bank stability and managerial compensation abstract we investigate the relationship between insolvency risk and executive compensation for bhcs over the 1992 2008 period we employ ceo compensation sensitivity to risk vega and pay share inequality between the ceo and other executives as measures of compensation and employ a system model to account for the endogeneity problem between vega and risk five main results are obtained first ceo compensation sensitivity to risk of bhcs has risen in response to deregulation to resemble those of the industrial firms second higher vegas lead to greater bank instability third the association between bank stability and managerial compensation is bi directional higher vegas induce greater risk and vice versa fourth bhcs in the next to the largest size group increase ceo vegas the most and have the strongest potential to create instability fifth increased pay share inequality has effects opposite to those of the increase in vega greater pay share inequality is associated with greater stability

bank incentives economic specialization and financial crises in emerging economies abstract we model the vulnerability of an economy to a financial crisis as arising from the interaction of the degree of economic specialization and bank debt financing the probability of a financial crisis is shown to increase in the degree of economic specialization bank debt financing has the beneficial effect of lowering the degree of economic specialization by increasing access to financing of investment opportunities that would not have been financed due to wealth constraints of entrepreneurs financial access effect however bank debt financing induces risk shifting incentives leverage effect the net effect on the probability of a financial crisis depends on which of these two effects dominates we show that commonly employed mechanisms in managing financial crises particularly bailouts induce an additional agency cost by distorting bank incentives to concentrate loans in specific sectors bank debt concentration effect we propose a tax based ex ante solution mechanism that simultaneously induces optimal investment and eliminates the bank debt concentration effect implementation issues and empirical policy implications are also discussed

exchange rate changes and inflation in post crisis asian economies vector autoregression analysis of the exchange rate pass through macro economic consequences of large currency depreciations among the crisis hit asian economies varied from one country to another inflation did not soar after the asian currency crisis of 1997 98 in most crisis hit countries except indonesia where high inflation followed a very large nominal depreciation of the rupiah the high inflation meant a loss of price competitive advantage a key for economic recovery from a crisis this paper examines the pass through effects of exchange rate changes on the domestic prices in the east asian economies using a vector autoregression analysis the main results are as follows i the degree of exchange rate pass through to import prices was quite high in the crisis hit economies ii the pass through to consumer price index cpi was generally low with a notable exception of indonesia and iii in indonesia both the impulse response of monetary policy variables to exchange rate shocks and that of cpi to monetary policy shocks were positive large and statistically significant thus indonesia s accommodative monetary policy coupled with the high degree of cpi responsiveness to exchange rate changes was an important factor in the inflation depreciation spiral in the wake of the currency crisis

was the sarbanes oxley act of 2002 really this costly a discussion of evidence from event returns and going private decisions abstract this paper discusses evidence on the costs of the sarbanes oxley act sox from stock returns and going private decisions zhang 2007 economic consequences of the sarbanes oxley act of 2002 journal of accounting and economics doi 10 1016 j jacceco 2006 07 002 analyzes returns around legislative events and concludes that sox imposes significant costs on firms engel et al 2007 the sarbanes oxley act and firms going private decisions journal of accounting and economics doi 10 1016 j jacceco 2007 02 002 examine going private decisions and point to unintended consequences both studies are carefully conducted and deserve praise for tackling an important issue however as my discussion highlights several key findings may not be attributable to sox and we should exercise caution in interpreting the evidence while it is not implausible that one size fits all regulation imposes substantial costs on firms we presently do not have much sox related evidence to support this conclusion

reserve requirements bank share prices and the uniqueeness of bank loans abstract this study examines the impact of changes in reserve requirements on large banks stock returns it finds statistically and economically significant abnormal returns on the day following the announcement of such changes this finding is consistent with the notion that reserve requirements are a tax on deposits it indicates however that bank s shareholders bear at least part of the tax thus it does not support the hypothesis advanced by some authors that the tax falls exclusively on banks borrowers the evidence further suggests that part of the tax falls on demand depositors these findings undercut the case for the uniqueness of bank loans insofar as it is based on the incidence of the deposit tax

impact of deposit rate ceiling changes on bank stock returns this paper reexamines the impact of four major changes in deposit rate ceilings that occurred during the 1970 80 decade on bank systematic and unsystematic risk the reexamination clarifies why it is dangerous to conduct event studies naively stephen m goldfeld and richard e quandt s switching regressions method is proposed as a procedure that forces the researcher to take a more disciplined approach to determining event dates contrary to previous studies switch dates identified by goldfeld and quandt s switching regressions method cannot be associated with ceiling change announcements because of other information flows so that inferences cannot be drawn about the specific effects of the regulatory adjustments copyright 1989 by ohio state university press

hedging and coordinated risk management evidence from thrift conversions we provide an explanation for hedging as a means of allocating rather than reducing risk we argue that when increases in total risk are costly firms optimally allocate risk by reducing increasing exposure to risks that provide zero positive economic rents our evidence shows that mutual thrifts that convert to stock institutions increase total risk following conversion consistent with their increased abilities and incentives for risk taking they achieve this increase by hedging interest rate risk and increasing credit risk we provide some evidence that risk management activities are related to growth capacity and management compensation structure attained at conversion

