firm behavior with macro aspects of business development and identify market conditions e g price competition and firm characteristics e g type of r d partners that enable a firm to have a pro cyclical anti cyclical or non systematic r d investment behavior the empirical results confirm to large extent a series of hypotheses as to innovation relevant firm characteristics that underline the three different behavior categories and allow us to make profiles of the three types of r d behavior

modeling the banking firm a survey this paper reports on the status of the literature on micro bank modeling and assesses our understanding of the banking firm s optimal behavior this is no mean task for much has been written on banking broadly defined over the past couple of decades the review is developed in pieces each major subproblem is outlined and the analysis used to deal with the issue explicated this is not the best way to summarize the development of a field it should be immediately recognized one would prefer to have a smooth continuum of development moving the frontier of knowledge evenly through time and across subareas yet this is rarely the way a field develops more likely individual questions attract attention and are the subjects of a substantial number of contributions after a time the field moves on to the new area of interest the banking field is no exception before embarking upon the review however a couple of lines should be devoted to previous attempts there have been essentially three first pyle 1972 analyzes the uncertainty portfolio models at a time when little existed in the literature and hence one finds the review a bit vague and sketchy baltensperger s contributions 1978 1980 are the next serious and rather extensive reviews the quality of these

is demand pulled innovation equally important in different groups of firms previous empirical literature has tested the demand pull hypothesis and found that innovation may be driven by output using a balanced panel of 216 italian manufacturing firms 1995 2000 and checking for the path dependent nature of r d we find a role of sales in inducing r d however the demand pull effect plays a varying role for different sub samples of firms exporting firms liquidity constrained firms not subsidised firms and those not heading a group seem to be sensitive to sales in deciding r d these results have been obtained using a least squares dummy variable corrected estimator a recent panel data technique suitable for small samples

interest rates and bank portfolio adjustments abstract we test empirically to determine if the relation between banks portfolio of assets and liabilities and interest rate is stable several possible causes of instability are considered the econometric techniques employed allow for continuous change in the structure of the empirical model in all cases stability of the model is strongly rejected we find that the portfolio interest rate relationship depends on the level of interest rates and exogenous assets as well as their rate and direction of change

little innovation many jobs an econometric analysis of the italian labour productivity crisis during the past twenty years italy has realized changes in labour legislation leading to a decentralization of wage bargaining and increased flexibility in labour relations both these factors have helped to curb wage growth and to enhance employment growth but have also led to a crisis in italian labour productivity growth our estimates among 3 000 firms show that firms with high shares of flexible workers a high labour turnover and lower costs of labour relative to capital experienced significantly lower rates of labour productivity growth our findings raise doubts about the mainstream call for flexibilisation of european labour markets we argue hat the italian shift towards a low productive and labour intensive growth path is problematic gainst the background of an ageing population

bank liquidity providing in a real synergy management under a cap based valuation since banks often lend via commitments their lending and deposit taking may be two manifestations of one primitive function the provision of liquidity on demand we explore this function under a cap based valuation we find that i the strike price of the cap based valuation increases the bank s liquid asset holdings by increasing its loan rate and loan commitment rate with the strategic rate adjustment complements and decreases the bank s external finance need by increasing its deposit rate when the bank realizes a less risky state of the world and ii the number of caplet days decreases the bank s liquid asset holdings by decreasing its loan rate and loan commitment rate with the strategic rate adjustment complements and the strategic timing substitutes and increases the bank s external finance need by decreasing its deposit rate with the strategic timing substitutes when the bank realizes a more risky state our findings provide alternative explanations concerning the bank s liquidity funct

a computational approach to the optimal structure of bank input prices abstract most bank deposits contain an embedded option which permits the depositor to withdraw funds at will demand deposits generally allow costless withdrawal while time deposits often require payment of an early withdrawal penalty managing the risk that depositors will exercise their withdrawal option is an important aspect of input pricing this paper acknowledges the threat of deposit withdrawal and then solves for the optimal structure of bank deposit rates

bank behavior interest rate determination and monetary policy in a financial system with an intraday federal funds market abstract this paper has two purposes one is to construct a formal model of the determination of and relationships between interest rates on funds with 24 hour overnight and intraday terms the second is to use this model to examine the likely effects of alternative federal reserve proposals for addressing the issue of intraday extension of federal reserve credit in the form of daylight overdrafts of bank reserve accounts it is demonstrated that present proposals all entail potentially significant drawbacks for monetary policy

