Creditor country regulations and commercial bank lending to developing countries

Ever since the debt crisis of 1982, commercial banks continue to be reluctant in lending to developing countries. It is often argued that regulatory pressures on commercial banks have also contributed to the banks'reduced exposure to developing countries. This paper explores this possibility, focusing particularly on the effect of the Bank for International Settlement (BIS) risk-related capital adequacy regulations and different practices of country risk provisioning in major creditor countries. The main conclusion of the paper is that the BIS capital adequacy regulations may be somewhat less effective than they appear in accomplishing their main goal of controlling the overall riskiness of the international banking system, but that they may be quite effective in decreasing the size of commercial banks'developing country loan portfolios. The paper also discusses how mandated provisioning rules against developing countries are an additional deterrent to increasing bank lending.Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Banking Law,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research

Developing country capital structures and emerging stock markets

In the developing world financing patterns vary greatly from what we observe in developed countries. In the poorest developing countries firms rely mostly on internal resources and informal credit markets for financing. This paper seeks to investigate the impact of emerging stock markets on the financing patterns of developing country corporations. The focus is to test whether equity markets and banking systems are complements or substituteds in providing financing to corporations. It is possible to answer this question by investigating capital structures of firms across a sample of countries with different levels of stock market development. If equity is substituted for debt financing one would expect countries with less developed stock markets to have higher leverage. However, if the opposite is true and there is complementarity between equity markets and banks, leverage would increase as stock markets become more developed. This paper discusses key properties of debt and equity contracts in financing decisions and reviews the literature on capital structure to identify relevant factors, other than stock market development, that may affect the financing pattern of corporations. It also presents preliminary empirical findings and identifies directions for further research.Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Environmental Economics&Policies,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism

Are banks too big to fail or too big to save ? International evidence from equity prices and CDS spreads

Deteriorating public finances around the world raise doubts about countries'abilities to bail out their largest banks. For an international sample of banks, this paper investigates the impact of government indebtedness and deficits on bank stock prices and credit default swap spreads. Overall, bank stock prices reflect a negative capitalization of government debt and they respond negatively to deficits. The authors present evidence that in 2008 systemically large banks saw a reduction in their market valuation in countries running large fiscal deficits. Furthermore, the change in bank credit default swap spreads in 2008 relative to 2007 reflects countries'deterioration of public deficits. The results of the analysis suggest that some systemically important banks can increase their value by downsizing or splitting up, as they have become too big to save, potentially reversing the trend to ever larger banks. The paper also documents that a smaller proportion of banks are systemically important -- relative to gross domestic product -- in 2008 than in the two previous years, which could reflect private incentives to downsize.Banks&Banking Reform,Debt Markets,Access to Finance,Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress,Economic Theory&Research

Interest rates, official lending, and the debt crisis : a reassessment

The authors document and try to explain the sizable cross-country differences in interest rates on external debt paid by a group of highly indebted developing countries in 1973-89. They find that Indonesia and Turkey, which are often praised for not rescheduling in the 1980s, paid interest rates substantially below LIBOR - and avoided the interest rate shock of the early 1980s. Differences in the default-risk premium explain some of the variation among countries, but different degrees of access to official loans carrying highly subsidized interest rates played the major role. In the sample they studied, they found no evidence that debt at floating interest rates was more expensive than debt at fixed rates. For the period 1981-89, it is possible to control for differences in the currency composition of debt, and the results are essentially unchanged. These results suggest that studies of economic performance among the highly indebted countries during the debt crisis should control for cross-country differences in the burden of interest payments.Economic Theory&Research,Strategic Debt Management,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation

Official credits to developing countries : implicit transfers to the banks

This paper investigates the impact on the wealth of bank share holders on the transfer of official resources to the debtor countries. The main aim was to derive actual estimates of increases in shareholder wealth following important news concerning future transfers from the multilaterals to the debtor nations. The main result, is that stock market expects virtually all additional resources provided to debtor countries to be used for debt service to commercial banks. While the estimated magnitude of these effects are informative, the emphasis should be on the direction of these effects as they are robust to overestimation problems. Clearly, official resources provided to debtor countries do devolve to creditor banks. However, the debtor countries should at least gain in so far as the reduction of a debt overhang eliminates investment distortions. The results stem from the fact that some of the monies provided by the multilaterals are specifically earmarked for debt service or are in the form of general balance-of-payments support that the developing countries can use for private debt service. Official creditor resources that are specially provided to finance development projects are less likely to be allocated to bank debt service.Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Municipal Financial Management,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation

Financial constraints, uses of funds, and firm growth : an international comparison

The authors focus on two issues. First they examine whether firms in different countries finance long-term and short term investment similarly. Second, they investigate whether differences in financial systems and legal institutions across countries are reflected in the ability of firms to grow faster than they might have by relying on their internal resources or short term borrowing. Across their sample they find: a) positive correlations between investment in plant and equipment and retained earnings; b) negative correlations between investment in plant and equipment and external financing; c) negative correlations between investment in short-term assets and retained earnings; and d) positive correlations between investments in short term assets and external financing. These findings suggest that financial markets and intermediaries have a comparative advantage in funding short-term investment. For each firm they estimate a predicted growth rate if it does not rely on long-term external financing. They show that the proportion of firms that grow faster than the predicted rate in each country is associated with specific features of the legal system, financial markets, and institutions. An active stock market and high scores on an index of respect for legal norms are associated with faster than predicted rates of firm growth. They present evidence that the law-and-order index measures the ability of creditors and debtors to enter into long-term contracts. Government subsidies to industry do not increase the proportion of firms growing faster than predicted.Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Financial Intermediation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Intermediation,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform

Basel core principles and bank soundness : does compliance matter ?

This paper studies whether compliance with the Basel Core Principles for effective banking supervision is associated with bank soundness. Using data for more than 3,000 banks in 86 countries, the authors find that neither the overall index of compliance with the Basel Core Principles nor the individual components of the index are robustly associated with bank risk measured by Z-scores. The results of the analysis cast doubt on the usefulness of the Basel Core Principles in ensuring bank soundness.Banks&Banking Reform,Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Financial Intermediation,Debt Markets,Hazard Risk Management

Finance, financial sector policies, and long-run growth

The first part of this paper reviews the literature on the relation between finance and growth. The second part of the paper reviews the literature on the historical and policy determinants of financial development. Governments play a central role in shaping the operation of financial systems and the degree to which large segments of the financial system have access to financial services. The paper discusses the relationship between financial sector policies and economic development.Debt Markets,Access to Finance,Emerging Markets,,Economic Theory&Research

Stock market development and firm financing choices

The authors empirically analyze the association between firm financing choices and the level of development of financial markets in 30 countries for the period 1980-91. For the whole sample, there is a statistically significant negative correlation between stock market development, as measured by the ratio of market capitalization to gross domestic product, and the ratios of both long-term and short-term debt to firms'total equity. For developed markets in the sample, further stock market development leads to a substitution of equity for debt financing. In developing markets, by contrast, large firms become more leveraged as the stock market develops, whereas the smallest firms appear not to be significantly affected by market development.Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Financial Intermediation,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Intermediation,Banks&Banking Reform,Housing Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies

The menu approach to developing country external debt : an analysis of commercial banks'choice behavior

This study provides evidence that bank characteristics are significant determinants of commercial-bank choice behavior when confronted with a menu of options. It develops a theoretical model of bank choice behavior and empirically tests its implications using data from the 1988 Brazilian financing package. The empirical results show that bank characteristics are capable of explaining over 80 percent of this choice. One of the main implications of the theoretical model is that under risk-neutrality assumption, financially stronger and more exposed banks prefer to exit. The findings have several important implications for the new debt reduction strategy. (i) First, larger debt reductions operated on a market basis are more costly, per unit of debt reduced. In order to increase debt reduction, weaker banks must be convinced to exit, increasing the needed exit price. (ii) Second, the exit price depends on the strength of the banking industry, and thus, the effectiveness of the present debt strategy is affected by changes in the world economy. In periods of booms, banks become stronger and exit prices are reduced. (iii) Third, regulators can affect the cost of debt reduction by altering the regulatory framework within which the banks operate. (iv) Fourth, LDC debt reductions are beneficial to the deposit insurance agencies of the major creditor nations.Financial Intermediation,Economic Theory&Research,Municipal Financial Management,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Banks&Banking Reform