cross border bank m as and risk evidence from the bond market the impact of cross border bank m as on bank risk remains an open question though geographically diversifying bank m as have the potential to reduce the risk of bank insolvency they also have the potential to increase that risk due to the increase in risk taking incentives by bank managers and stockholders following these transactions this paper empirically investigates whether cross border bank m as increase or decrease the risk of acquiring banks as captured by changes in acquirers yield spreads this paper also investigates how differences in the institutional environments between bidder and target countries affect changes in yield spreads following m a announcements the study finds that bondholders in general perceive cross border bank m as as risk increasing activities unlike domestic bank mergers specifically on average yield spreads increase by 4 13 basis points following the announcement of cross border m as this study also finds that these yield spreads are significantly affected by the differences in investor protection and deposit insurance environments between the transacting countries however the study does not find that the regulatory and supervisory environment in the home countries of the transacting parties significantly affects the changes in yield spreads the overall evidence suggests that regulators should judge the relative environment in both the home and the host countries in evaluating the associated risks of an active multinational financial institution and in setting the sufficiency of the banks reserve positions

imperfect competition expectations and the multiple effects of monetary growth in a monetary overlapping generations model with an imperfectly competitive labor market in which output is below its full employment level it is shown that different backward looking rules for forecasting inflation lead to different steady states despite yielding no forecast errors in the steady state and in many cases none in the short or medium run either higher monetary growth raises output in some steady states in others has no effect and in others lowers it this contrasts with ad hoc or competitive macromodels where the absence of forecast errors in the steady state usually defines it and its properties uniquely copyright 1992 by royal economic society

regulating banks through market discipline a survey of the issues abstract the interest in the application of market discipline to regulate the financial industry has boomed recently due to the proposed new capital accord this paper reviews the potential role market discipline can play in financial regulation we start with a discussion of the rationale for financial regulation and with a brief history of the current regulatory mechanisms next a definition of market discipline as a regulatory mechanism is advanced we evaluate the disciplining power various market participants have finally we argue that more external risk management disclosure is a condition sine qua non in order to enable market discipline as a regulatory mechanism in this respect the basle committee has taken the right approach

deposit insurance and wealth effects the value of being too big to fail this paper investigates the effect on bank equity values of the comptroller of the currency s announcement that some banks were too big to fail and that for those banks total deposit insurance would be provided using an event study methodology we find positive wealth effects accruing to tbtf banks with corresponding negative effects accruing to non included banks we demonstrate that the magnitude of these effects differed with bank solvency and size we also show that the policy to which the market reacted was that suggested by the wall street journal and not that actually intended by the comptroller the role of deposit insurance has become a topic of increasing debate advocates argue that by removing the incentive to run deposit insurance protects individual financial institutions from instability in the intermediation process thereby providing stability to the financial system as a whole 1 the recent rise in bank failures and the concomitant crises in the s l industry however demonstrate that this stability is not guaranteed moreover critics note that deposit insurance may introduce incentive problems and wealth effects into the financial system both of which can impede the effective functioning of any deposit insurance system these problems have prompted concern about the structure of the current deposit insurance system and have led to numerous proposals regarding its restructuring 2 this paper investigates one aspect of this debate by analyzing the effect on bank equity values of the policy decision to insure completely some banks but not others specifically in september 1984 the comptroller of the currency testified before congress that some banks were simply too big to fail tbtf and that for those banks total deposit insurance would be provided while not explicitly naming the banks the comptroller admitted that this policy would apply to the eleven largest banks using an event study methodology we analyze

symmetric pass through of tariffs and exchange rates under imperfect competition an empirical test abstract this paper examines the effect of tariffs and exchange rates on u s prices of japanese cars trucks and motorcycles in particular we test whether the long run pass through of tariffs and exchange rates are identical the symmetry hypothesis we find that this hypothesis is easily accepted in our sample we also find that the pass through relation varies across products ranging from about 0 6 for trucks to unity for motorcycles these coefficients have very different implications for trade policy we explain the results based on demand cost and institutional conditions in each industry

the distortive effects of too big to fail evidence from the danish market for retail deposits we study the impact of too big to fail tbtf guarantees on the market for retail deposits exploiting information about all personal deposit accounts in denmark and salient changes to the deposit insurance limit we provide evidence that systemically important banks successfully retain and attract uninsured deposits in a crisis at the expense of other banks even as they differentially lower their interest rates the funding shock suffered by nonsystemic banks causes a decrease in their lending the results point to the distortive effects of tbtf guarantees in the market for retail deposits received march 15 2018 editorial decision january 15 2019 by philip strahan

the use of accounting flexibility to reduce labor renegotiation costs and manage earnings abstract we investigate the determinants of discretionary sfas 106 choices of non regulated firms we find that more unionized firms are more likely to use immediate recognition consistent with incentives to reduce labor renegotiation costs immediate recognition is more prevalent among post adoption plan modifiers particularly if their transition obligation is large consistent with incentives to increase future reported earnings immediate recognition together with post adoption benefit plan reduction frees future income from the transition obligation amortization expense and adds a positive component as negative prior service costs are amortized immediate recognition is less prevalent among firms with higher potential debt contracting costs

size and performance of banking firms testing the predictions of theory abstract in recent years two important literatures on the theory of banking firms have developed one examines the economic functions of banks in environments in which agents are asymmetrically informed another considers the incentive effects moral hazard resulting from deposit insurance both theories make predictions about the relation between banking firm size and performance an empirical analysis of large bank holding companies investigates measures of market valuation and risk of failure limited support is provided for either set of theoretical predictions

