SMEs’ growth under financing constraints and banking markets integration in the euro area

We explore the impact of financing constraints and the role of banking markets integration on SMEs’ growth. The data are drawn from the ECB/SAFE survey on SMEs’ access to finance aggregated at country level for the largest 11 euro-area countries over 2009-2015. Our findings suggest that financing constraints hamper SMEs’ growth and that the effect is stronger for perceived, rather than actual, financing constraints. On the other hand, increased banking market integration in the euro area appears to foster SMEs’ growth. Furthermore, we find that the reduction in financing constraints is crucial in the transmission channel from banking markets integration to growth. This effect appears significantly stronger when integration is measured by the intensity of cross-border lending than through convergence in interest rates to loans to non-financial corporations

Integration in European Retail Banking : Evidence from savings and lending rates to non-financial corporations

The aim of this paper is to investigate the integration process in the European Union retail banking sector during the period 1995-2008, by analysing deposit and lending rates to nonfinancial corporations which represent one of the main constituents of retail banking. An important contribution of the paper is the application of the recently developed Phillips and Sul (2007a) panel convergence methodology which has not hitherto been employed in this area. This method analyses the degree as well as the speed of convergence, identifies the presence of club formation, and measures the behaviour of each country’s transition path relative to the panel average. The results obtained point to the presence of close convergence in all deposit rates and in the short-term lending rates to non-financial corporations. However, we also detect the presence of heterogeneity in the European retail banking sector with notably some diverse convergence patterns observed for the transition paths for the deposit and lending rates with longer maturities.Submitted Versio

The transmission of unconventional monetary policy to bank credit supply : evidence from the TLTRO

We assess the transmission of the Targeted Longer-Term Refinancing Operations (TLTRO) to the bank credit supply for the Euro area (2014:05-2018:01) and for Portugal (2011:01-2018:01), using a panel data setup. For the Euro area, we find a positive relationship between the TLTRO and the amount of credit granted to the real economy. For the vulnerable countries, the effects of the TLTRO on the stock of credit increased from 2016 to 2017. Among the group of small banks, the effects are stronger in less vulnerable countries. We also find that competition has no statistically significant impact on the transmission of the TLTRO to the bank credit supply for the Euro area. For Portugal, using a difference-in-differences model, we find no statistically significant impact of the TLTRO on credit granted by banks. Finally, bidding banks set lower interest rates than non-bidding banks and the difference seems to be larger in 2017. In Portugal, the effects of the TLTRO on loan interest rates also increased from 2016 to 2017 and are stronger for small banks.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Glare assessment methodologies and their application to the office environment: A study for the climate of Sydney, Australia

In recent years there is resurgence in the use of daylighting in office environments. This resurgence is partially being driven by the recognition of the benefits of daylight access to humans partially through advances in facade technology and partially through the growing use of green building tools such as Green Star, LEED and BREEAM. This growing use of daylight has many benefits including health benefits, productivity benefits, financial benefits, and ecological benefits. However, the use of daylight in offices must be carefully considered with it also potentially increasing the carbon cost of operating a building and negatively influencing the internal work environment through the introduction of glare. This paper will primarily focus on the issues surrounding daylight glare - glare associated with indirect light from the sun - in the office environment and its assessment. Two glare metrics have been selected daylight glare index (DGI), the recognised standard in the assessment of glare from large glares sources such as windows, and daylight glare probability (DGP) a recently developed metric for the assessment of glare that it is hoped will overcome some of the universally identified limitations of the DGI. The use of Radiance, a backward ray tracing software tool has been utilised in the assessments, based on a theoretical model where the two glare indices have been compared to help identify any similarities between them and to better understand some of the limitations of the tools available to the building designer. Further, a scripting tool has been developed to allow the visual representation of glare over the floor plate of a room, giving valuable feedback to the design team in the initial stages of a building design and the impact of various design options on occupant visual comfort. The comparison between DGI and DGP ahs shown there to be a degree of correlation between the two metrics in areas toward the rear of a daylit room, but that this correlation does not hold as we approach areas of extreme light levels, or where the observer has a large sky view. This lack of correlation has made it difficult to draw any conclusions on any comparison between the tools and it has been proposed that further study, using a more realistic representation of an office environment may help to determine which glare metric is pointing toward the correct response

Market impact under a new regulatory regime: Credit rating agencies in Europe

We investigate whether there are any identifiable differences in market perceptions of rating news released by Moody’s, S&P and Fitch following the establishment of a new regulatory regime in July 2011, when the European Securities and Markets Authority assumed responsibility for rating agencies’ regulation in Europe. We focus the analysis on the impact of bank rating actions on stock returns and volatility during 2008-2013. Among the intended effects of the new regulatory regime are reduced market impact of rating actions and enhanced market stability, yet we find very mixed evidence. Differentials in market responses across CRAs are identified

The Impact of regulatory capital regulation on balance sheet structure, intermediation cost and growth

URL des Documents de travail : http://ces.univ-paris1.fr/cesdp/cesdp2016.htmlDocuments de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 2016.61 - ISSN : 1955-611XAs Europe is subject to a protracted recession, it should be asked whether the reform of the financial sector is not costly in terms of potential growth. Our analysis shows that the negative effect of the Basel III package excepted by the pre-QE studies are almost annihilated today. The recession must then have other causes: falling corporate lending volumes resulted from falling demand in the aftermath of the financial crisis, but this is longer the case. The EU is trying to incentivize corporate lending, via forward guidance as well as ‘supporting factor’ cutting down the Basel capital requirements. The macroeconomic theorists are trying to account for future success of monetary policy around zero nominal interest rate via the risk-taking channel. All these clever initiatives failed to deliver. As a consequence, we might infer that banks are simply not taking any risks: rather than appealing to risk aversion, we would like to argue that the banks seem especially embarrassed by future regulatory developments, which appear remote and uncertain. The binding constraint for corporate lending and growth in the EU is then plausibly a combination of banks' expectations of future regulation and strong uncertainty aversion. While we offer some mitigation prospects, we hope that the theoretical developments of the recent years will quickly yield both theoretical advances and practical results.Malgré les assouplissements récents de la règlementation bancaire afin de permettre une reprise des prêts aux entreprises, il semble que le paquet Bâle III ait un effet néfaste sur la croissance. Le texte s'interroge sur la contrainte active parmi l'ensemble des nouvelles règles. Il semblerait que les banques soient devenues très averses à l'incertitude, en particulier à l'incertitude sur l'évolution des règles qui leurs sont imposées. En conséquence nous proposons de modifier la nature des provisions en capital et le nombre de régulateurs ayant un pouvoir de décision sur le niveau des capitaux