Connected Lending: Thailand before the Financial Crisis

The allocation of credit by banks and financial institutions on 'soft' terms to friends and relatives rather than on the basis of 'hard' market criteria in the years leading up to the East Asian crisis of 1997-98 has been widely noted. Using a detailed dataset on Thai firms prior to the crisis period we examine whether business connections were in fact a good predictor of preferential access to long term bank credit. We find that firms with connections to banks and politicians had greater access to long-term debt than firms without such ties. Connected firms need much less collateral to obtain long term loans than those without connections. Such firms obtain more long term loans, and appear to use less short term loans. We do not find support for the existence of connections between banks and firms serving to reduce asymmetric information problems. Our results thus lend support to the hypothesis that the presence of connections was the most important factor determining access to long term bank debt prior to the financial crisis and are consistent with recent research implicating weak corporate governance in the extent and severity of the crisis.Agency Costs, Capital Structure, Corporate Governance, Crony Capital, Debt Maturity, East Asian Financial Crisis, Thailand

Debt maturity structure and the 1997 Asian financial crisis

The paper investigates the effects of firm-specific and country-specific characteristics, and the 1997Asian financial crisis on the debt maturity structure of firms in the Asia Pacific region. Given that theeconomies of the sample countries were at different stages of development and were affected by the1997 Asian financial crisis by different degrees, the paper explores the effects of the crisis on debtmaturity structure by grouping the sample countries according to the severity of the crisis. The resultsindicate that firms adjust their debt maturity structure to target level very quickly; the maturitystructure decision of a firm is the product of both its own characteristics and the economic andinstitutional environment in which it operates. They also reveal that the crisis had significant effectson firm’s debt maturity structure and their determinants

Corporate financing decisions: Evidence from the Asia Pacific region

This thesis analyses the corporate financing decisions of listed non-financial firms operating in the Asia Pacific countries, namely Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia, for the period from 1993 to 2001. These four countries have different legal, corporate governance, financial and institutional environments and were affected by the 1997 Asian financial crisis in different ways and to different degrees. Therefore, this thesis aims to shed light on the impact of these differences and the financial crisis on financing policies and practices of firms in this region. The empirical analysis consists of three main parts: (i) the determinants of capital structure (the use of debt versus equity); (іі) the determinants of debt maturity structure (the use of long-term debt versus short-term debt); and (ііі) the tests of the extent to which the main capital structure theory (the pecking order theory) accounts for the financing behaviour of firms in this region. The results suggest that capital structure and debt maturity structure decisions of a firm are not only the product of its own characteristics as identified by the extant literature but also the function of the financial and legal environment in which it operates. The results also show that firms in this region do not behave as strictly as predicted by the pecking order theory. However, they reveal that financial deficit (the key factor in the pecking order theory) challenges the exclusive role of the conventional factors. The financial crisis of 1997 is also found to have had significant but diverse impacts on the firms' financing decisions across the region, especially in Thailand where the crisis originated. In addition, the pecking order behaviour tends to be more pronounced for the post-crisis period

Globalization and firms'financing choices - evidence from emerging economies

The authors investigate whether integration with global markets affects the financing choices of firms from East Asia and Latin America. Using firm-level data for the 1980s and 1990s, they study how leverage ratios, the structure of debt maturity, and sources of financing change when economies are liberalized and when firms gain access to international equity and bond markets. The evidence shows that integration with world financial markets has uneven effects. On the one hand, debt maturity for the average firm shortens when countries undertake financial liberalization. On the other hand, domestic firms that actually participate in international markets, get better financing opportunities, and extend their debt maturity. Moreover, firms in economies with deeper domestic financial systems are affected less by financial liberalization. Finally, they show that leverage ratios increase during times of crisis. In an appendix, they analyze the previously unstudied case of Argentina, which experienced sharp financial liberalization, and was hit hard by all recent global crises.Banks&Banking Reform,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Financial Intermediation,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Housing Finance

Globalization and Firms' Financing Choices: Evidence from Emerging Economies

This paper studies the relation between firm's financing choices and financial globalization. Using an East Asian and Latin American firm-level panel for the 1980s and 1990s, we study how leverage ratios, debt maturity structure, and sources of financing change when economies are liberalized and when firms access international capital markets. We find that debt-equity ratios do not increase after financial liberalization. Debt maturity shortens for the average firm when countries undertake financial liberalization. However, domestic firms that actually participate in international capital markets extend their debt maturity. Financial liberalization has less effects on firms from countries with more developed domestic financial systems. Leverage ratios increase during crises.financing choices, financial structure, financial integration, financial globalization, international financial markets

An Open Economy Model of the Credit Channel Applied to Four Asian Economies

This paper provides a theoretical model of an open economy credit channel including currency mismatch and financial fragility where exporting firms have access to international credit but non-exporting firms do not. It considers the post-crisis outcome which is predicted to be dramatically different for exporters/non-exporters. We examine firms’ access to external finance in four Asian economies after 1997 using a large panel of balance sheet data. Our paper demonstrates that firm heterogeneity is critical to understanding the open economy credit channel effects post-crisis since smaller and less profitable firms are indeed less likely to obtain credit than larger, export-oriented firms.Credit Channel, External Finance, Asian Crisis.