on competitive cycles in productive economies abstract in a model of overlapping generations with production money and an endogenous labor supply general conditions are given for the existence of two different types of cyclical equilibria the conditions are given in terms of the elasticities of demand for savings and for capital with respect to the interest rate and of the capital consumption ratio at the golden rule steady state examples using ces technologies are also studied

price discrimination by u s and german exporters the insensitivity of the u s trade balance to the sharp depreciation of the dollar in the past three years has revived interest in the relationship between exchange rates and the trade balance a central issue in most analyses of the relation between the current account and the exchange rate concerns the price adjustment process the simple integrated competitive market model predicts that local currency prices should change in proportion to the nominal exchange rate for a country too small to influence world prices the relationship between local currency import prices and exchange rates has been referred to as the pass through relationship in the empirical literature in international economics if the proportional relationship between import prices and exchange rates holds pass through is said to be complete accounts of recent u s experience cite the failure of dollar prices of imported goods to rise in proportion to exchange rates i e incomplete pass through as an important factor in explaining the persistence of the trade deficit unfortunately observations on pass through alone provide limited insight into the behavior of markets since incomplete pass through is consistent with at least two fundamentally different paradigms one is the standard competitive model of trade in which the law of one price holds but exchange rate fluctuations are associated with large changes in import demand due to other factors for example if dollar appreciation is correlated with increases in world demand and industry marginal cost is increasing then pass through will be less than complete the other is an imperfectly competitive model in which exporters are capable of price discriminating across destination markets a phenomenon paul krugman 1987 has labeled pricing to market in this model incomplete pass through is typically associated with fluctuations in the markup of price over marginal cost on exports 2 these fluctuations in markups are believed to be countryspecific they do not reflect the behavior of prices to other export destinations both models are plausible explanations of recent u s experience unfortunately it is impossible to distinguish between these competing models using only information on import prices and exchange rates for a single country in order to distinguish between the competing models an empirical analysis of goods prices and exchange rates must be capable of measuring either marginal cost or the markup over marginal cost either of these tasks poses formidable empirical problems much of the empirical literature in industrial organization has been concerned with precisely these issues since markups are an important measure of the competitiveness of industries

the pricing of deposit insurance in the presence of systematic risk based on the merton 1977 put option framework we develop a deposit insurance pricing model that incorporates asset correlations a measurement for the systematic risk of a bank to account for the risk of joint bank failures estimates from our model suggest that actuarially fair risk based deposit insurance that considers only individual bank failure risk is underpriced leaving insurance providers exposed to net losses our estimates also capture the size premium where big banks are priced with higher deposit insurance than small banks this result is particularly relevant to the current regulatory concerns on big banks that are too big to fail above all our approach provides a unifying framework for integrating risk based deposit insurance with risk based basel capital requirements

the market valuation effects of the financial institutions reform recovery and enforcement act of 1989 abstract this paper evaluates the stock market effects of events leading to the passage of the financial institutions reforms recovery and enforcement act of 1989 the evidence suggests that the signing of the act by president bush produced positive abnormal returns for both banks and s ls and that the addition of tougher capital standards produced positive returns for s ls in addition the act increased the risk of both banks and s ls

additional evidence on the information based contagion effects of bank failures abstract recent theoretical models addressed the question of the nature of bank runs and what triggers them two competing hypotheses emerged pure panic and information based contagion this study provides additional evidence consistent with the latter hypothesis three observable bank characteristics are examined as proxy measures for the interim private information used by rational depositors in assessing the riskiness of a bank s long lived assets that may trigger bank runs the three factors are 1 the distance of the solvent banks headquarters from the headquarters of each failed bank 2 the size of the solvent banks and 3 the capital ratio as a proxy for their solvency the analysis is conducted in the context of the five large bank failures that occurred in the southwest region of the us during the mid 1980s weekly abnormal returns of 33 southwestern bhcs in ten critical failure related event dates are regressed on the three observable bank characteristics our findings suggest that distance and capital adequacy are negatively related to the magnitude of the contagion effect whereas size is positively related

evidence of bank market discipline in subordinated debenture yields 1983 1991 we examine debenture yields over the period 1983 1991 to evaluate the market s sensitivity to bank specific risks and conclude that investors have rationally reflected changes in the government s policy toward absorbing private losses in the event of a bank failure although this evidence does not establish that market discipline can effectively control banking firms it soundly rejects the hypothesis that investors cannot rationally differentiate among the risks undertaken by the major u s banking firms an increasingly important issue in the regulation of financial institutions concerns the extent to which market investors can will recognize and control the risks of banking firms although the banking act of 1933 replaced some private risk bearing with federal deposit insurance legislators were reluctant to displace market discipline very extensively flood 1992 by the early 1980s however u s regulators had come to protect virtually all bank liability holders from credit losses most visibly at large banks which were deemed too big to fail sprague 1986 o hara and shaw 1990 this extension of the government safety net largely reflects a skepticism on the part of regulators that normal market forces could adequately identify and control bank risks while u s regulators have recently shown an increased willingness to let some bank investors bear default losses an official suspicion of the efficacy of market discipline remains widespread by contrast some prominent academic economists argue that market investors in bank debentures could provide timely and effective control over banking firms risk exposures and that the social cost of supervising banks would be lower if regulators ceded greater