invention and innovation in the chemical industry demand pull or discovery push abstract this paper describes a study of the determinants of the rate direction and scale of inventive and innovative activity in the chemical industry over the period 1830 1980 statistical data are interpreted in the light of case study material in three major sectors dyestuffs plastics and pharmaceuticals theories of technical change and economic growth particularly those of schmookler and schmpeter are examined in relation to this material on the chemical industry the findings suggest that the importance of demand pull and discovery push factors and the validity of schmookler s and schumpeter s theories vary over an industry s life cycle

bank regulation and debt overhang the paper explains why banking regulations are crucial to the unfolding of the current international debt crisis the interplay of deposit insurance and capital adequacy requirements may create strong disincentives against offering relief to debtor countries with solvency problems in spite of the fact that granting relief would improve the worth of the claims held by creditor banks furthermore it is shown that the negotiating stance of individual banks is not related to their exposure to troubled loans in any simple way whether highly exposed banks are tougher than those with limited exposure is also generally dependent on the features of the regulatory environment copyright 1994 by ohio state university press

a note on quantity versus price risk and the theory of financial intermediation modeling the behavior of financial intermediaries under conditions of uncertainty has a long and varied history 1 moreover it continues to be a topic of considerable interest because appropriate public policy decisions depend in part on the assumed characteristics of firms participating in the market one central point of debate as presented by sealey 3 involves the potentially contrasting behavioral implications associated with assuming that intermediaries are price setters in their deposit markets as opposed to quantity setters operating under conditions of perfect competition he addresses among other things the important question of whether the supply of financial intermediation is altered by the inclusion of quantity risk sealey argues that in contrast to earlier work by pyle 1 one cannot determine how the degree of association between asset rates and the quantity of deposits influences the amount of lending by intermediaries the purpose of this note is twofold first we provide conditions under which the ambiguity between sealey s and pyle s works may be resolved second we argue that the results from the two models are symmetric we use symmetry here to denote the fact that the conditions on association that for example discourage intermediation are the same in both models when viewed in the context of revenues and costs however the two frameworks require opposite conditions on the association between rates and quantities to achieve identical results concerning the relationship between revenues and costs the approach used involves constructing a scenario that makes the sealey model almost identical to that used earlier by pyle except for the rate versus quantity setting issue we then show that a positive association between asset rates and the quantity of deposits actually discourages lending but promotes the gathering of more deposits we then provide a rationale for why this is consistent with pyle s conjecture that a negative association discourages intermediation in the pure rate uncertainty case interestingly we also argue that while a negative association will promote lending by depository intermediaries under certain conditions the result in this case is generally ambiguous as is the case when a positive association is analyzed in the pyle model the paper is structured as follows in section i we present the basic model derive our results and discuss their implications section ii contains concluding remarks

uncertainty hiring and subsequent performance the nfl draft in this article we analyze the impact of uncertainty on the hiring process we show the connection between models of statistical discrimination where uncertainty can work against groups that have less reliable indicators of future productivity and models of option value where uncertainty about future productivity can be beneficial for these groups these models generate hypotheses about the relationship between ex ante hiring patterns and ex post productivity this is applied to the market for nfl football players we provide various estimates of nfl success which suggest that statistical discrimination and option value influence choices in this market

financing vs forgiving a debt overhang abstract this paper examines the tradeoffs facing creditors of a country whose debt is large enough that the country cannot attract voluntary new lending if the country is unable to meet its debt service requirements out of current income the creditors have two choices they can finance the country lending at an expected loss in the hope that the country will eventually be able to repay its debt after all or they can forgive reducing the debt level to one that the country can repay the post 1983 debt strategy of the imf and the us has relied on financing but many current calls for debt reform call for forgiveness instead the paper shows that the choice between financing and forgiveness represents a tradeoff financing gives the creditors an option value if the country turns out to do relatively well creditors will not have written down their claims unnecessarily however the burden of debt distorts the country s incentives since the benefits of good performance go largely to creditors rather than itself the paper also shows that the tradeoff itself can be improved if both financing and forgiveness are made contingent on states of nature that the country cannot affect such as oil prices world interest rates etc

the macroeconomic implications of financial deregulation abstract this paper explores the possible macroeconomic consequences of financial deregulation in an institutional environment where deregulation raises risks in banking the central bank is supposed to maximize an objective function in which the probability of bank failure is an argument it is then shown that the usual tradeoffs between policy objectives imply that financial deregulation will lead to more interest rate smoothing than would otherwise take place and further that because of restricted entry into banking deregulation will call for some inflation the transition toward deregulation raises special problems which are likely to require a more gradual approach toward the stationary equilibrium