A Macroprudential Framework for the Early Detection of Banking Problems in Emerging Economies

This paper develops an analytical framework that can be used to anticipate problems in the banking system and enable supervisors to take mitigating actions at an early stage. This paper has two components. First, it develops an early warning indicator that is intended to capture a number of the systemic risks that can affect the banking system as a whole. Second, it develops a methodology to detect problems at the individual bank level in an effort to identify those firms with financial vulnerabilities. For the systemic component of our methodology, the final output is a banking system vulnerability index to facilitate bank monitoring tasks, as well as some disaggregated subcomponents that are intended to display the relative importance of the different risks (e.g., liquidity, currency, and interest rate risks). Regarding the assessment of the soundness of individual institutions, the paper uses a methodology based on cluster analysis that incorporates the results of the previous framework. There is an empirical application of the systemic component that is based on the 2001 Argentine banking crisis. It shows that the proposed vulnerability indicator started to increase steadily beginning in 1999, following 2 years in which it had remained flat, and it finally peaked in mid-2001, which was just before the onset of the crisis.Banks; stress testing; banking crises; banking regulation; banking supervision; early warning systems

What Effect has Bond Market Development in Asia had on the Issue of Corporate Bonds

This paper investigates the determinants of the firm's decision to issue corporate bonds in emerging Asian economies, using a novel database covering the period 1995 to 2004. We use comparable micro level panel data for 4 countries - Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand - to explore the influence of firms' size and growth prospects, financial health and indicators of bond market development on the decision to issue corporate bonds. Our results show that the likelihood of bond issuance increases with size and growth prospects and with creditworthiness in all countries; there is evidence of firm level heterogeneity across firm size classes. Importantly, there is no effect from bond market development on the likelihood of bond issuance. We conclude that the benefits of bond market development are yet to spillover to corporate bond markets.Bond financing, financial variables, development, emerging Asian markets.

Does short-term debt increase vulnerability to crisis? Evidence from the East Asian financial crisis

Does short-term debt increase vulnerability to financial crisis, or does causality go the other way, so that short term debt reflects rather than causes the incipient crisis? We approach this question empirically by examining the banking sector in five East Asian economies that were affected by the financial crisis of 1997-8. We put together a firm-level database that includes information on banks’ debt obligations as well as on bank failures following the crisis. We deal with potential endogeneity of short term debt by using certain long term debt obligations instead. These are debt obligations that mature at the time of the crisis, and therefore add to the bank’s vulnerability, but since they were contracted many years previously, cannot be mistaken as an endogenous response to changing conditions or expectations in the period immediately before the crisis. We find that such debt obligations that were contracted four years or more before the crisis have a negative, albeit sometimes insignificant effect on the probability of failure. Our results are therefore consistent with an interpretation of short-term debt as reflecting, rather than causing, distress in the banking sector. However, our findings do not rule out the hypothesis that exposure to roll-over risk contributed to bank failure in the East Asian crisis.Financial crises - Asia

The Case of the Missing Market: The Bond Market and Why It Matters for Financial Development

Over the last decade interest in the role of finance in economic growth has revived. Building from the pioneering work of Goldsmith (1965) and the insights of Shaw (1973) and McKinnon (1973), the more recent work examines the role of financial institutions and financial markets in corporate governance and the consequent implications for economic growth and development. Levine (1997) and Stulz (2000) have provided excellent reviews of this literature and Allen and Gale (2000) have extended it by developing a framework for comparing bank-based financial systems with market-based financial systems. Although the literature addresses "capital markets," on closer inspection the main focus is really equity markets. Bond markets are almost completely overlooked. Although the omission of the bond market is not defended in the literature, one could argue that it does little violence to reality. As Table 1 shows, in most emerging economies in Asia, bond markets are very small relative to the banking system or equity markets. Moreover, the most striking theoretical results flow from a comparison of debt contracts with equity contracts and at a high level of abstraction bank lending can proxy for all debt. In any event, data are much more readily available for equity markets and the banking system than for bond markets, even in the United States.