capital markets assessment of the economic impact of the dodd frank act on systemically important financial firms abstract we examine stock and bond market reactions to the key events leading to the passage of the dodd frank act to assess the markets expectations about the effectiveness of the act on systemically important financial firms using small medium sized domestic financial institutions as a control group we find that large financial institutions overall had negative abnormal stock returns and positive abnormal bond returns suggesting that the markets expect the act to be effective in reducing these banks risk taking we further investigate the market reactions for 1 larger and more interconnected financial institutions and 2 the big 6 banks to evaluate the markets assessment about the effectiveness of the act in ending the too big to fail policy we document that larger and more interconnected financial institutions experienced more negative abnormal stock returns and more positive abnormal bond returns as compared to other banks in our sample but these relations are not present during the final phase of the passage likewise we find that both shareholders and bondholders of the big 6 banks initially experienced significant negative returns followed by insignificant returns during the final phase of the passage these results appear to suggest the markets are doubtful about the effectiveness of the final version of the bill to end the too big to fail status in particular for the big 6 banks

taming systemically important financial institutions we model a systemically important financial institution sifi that is too big or too interconnected to fail without credible regulation and strong supervision the shareholders of this institution might deliberately let its managers take excessive risk we propose a solution to this problem showing how insurance against systemic shocks can be provided without generating moral hazard the solution involves levying a systemic tax needed to cover the costs of future crises and more importantly establishing a systemic risk authority endowed with special resolution powers including the control of bankers compensation packages during crisis periods

inflation capital markets and household saving in the nordic countries household saving ratios in the nordic countries are very low by international standards and have declined markedly during the 1980s aggregate quarterly time series data for the period 1970 89 are used to study the development of household saving behavior over time the evidence suggests that the household saving ratio responds positively to both the inflation rate and real income growth there is also some weak evidence to support the view that the rate of change in real housing prices has a negative effect on household saving ratios copyright 1992 by the editors of the scandinavian journal of economics

monopolistic competition business cycles and the composition of aggregate demand abstract we develop a dynamic general equilibrium model with monopolistically competitive firms and endogenous markups and show the possibility of equilibria with persistent fluctuations driven by self fulfilling revisions of expectations for some parameter values such fluctuations are characterized by time series properties similar to those observed in u s postwar business cycles in contrast with the existing literature our results do not rely on the presence of increasing returns or nominal rigidities a key ingredient of the model is the link between markups and the composition of aggregate demand some econometric evidence on the latter is also reported journal of economic literature classification number d43 d58 e32

markup adjustment and exchange rate fluctuations evidence from panel data on automobile exports abstract this paper uses data on bilateral automobile export prices from the usa germany and japan to gauge the importance of markup adjustment driven by exchange rate movements across several destination markets we find that japanese exports are characterized by a high degree of markup adjustment designed to stabilize the price measured in the buyer s currency there is weak evidence for such behavior on the part of german exporters and no evidence of markup adjustment by us exporters where it exists markup adjustment tends to be highly persistent the dynamic pattern of markup adjustment is consistent with invoicing in the exporter s currency except for exports to the usa and canada

systemic risks and the too big to fail problem the financial crisis of 2007 9 resulted in state intervention in financial markets around the world and the state became a major shareholder in many banks while state bailouts were politically sensitive policy makers had little alternative but to supply funds to financial institutions that were viewed as too big to fail or tbtf in this paper i review the history of and the rationale for the tbtf policy i argue that from a policy perspective the most important costs of the tbtf problem are incurred ex ante in the form of distorted incentives that arise as a consequence of distortions to the capital markets and to the choice of banks scale and scope i argue that it is impossible credibly to withdraw the tbtf policy and hence that it should be managed so as to minimize the costs of these distortions in this context i discuss the role of policy in institutional design in the restriction of bank scope and in designing appropriate capital regulations

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

implicit bank debt guarantees costs benefits and risks the expectation by market participants that public authorities might bailout the creditors of banks that are considered too important for financial system stability or another reason to be allowed to fail is commonly referred to as an implicit guarantee public authorities do not have any explicit commitment to intervene they may even honestly state that they not want to do so ex ante but may feel compelled to do so ex post a declared policy aim is to limit the value of implicit guarantees by making banks stronger more easily resolvable in case of distress as well as by imposing extra charges that rise as banks become more systemically important as part of the latter approach globally systemically important banks are identified and subjected to more costly and intrusive regulation there is little evidence that specific approach has been successful so far there is some evidence that the introduction of new resolution frameworks has been helpful while the use of newly available resolution tools and the involvement of bank creditors in the burden sharing associated with bank failure resolution has significantly reduced the value of implicit bank debt guarantees where it occurred in that sense actions speak louder than words

is a monetary union feasible for east asia the empirical suitability of the east asian economies for potential monetary integration is assessed the structural vector autoregression var method is employed to identify the underlying shocks using a three variable var model across the east asian economies the estimates of the eec are used as a benchmark to compare the size of the underlying shocks and the speed of adjustment to shocks in both regions to determine the feasibility of forming an optimum currency area oca in east asia the empirical results do not display strong support for forming an oca in the east asian region the results do imply however that some small subregions are potential candidates for ocas since their disturbances are correlated and small and these economies adjust rapidly to shocks