assessing the effect of public subsidies on firm r d investment a survey this survey examines the empirical literature on the relationship between public r d subsidies and private r d investment over the past five decades the survey reveals a considerable heterogeneity of empirical results that cannot be explained fully by methodological issues we aim to provide further explanations of the possible causes of that heterogeneity in particular we emphasise a set of issues that in our view are critical to understanding the potential effect of public r d subsidies on private r d spending special attention is paid to the dynamic aspects and composition of firm r d the constraints faced by the firm such as financial constraints and the amount and source of public subsidies none of these issues have been investigated in depth we formulate a set of research assumptions to guide future empirical research in this field

financial intermediary s choice of borrowing this research investigates several dynamic stochastic models of a bank s management problem of the term structures of its assets and liabilities a bank can either eliminate most of its interest risk with appropriate options or it can utilize its expertise in its core business and seek extraordinary profits this research concerns a bank with the latter goal in this model the bank seeks to maximize the expected present value of dividend issued subject to the federal reserve s regulatory constraint and liquidity constraint with this model we find that if the available deposits are not too high and the level of liquid assets is high enough then it is optimal for a bank to accept all of the available deposits however if the level of liquid assets is too low then a bank should not issue a dividend or to accept any deposits the properties are still valid even if the bank is not risk neutral

innovation in times of crisis national systems of innovation structure and demand this article addresses the impact of the current economic downturn on innovation across europe using micro and macro data we investigate to what extent some structural characteristics of national systems of innovation along with demand affect firms persistency in terms of innovation investment it emerges that the effects of the economic downturn in terms of firms innovation investment are not the same across european countries the competences and quality of the human resources the specialization in the high technology sector together with the development of the financial system seem to be the structural factors which are able to offset the effect of the economic downturn on innovation investments of firms across europe finally some considerations about policies during recessions are discussed

deposit rates credit rates and bank capital the klein monti model revisited abstract the paper expands the klein monti model with bankruptcy risk and deposit insurance the well known result of independence between deposit and credit rates is shown to be lost the causal relationship becomes recursive and the direction of the recursivity depends on the existence or the absence of a deposit insurance mechanism

r d determinants accounting for the differences between research and development the determinants of r d are an important topic of innovation studies the classical schumpeterian hypotheses about the influence of size and market power have been complemented with the role played by industry determinants such as demand pull technological opportunity and appropriability in determining r d investments however r d has always been considered as a whole even though research and development activities differ in many aspects we take advantage of a new panel database of innovative spanish firms pitec to distinguish between research and development efforts of firms we analyze the differentiated role played by traditional r d determinants in driving research and development results show that demand pull and appropriability have a higher effect on development while technological opportunity is more influential for research differences are statistically significant important in magnitude and robust to the use of different indicators for demand pull technological opportunity and appropriability and to several robustness checks

venture theory a model of decision weights several theories suggest that people replace probabilities by decision weights when evaluating risky outcomes this paper proposes a model called venture theory of how people assess decision weights it is assumed that people first anchor on a stated probability and then adjust this by mentally simulating other possible values the amount of mental simulation is affected by the absolute size of payoffs the extent to which the anchor deviates from the extremes of 0 and 1 and the level of perceived ambiguity concerning the relevant probability the net effect of the adjustment i e up or down vis i vis the anchor reflects the relative weight given in imagination to values above as opposed to below the anchor this in turn is taken to be a function of both individual and situational variables and in particular the sign and size of payoffs cognitive and motivational factors therefore both play important roles in determining decision weights assuming that people evaluate outcomes by a prospect theory value function kahneman and tversky 1979 and are cautious in the face of risk fourteen predictions are derived concerning attitudes toward risk and ambiguity as functions of different levels of payoffs and probabilities the results of three experiments are reported whereas only a subset of the model s predictions can be tested in experiment 1 all fourteen are tested in experiments 2 and 3 using hypothetical and real payoffs respectively several of the model s predictions are not supported in experiment 2 but almost all are validated in experiments 1 and 3 the failures relate to the exact nature of probability payoff interactions in attitudes toward risk and ambiguity for losses the theory and results are discussed in relation to other experimental evidence future tests of the theory alternative models of risky choice and implications of venture theory for explaining further phenomena

