Market Discipline in Conglomerate Banks: Is an Internal Allocation of Cost of Capital Necessary as an Incentive Device?

This paper analyzes the optimal conglomeration of bank activities. We show that incentive problems in banking sometimes dictate integration of activities, but with perfect market discipline always push us away from integration/conglomeration. Ineffective market discipline could make conglomeration optimal, even if conglomeration further undermines market discipline. We also show that an internal allocation of the cost of capital could add effective `internal' discipline and improve on the outcome of conglomeration. The analysis is subsequently applied to the Barings debacle. This paper was presented at the Financial Institutions Center's October 1996 conference on "

Objectivity, Proximity and Adaptability in Corporate Governance

Countries appear to differ considerably in the basic orientations of their corporate governance structures. We postulate the trade-off between objectivity and proximity as fundamental to the corporate governance debate. We stress the value of objectivity that comes with distance (e.g. the market oriented U.S. system), and the value of better information that comes with proximity (e.g. the more intrusive Continental European model). Our key result is that the optimal distance between management and monitor (board or shareholders) has a bang-bang solution: either one should capitalize on the better information that comes with proximity or one should seek to benefit optimally from the objectivity that comes with distance. We argue that this result points at an important link between the optimal corporate governance arrangement and industry structure. In this context, we also discuss the ways in which investors have "contracted around" the flaws in their own corporate governance systems, pointing at the adaptability of different arrangements.corporate governance, comperitive systems, corporate finance, economic reform, convergence

The economics of bank regulation

The object of this paper is to survey and synthesize the literature on the regulation of financial intermediaries, including the theoretical framework and also the applied literature on specific regulations such as deposit insurance, capital controls, line of business restrictions, etc

Market Discipline in Conglomerate Banks: Is an Internal Allocation of Cost of Capital Necessary as Incentive Device

This paper analyzes the optimal conglomeration of bank activities. We show that the effectiveness of market discipline for stand-alone activities (divisions) is of crucial importance for the potential benefits of conglomeration. We find that effective market discipline reduces the potential benefits of conglomeration. With ineffective market discipline of stand-alone activities conglomeration would further undermine market discipline, but may nevertheless be beneficial. In particular, when rents are not too high the diversification benefits of conglomeration may dominate the negative incentive effects. A more competitive environment therefore may induce conglomeration. We also show that introducing internal cost of allocation schemes may create 'internal' market discipline that complements the weak external market discipline of the conglomerate. In this context we show that these schemes should respond to actual risk choices, rather than be limited to anticipated risk choices.

Comments on the paper by THOMAS GEHRIG: "Market Structure, Monitoring and Capital Adequacy Regulation"

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Competition and Entry in Banking: Implications for Stability and Capital Regulation

We assess the influence of competition and capital regulation on the stability of the banking system. We particularly ask two questions: i) how does capital regulation affect (endogenous) entry; and ii) how do (exogenous) changes in the competitive environment affect bank monitoring choices and the effectiveness of capital regulation? Our approach deviates from the extant literature in that it recognizes the fixed costs associated with banks' monitoring technologies. These costs make market share and scale important for the banks' cost structures. Our most striking result is that increasing (costly) capital requirements can lead to more entry into banking, essentially by reducing the competitive strength of lower quality banks. We also show that competition improves the monitoring incentives of better quality banks and deteriorates the incentives of lower quality banks; and that precisely for those lower quality banks competition typically compromises the effectiveness of capital requirements. We generalize the analysis along a few dimensions, including an analysis of the effects of asymmetric competition, e.g. one country that opens up its banking system for competitors but not vice versa.Banking; Capital regulation; Competition

The Economic Value of Flexibility when there is Disagreement

We develop an economic theory of “flexibility”, which we interpret as the discretion orability to make a decision that others disagree with. We show that flexibility is essentiallyan option for the decisionmaker, and can be valued as such. The value of the flexibilityoption is decreasing in the extent to which the decisionmaker’s future decision-relevantopinion is correlated with the opinions of others who may be able to impede the decision.We argue that flexibility drives economic decisions in a significant way. Theapplications we consider are: the entrepreneur’s choice of flexibility in the initial mix offinancing raised, the use of flexibility to understand differences in security design and thefirm’s security-issuance decision, the impact of flexibility on the use of collateral inlending, the role of flexibility in capital budgeting decisions, the effect of flexibilityconsiderations in the design of contracts in a principal-agent setting, the interpretation of“power” and conformity in organizations in the context of flexibility, and the choice betweenprivate an public ownership in the context of flexibility.Managerial Decision Making; Corporate Finance.

Credit Ratings as Coordination Mechanisms

In this article, we provide a novel rationale for credit ratings. The rationale that we propose is that credit ratings serve as a coordinating mechanism in situations where multiple equilibria can obtain. We show that credit ratings provide a "focal point" for firms and their investors, and explore the vital, but previously overlooked implicit contractual relationship between a credit rating agency (CRA) and a firm through its credit watch procedures. Credit ratings can help fix the desired equilibrium and as such play an economically meaningful role. Our model provides several empirical predictions and insights regarding the expected price impact of rating changes. This discussion paper has resulted in a publication in The Review of Financial Studies , 2006, 19(1), 81-118.

Objectivity, Control and Adaptability in Corporate Governance

Countries appear to differ considerably in the basic orientations oftheir corporate governance structures. We postulatethe trade-off between "objectivity" and "proximity" as fundamental tothe corporate governance debate. We stress thevalue of objectivity that comes with distance (e.g. the marketoriented U.S. system), and the value of better informationthat comes with proximity (e.g. the more intrusive ContinentalEuropean model).A superior corporate governance arrangement must balance thebenefits of proximity and objectivity. In this context,we also discuss the ways in which investors have "contracted around"the flaws in their own corporate governancesystems, pointing at the "adaptability" of different arrangements.