banking reforms performance and risk in china we investigate the impact of the banking reform started from 2005 on ownership structures in china on commercial banks profitability efficiency and risk over the period 2000 2012 providing comprehensive evidence on the impact of banking reform in china we find that banks on average tend to have higher profitability lower risk and lower efficiency after the reforms and the results are robust with our difference in difference approach our results also show that the big 5 state owned banks socb underperform banks with other types of ownership when risk is measured by non performing loans npls over the entire study period but tend to have fewer npls than other banks during the post reform period our results provide some supporting evidence on the ongoing banking reforms in china suggesting that attracting strategic foreign investors and listing socbs on stock exchanges appear to be effective ways to help socbs deal with the problem of npls and manage their risk

an examination of the impact of the garn st germain depository institutions act of 1982 on commercial banks and savings and loans this paper evaluates the effects of events leading to the passage of the garn st germain depository institutions act of 1982 the evidence suggests that the call for reform by president reagan s housing commission and the senate passage of the bill produced positive abnormal returns to stockholders of large savings and loans and commercial banks stockholders of small s ls and banks on the other hand generally experienced negative abnormal returns furthermore when hopes of passage of the act faded significant negative positive abnormal returns were experienced by stockholders of large small s ls and banks this study examines the impact of the passage of the garn st germain depository institutions gsgdi act of 1982 on commercial bank and savings and loan stockholder returns the gsgdi act represents one of two major revisions of the financial system over the last twenty years the other being the depository institutions deregulation and monetary control act of 19801 the proposal for such a change reflected the growing inadequacy of the regulatory structure of financial institutions to adapt to rapid changes in technology shifting consumer demands for financial services and extremely volatile interest rates efforts to reform the financial system resulted in passage of the gsgdi act of 1982 which included provisions seeking to improve both the implementation of monetary policy and the degree of equity in the regulation of financial institutions such improvements were intended to reduce the operational and financial risk of financial institutions a central issue in the economics of regulation is whether regulatory actions benefit the economic agents they are intended to benefit a large body of literature exists which examines the economic effects of regulation much of this literature has utilized the concepts and methods of welfare economics to assess the extent

empirical research on accounting choice abstract we review research from the 1990s that examines the determinants and consequences of accounting choice structuring our analysis around the three types of market imperfections that influence managers choices agency costs information asymmetries and externalities affecting non contracting parties we conclude that research in the 1990s made limited progress in expanding our understanding of accounting choice because of limitations in research design and a focus on replication rather than extension of current knowledge we discuss opportunities for future research recommending the exploration of the economic implications of accounting choice by addressing the three different reasons why accounting matters

on endogenous competitive business cycles the belief that the long run equilibrium of a competitive monetary economy that does not experience any exogeneous shocks whether originating from the external environment or from policy should be modelled as a state that is stationary or perhaps growing at a constant rate seems to be deeply rooted in the mind of some economists

an analysis of the impact of deposit rate ceilings on the market values of thrift institutions this paper examines the impact of changes in deposit interest rate regulations on the common stock values of savings and loan institutions the analysis indicates that stockholder owned savings and loans s l s have experienced statistically significant declines in equity market values at the announcement of the removal of ceilings on certain consumer small saver certificate accounts and the introduction of short term variable rate money market certificates we find the evidence to be consistent with the hypothesis that s l s have earned economic rents from restrictions on interest rates paid to small saver accounts and that relaxation of interest rate ceilings has reduced these rents a central issue in the economics of regulation is whether regulators behave in a way that primarily benefits the economic agents whose actions they are supposed to regulate the proposition that regulation is demanded and acquired by the regulated and that regulations are designed and administered primarily for their benefit was originally put forth by stigler 19 and has come to be known as the capture theory of regulation an alternative view is that regulators adopt policies which serve some other perhaps public or possibly the regulators own interest and that administration of these policies does not benefit the regulated entities this paper examines the regulation of savings and loan associations deposit interest rates and reports evidence pertaining to the impact of the administration of regulation regulation of interest rates paid to depositors in federally insured savings and loan associations began in 1966 since that time several changes in the maximum allowed interest rates deposit rate ceilings have been made these changes present an opportunity to observe the impact of one form of regulatory action on savings and loan institutions deposit rate regulation has been the subject of extensive previous research the empirical investigations have focused primarily on two issues 1 the allocational efficiency and wealth redistribution effects of rate ceilings and 2 the impact of deposit rate ceilings on the flow of funds into the residential

the leverage effect and the basket index put spread abstract benchmark models that exogenously specify equity dynamics cannot explain the large spread in prices between put options written on individual banks and options written on the bank index during the financial crisis however theory requires that asset dynamics be specified exogenously and that endogenously determined equity dynamics exhibit a leverage effect that increases put prices by fattening the left tail of the distribution the leverage effect is larger for puts on individual stocks than for puts on the index thus increasing the basket index spread time series and cross sectional variation in the leverage effect explains option prices well

monopolistic competition and the effects of aggregate demand how important is monopolistic competition to an understanding of the effects of aggregate demand on output we ask the question at three levels can monopolistic competition by itself explain why aggregate demand movements affect output can it together with other imperfections generate effects of aggregate demand in a way that perfect competition cannot if so can it give an accurate account of the response of the economy to aggregate demand movements the answers are no yes and yes