loan pushing and triadic relations this paper is an attempt to define and explore the phenomenon of loan pushing in international lending in the 1970s the earliest descriptions of loan pushing are anecdotal this paper surveys the various facets that emerge from these anecdotes and suggests a possible definition that serves as the basis for a theoretical model this model inspired by the confessions of a banker explores a triadic relationship between a corporation in the lender country the lender bank and a borrower in a developing country and suggests that a rational profit maximizing commercial bank could end up pushing loans on to the borrower changes in international commercial banking in the 1970s that facilitated this type of loan pushing are discussed next to the extent that the loan pushing doctrine is valid it implies that the commercial banks were at least as responsible for the massive lending boom of the 1970s as the borrowers and should have been made to bear the cost of adjustment as well the process of sovereign lending in the 1970s appears to consist of voluntary and mutually agreeable contracts between the transnational commercial banks and credit seeking developing countries the suggestion that there could be in this process an element of aggressiveness on the part of the commercial banks that actively and systematically pushed loans on to developing country borrowers may at first sight seem inconceivable if a borrower voluntarily enters into a loan contract he is obviously doing so because the contract is beneficial if such is the case then would it be correct to characterize the process as one of loan pushing also the commercial banks are supposed to be rational profit maximizers thus the amount of lending cannot be more than optimal what then is meant by loan pushing these are a few questions that immediately come to mind it has been argued that international credit can contribute to increasing donor exports see for instance winkler 1929 hyson and strout 1968 gwynne 1983 taylor 1985 darity and horn 1988 basu 1991 basu and deshpande 1995 this is indeed one of the arguments used to explain the phenomenon of loan pushing however not the only one the aim of this paper is to explore the idea of loan pushing a little more deeply by first trying to understand the concept along with a brief review of the literature in the area section 2 the confessions of a young banker gwynne 1983 provide the basis of the theoretical model section 3 which considers a triadic relationship between a commercial bank in a creditor country a debtor nation and a corporation in the creditor country and the compulsions of loan pushing arising

the concentration conduct relationship in bank deposit markets this study investigates the structure conduct performance relationship in retail deposit markets the study explicitly incorporates conduct as the link between structure and performance in local deposit markets it attempts to determine whether banks typically behave competitively or strategically and whether their conduct is influenced by market concentration the empirical investigation is guided by an equilibrium model of a retail deposit market the model is applied to regression equations for local msa mmda and three and six month cd rates the empirical results indicate that strategic conduct is the norm in mmda and in three and six month cd markets copyright 1991 by mit press

optimal bank interest margin under capital regulation and deposit insurance this paper examines the relationships among capital regulation deposit insurance and the optimal bank interest margin in a model where loan losses are the source of uncertainty changes in capital regulation or deposit insurance premiums have direct effects on the bank s interest margin an increase in bank capital requirement or in deposit insurance premiums results in a reduced interest margin under nonincreasing risk aversion comparative static analysis also explores the relation between asset quality and interest margin it is shown that a mean preserving spread of the distribution of loan losses results in a reduced margin

capital regulation and insured banks choice of individual loan default risks abstract how bankers choose the riskiness of their individual assets is an important question it is well known that fixed premium deposit insurance leads a bank to prefer a high variance asset portfolio but its effect on individual asset choice has not been carefully evaluated this paper demonstrates how bank examination procedures and capital adequacy standards can make the value of a bank s deposit insurance contract concave in individual asset risks insured bankers may therefore have a rational preference ceteris paribus for relatively safe individual loans even while they prefer risky portfolio returns the model s implications for loan securitization and the federal regulators new risk based capital standards are discussed

the effects of a shift in monetary policy regime on the profitability and risk of commercial banks abstract this paper examines the effects of the fed s october 6th 1979 change in monetary policy regime on the profitability and risk of commercial banks using capital market data and an event study methodology it was found that bank stocks exhibited significant abnormal returns during the announcement week of the policy change when these abnormal returns were decomposed into a part related to unexpected interest rate changes and a part assumed to reflect increased rate variability the results were consistent with a negative relationship between bank returns and interest rate surprises as well as between bank returns and rate variability

foundations of the structure conduct performance paradigm in banking this paper employs an explicit model of the banking firm to derive formally and thereby assess critically the most commonly tested relationships implied by the structure conduct performance paradigm as it applies to the banking industry these include the relationship between loan rates and market concentration deposit rates and market concentration and bank profitability and market concentration the necessary assumptions and simplifications implicit in past empirical studies are outlined and suggestions for future empirical implementation of the underlying model are presented copyright 1991 by ohio state university press