imperfectly competitive cycles with keynesian and walrasian features abstract we consider a multi sector overlapping generations model with oligopolistic firms in the output markets and wage setting trade unions in the labour markets a coordination problem between firms creates multiple temporary equilibria which are either walrasian or of the keynesian unemployment type there exist many deterministic and stochastic equilibrium cycles fluctuating between keynesian recession and walrasian boom periods with arbitrarily long phases in each regime the cycles are in accordance with certain empirical regularities money is neutral and superneutral but appropriate countercyclical fiscal policies stabilize the cycles in a textbook keynesian way

price discrimination and markups in export markets abstract imperfect competition in international markets is one of the key explanations for why prices of similar goods might differ among destination countries this paper develops an empirical model to examine the presence of price discrimination stemming from imperfect competition in the international market for a country s exports the model is used to examine the export behavior of taiwanese exporters of footwear the generalized supply relation allows identification of deviations from competitive pricing in each export market in addition the model provides insights into the extent of exchange rate pass through finally the model is modified in order to estimate the effect of the voluntary export restraint imposed in the u s on footwear imports from taiwan

non linear endogenous fluctuations with free entry and variable markups abstract the paper explores the effects of markup variability associated with free entry of cournotian firms on the occurrence of local indeterminacy local hopf bifurcations and multiplicity of steady states it uses an overlapping generations model with capital in which differentiated intermediate goods are produced with constant marginal cost plus a positive fixed cost if the markup factor were constant the case of no free entry or the case of zero fixed costs leading to the perfectly competitive outcome no local endogenous fluctuations or multiplicity of steady states can emerge unless factors of production are complementary on the contrary with any positive variable market power indeterminacy and multiplicity of steady states is possible for any value of the elasticity of technological substitution and local hopf bifurcations may also emerge provided variable market power is high enough

endogenous imperfectly competitive business cycles abstract we investigate how imperfect competition affects the occurrence and the properties of endogenous rational expectations business cycles in an overlapping generations model with constant returns to scale in production the model has explicit product and labor markets all characterized by monopolistic competition an implicit assumption of barriers to entry justifies that the number of firms is fixed even when positive profits occur it turns out that both market power of firms on the product markets and market power of unions on the labor markets make the occurrence of cycles more likely in particular imperfect competition on the product markets and the positive profits associated with it may have the effect that there is a cycle even if the labor supply curve is increasing in the real wage rate for competitive cycles is required not only a decreasing labor supply curve but a wage elasticity below 1 2 at stationary equilibrium market power on the labor markets may have the effect that imperfectly competitive cycles are in accordance with certain empirical regularities some well known some reported in the paper concerning fluctuations in output and involuntary unemployment since involuntary unemployment does not occur under perfect competition such regularities are incompatible with competitive cycles

financial regulatory reform challenges ahead today s financial system is dominated by markets with institutions connected by short term financing securitization derivatives and other means yet regulations have focused on depositories leaving regulators unprepared for the 2008 crisis we suggest two key principles for regulatory reform first some changes in the financial system came as institutions lowered the burden of regulations through regulatory arbitrage reform needs to avoid driving businesses into the shadows where risks may accumulate and sow seeds of future crises second reform ought to improve transparency to reduce uncertainty and inter linkages between players we evaluate some of dodd frank act in light of these principles

efficiency and bargaining power in the interbank loan market using detailed transactions level data on interbank loans we examine the efficiency of an overnight interbank lending market and the bargaining power of its participants our analysis relies on the equilibrium concept of the core which imposes a set of no arbitrage conditions on trades in the market for canada s large value transfer system we show that although the market is fairly efficient systemic inefficiency persists throughout our sample the level of inefficiency matches distinct phases of both the bank of canada s operations as well as phases of the 2007 8 financial crisis we find that bargaining power tilted sharply toward borrowers as the financial crisis progressed and surprisingly toward riskier borrowers

equilibrium cycles in an overlapping generations economy with production abstract perfect foresight equilibrium trajectories of an overlapping generations model with production may include stable or unstable invariant closed curves these orbits are detected using the hopf bifurcation theorem where the parameter of bifurcation is purely technological the paper also proves that there is a stabilization policy that completely eliminates the cycle finally using a c e s production function it is shown that the range of values of the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor for which cycles may exist is bounded above

wealth and risk effects of adopting deposit insurance in canada evidence of risk shifting by banks and trust companies this paper confirms that adopting explicit deposit insurance expanded risk shifting incentives for canadian banks and trust companies by transferring responsibility for monitoring non systematic risk to the canadian deposit insurance corporation cdic deposit insurance eliminated the compensation previously paid to large block stockholder monitors this transfer fueled a redistribution of insured institution stock from poorly diversified large block shareholders to diversified investors also subsequent changes in market volatility support the hypothesis that cdic insurance and the absorption of catastrophic risk it provided reduced systematic risk in the stock market as a whole even as it increased non systematic risk in the banking and trust company sector

incentives for banking megamergers what motives might regulators infer from event study evidence methodologically this paper frames the opportunity cost of any merger as the value of the alternative deals it precludes or defers this challenges the standard event study hypothesis that stock markets benchmark the value of a merger deal by the profits the partners would have earned in stand alone activity substantively the paper finds that megamergers in banking show two size related exceptions to the prototypical result that acquirer stock value tends to be unaffected or to fall when a merger is announced giant u s banking organizations gain value from becoming more gigantic and gain additional value when they absorb an in state competitor

an approach to statistical inference in cross sectional models with security abnormal returns as dependent variable several recent event studies test hypotheses about the association between event related abnormal security returns and firm characteristics using a three step procedure first forecast model parameters are estimated usually parameters of a market model second prediction errors or residuals are computed over an event period third prediction errors are regressed cross sectionally on firm characteristics hypothesized to influence the impact of the event on share values results of these regressions are used to draw inferences about the relation between abnormal returns and firm characteristics researchers who employ three step procedures acknowledge that crosssectional ols regressions lead to valid inferences if the disturbances are iid normal in cross section see for example leftwich 1981 p 23 and lustgarten 1982 p 138 while sufficient assumptions to draw valid inferences from ols regressions are clear these assumptions are violated if there is cross correlation and cross sectional heteroscedasticity in the firm return processes from which the prediction errors are estimated assumptions about the processes generating these prediction

implicit bank debt guarantees costs benefits and risks implicit bank debt guarantees the expectation by market participants that public authorities might bailout the creditors of banks that are considered too important for financial system stability or another reason to be allowed to fail is commonly referred to as an implicit guarantee public authorities do not have any explicit commitment to intervene they may even honestly state that they not want to do so ex ante but may feel compelled to do so ex post a declared policy aim is to limit the value of implicit guarantees by making banks stronger more easily resolvable in case of distress as well as by imposing extra charges that rise as banks become more systemically important as part of the latter approach globally systemically important banks are identified and subjected to more costly and intrusive regulation there is little evidence that specific approach has been successful so far there is some evidence that the introduction of new resolution frameworks has been helpful while the use of newly available resolution tools and the involvement of bank creditors in the burden sharing associated with bank failure resolution has significantly reduced the value of implicit bank debt guarantees where it occurred in that sense actions speak louder than words

goods prices and exchange rates what have we learned import prices typically change by a smaller proportion than the exchange rate between the exporting and importing country recent research indicates that common currency relative prices for similar goods exported to different markets are highly correlated with exchange rates between those markets this evidence suggests that incomplete pass through is a consequence of third degree price discrimination while distance matters for market segmentation borders have independent effects the source of the border effect has not been clearly identified furthermore there is little evidence yet to suggest substantial market power is implied by the observed price discrimination

managerial risk taking behavior a too big to fail story we examine the implications of the us government s too big to fail tbtf policy as it has been applied to banks using alternative measures of risk we compare the risk taking behavior of 11 tbtf banks identified by the comptroller of the currency in 1984 to a number of non tbtf banks we provide both theory and new empirical evidence to support our argument that the tbtf policy leads management to significantly increase risk taking with no corresponding increase in performance while prior studies have considered the effects of the tbtf policy on limited but risk related aspects of bank behavior such as the cost of funds our study provides direct evidence about the risk taking behavior associated with the tbtf policy our study has important implications for the current political debate regarding the too big to fail policy

financial flexibility and the cost of external finance for u s bank holding companies this paper models a bank with access to two segmented capital markets the market for insured deposits and the market for uninsured claims we illustrate how higher costs of accessing either market leads to lower firm values and a greater incentive to carry liquid assets we test our model on a sample of large banking firms and label banks with relatively lower costs of accessing the two markets as more financially flexible our two key findings are 1 banks with greater financial flexibility have greater value and 2 banks with greater financial flexibility devote a smaller percentage of assets to cash and marketable securities consistent with the notion that financial flexibility reduces the sensitivity of firm profits to internal wealth shocks thus reducing the firm s need to carry financial slack

a model of imperfect competition with keynesian features the recent literature on the reappraisal of keynes has viewed keynesian equilibria as arising when prices are fixed and effective demands and supplies are equilibrated through the adjustment of quantities one problem with this approach is that it lacks a theory of price determination in particular of why prices are fixed in the present paper we show that a number of keynesian features arise in a model in which prices are fully flexible but where agents have some monopoly power one advantage of this approach is that it provides a theory of the determination of both prices and quantities

does the debt market assess large banks risk time series evidence from money center cds abstract uninsured bank liabilities should offer a promised yield that compensates depositors for their expected default losses however the conjectural guarantees available to large u s banking firms makes it questionable whether large depositors should or do feel themselves exposed to credit risk prior papers have evaluated the determinants of bank risk premia using cross sectional data with relatively inconclusive results this paper investigates the same issue in a methodologically independent fashion using time series data on specific banks daily offering rates during the period may 1982 through july 1988 we find that cd rates paid by large money center banks include significant default risk premia

an empirical analysis of the economic implications of fair value accounting for investment securities abstract this paper analyzes security returns of bank holding companies and insurance companies during periods surrounding the adoption of sfas 115 we find bank share prices were negatively affected by the examined events but find little share price reaction for insurance companies our evidence suggests banks were adversely affected by the standard because of problems with the standard s market value accounting approach cross sectional analysis of event period returns shows that banks that more frequently traded their investments with longer maturing investments and that are more fully hedged against interest rate changes were the most negatively impacted by the standard

the importance of being systemically important financial institutions abstract we investigate whether financial markets reacted to the regulatory changes implied by the publication of the list of systemically important financial institutions sifi and the new rules designed to address the too big to fail problem of systemic banks by applying event study methodology to a sample of 70 of the world s largest banks we assess whether the stock prices of sifis reacted significantly and differently from those of other large banks not deemed to be systemically important following the release of information regarding the methodology used to identify sifis and their new capital requirements the disclosure of the first list of 29 sifis and the publication of the updated list of 28 sifis overall we determine that financial markets did not univocally react to the new regulation regarding sifis however markets discriminated between high and low capitalized banks and they correctly estimated the probable effects of the additional capital requirements

the impact of the 1980 depository institutions deregulation and monetary control act on market value and risk evidence from the capital markets the depository institutions deregulation and monetary control act of 1980 brought about major changes in the banking industry this study employs capital market data to examine the act s impact on the relative competitive positions of distinct classes of firms within the industry the evidence supports the hypothesis that federal reserve system banks profited from the regulatory change at the expense of nonmember banks and savings and loans copyright 1988 by ohio state university press

ceo compensation and bank risk is compensation in banking structured to promote risk taking abstract this paper examines whether executive compensation in banking is structured to promote risk taking we find that on average bank ceos receive less cash compensation are less likely to participate in a stock option plan hold fewer stock options and receive a smaller percentage of their total compensation in the form of options and stock than do ceos in other industries cross sectional differences in the structure of compensation contracts within banking are also examined we find a positive and significant relation between the importance of equity based incentives and the value of the bank s charter this result is inconsistent with the hypothesis that compensation policies promote risk taking in banking

sunspots correlation and competition correlated equilibria in strategic market games played simultaneously by overlapping generations of players correspond to sunspot equilibria in the associated competitive economy we provide a necessary and sufficient condition for existence of effective correlation an increase in the number of agents in a given economy may allow for effective correlation

moving toward risk based deposit insurance premiums in the european union the case of spain this article provides a scenario based analysis of how the european union proposal for a new funding model for deposit insurance systems diss would affect the spanish banking sector we examine the risk profiles of commercial banks savings banks and credit cooperatives over the period 2007 to 2011 and compare the contributions to the deposit insurance fund dif under the current flat rate regime with those that would have occurred under the new risk sensitive system we find that a risk based scheme could provide an incentive for sound management by reducing the premiums for credit institutions with better risk profiles we also conclude that the proposed reform may help to mitigate the moral hazard associated with larger credit institutions

an analysis of intra industry differences in the effect of regulation the case of deposit rate ceilings abstract this study examines the impact of deposit rate ceiling changes on the market value of commercial banks and stock savings and loan associations statistically significant increases in market value are found on announcement of the removal of ceilings on large denomination certificates of deposit in contrast retail commercial banks and savings and loans experienced declines in value on announcement of the elimination or relaxation of deposit rate ceilings on small denomination consumer accounts in addition for all events analyzed significant differences were found in the effect of ceiling changes on the market value of wholesale and retail commercial banks

bank size and household financial sentiment surprising evidence from university of michigan surveys of consumers we analyze comparative advantages disadvantages of small and large banks in improving household sentiment regarding financial conditions we match sentiment data from the university of michigan surveys of consumers with local banking market data from 2000 to 2014 surprisingly the evidence suggests that large rather than small banks have significant comparative advantages in boosting household sentiment findings are robust to instrumental variables and other econometric methods additional analyses are consistent with both scale economies and the superior safety of large banks as channels behind the main findings these channels appear to more than offset stronger relationships with and greater trust in small banks

ambiguity and nonparticipation the role of regulation we investigate the implications of ambiguity aversion for performance and regulation of markets in our model agents decision making may incorporate both risk and ambiguity and we demonstrate that nonparticipation arises from the rational decision by some traders to avoid ambiguity in equilibrium these participation decisions affect the equilibrium risk premium and distort market performance when viewed from the perspective of traditional asset pricing models we demonstrate how regulation particularly regulation of unlikely events can moderate the effects of ambiguity thereby increasing participation and generating welfare gains our analysis demonstrates how legal systems affect participation in financial markets through their influence on ambiguity the author 2009 published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies all rights reserved for permissions please e mail journals permissions oxfordjournals org oxford university press

on the effectiveness of economic policy when competition is imperfect and expectations are rational abstract we study the consequences of imperfect competition in a macro model with only one imperfection that of labor market competition otherwise the model is clean agents are optimizers prices are endogenous and expectations are rational we show that although imperfect competition in itself can explain unemployment as is well known it does not in itself give strong support to the use of traditional fiscal policy in fighting unemployment fiscal policy will almost inevitably have real effects but only through a special effect that may be difficult to control in many cases fiscal policy cannot create full employment and it may very well have perverse effects

exchange rate pass through and currency invoicing implications for monetary integration in east asia exporter s price setting behaviour and currency invoicing play a key role in the literature on the new open economy macroeconom ics this paper estimates exchange rate pass through coefficients for the exports of four asean

international comparisons of pricing to market behavior this paper measures the degree of price discrimination across export destinations that is associated with exchange rate changes using u s u k german and japanese industry level data given the industries sampled more price discrimination across destinations is observed in the u k german and japanese data for industries that match across source countries however behavior is very similar across source countries furthermore destination specific price adjustment on exports to the united states from germany and japan is similar to price adjustment observed on shipments to other destinations most variation in the data appears to be related to industry copyright 1993 by american economic association