How Do Banks Set Interest Rates?

The aim of this paper is to study cross-sectional differences in banks interest rates. It adds to the existing literature in two ways. First, it analyzes in a systematic way both micro and macroeconomic factors that influence the price setting behavior of banks. Second, by using banks' prices (rather than quantities) it provides an alternative way to disentangle loan supply from loan demand shift in the bank lending channel' literature. The results, derived from a sample of Italian banks, suggest that heterogeneity in the banking rates pass-through exists only in the short run. Consistently with the literature for Italy, interest rates on shortterm lending of liquid and well-capitalized banks react less to a monetary policy shock. Also banks with a high proportion of long-term lending tend to change their prices less. Heterogeneity in the pass-through on the interest rate on current accounts depends mainly on banks' liability structure. Bank's size is never relevant.

Bank-specific characteristics and monetary policy transmission: the case of Italy,

This paper tests cross-sectional differences in the effectiveness of the bank lending channel of monetary policy in Italy from 1986 to 1998 using a panel approach. After a monetary tightening the decrease in deposits subject to reserve requirements is sharper for those banks that have less incentive to shield the effect of a monetary squeeze: small banks characterized by a higher ratio of deposits to loans and well-capitalized banks that have a greater capacity to raise other forms of external funds. As to lending, size does not affect the banks' reaction to a monetary policy impulse. This can be explained by a closer customer relationship, which provides an incentive for small banks, which are more liquid on average, to smooth the effects of a tightening on credit supplied. Banks' liquidity is the most significant factor enabling them to attenuate the effect of a decrease in deposits on lending. JEL Classification: E44, E51, E52bank lending channel, monetary policy, transmission mechanisms

Bank-Specific Characteristics and Monetary Policy Transmission: The Case of Italy

This paper tests cross-sectional differences in the effectiveness of the bank lending channel of monetary policy in Italy from 1986 to 1998 using a panel approach. After a monetary tightening the decrease in deposits subject to reserve requirements is sharper for those banks that have less incentive to shield the effect of a monetary squeeze: small banks characterized by a higher ratio of deposits to loans and well-capitalized banks that have a greater capacity to raise other forms of external funds. As to lending, size does not affect the banksÂ’ reaction to a monetary policy impulse. This can be explained by a closer customer relationship, which provides an incentive for small banks, which are more liquid on average, to smooth the effects of a tightening on credit supplied. BanksÂ’ liquidity is the most significant factor enabling them to attenuate the effect of a decrease in deposits on lending.monetary policy; transmission mechanisms; bank lending channel

Are there asymmetries in the response of bank interest rates monetary shocks?

This paper examines the velocity and asymmetry in the response of bank interest rates to monetary policy shocks. Using an Asymmetric Vector Error Correction Model (AVECM), it analyses the pass-through of changes in the money market rates to retail bank interest rates in Italy in the period 1985-2002. The main results of the paper are: 1) the speed in adjustment of bank interest rates to monetary policy changes have significantly increased after the introduction of the 1993 Consolidated Law on Banking; 2) interest rate adjustment, in response to positive and negative shocks, are asymmetric in the short run, but not in the long run; 3) banks adjust their loan (deposit) rate at a faster rate during period of monetary tightening (easing); 4) this asymmetry has almost vanished since the nineties.monetary policy transmission, interest rates, asymmetries, liberalization

Modelling bank lending in the euro area: A non-linear approach

This paper investigates possible non-linearities in the response of bank lending to monetary policy shocks in the euro area. The credit market is modelled over the period 1985-2005 by means of an Asymmetric Vector Error Correction Model (AVECM) involving four endogenous variables (loans to the private sector, real GDP, lending rate, and consumer price index) and one exogenous variable (money market rate). The main features of the model are the existence of two co-integrating equations representing the long-run credit demand and supply and the possibility for loading and lagged-term coefficients to assume different values depending on the monetary policy regime (easing or tightening). The paper finds that the effect on credit, GDP, and prices of a monetary policy tightening is larger than the effect of a monetary policy easing. This result supports the existence of an asymmetric broad credit channel in the euro area.monetary policy transmission, credit market, credit view, asymmetries

Bank Profitability and Taxation

This paper investigates how bank profitability is affected by the corporate income tax (CIT). For this purpose it uses aggregate data of the banking sector of the main industrialized countries, for the period 1980-2003. The main novelties with respect to the existing literature are two. First, it explicitly considers that the CIT is not specific to the banking sector so that changes in CIT rate can affect both banks and borrowing firms. With the help of a simple theoretical model we derive a set of predictions about the impact of the CIT on banks’ income statement. Second, we consider all main components of banks’ profit and loss accounts: net interest income, interest expenses, non-interest income, operating costs, and provisions. In this way, we are able to disentangle the extent to which a bank is able to shift its tax-burden forward to its lenders, depositors, and purchasers of fee-generating servicesTax-Shifting, Corporate Income Tax, Bank Profitability

The Weighting Process in the SHIW

The design of a probability sample jointly determines the method used to select sampling units from the population and the estimator of the population parameter. If the sampling fraction is constant for all the units in the sample, then the unweighted sampling mean is an unbiased estimator. In the Survey on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW), units included in the sample have unequal probabilities of selection and each observation is weighted using the inverse of the proper sampling fraction (design weight) adjusted for the response mechanism (nonresponse weight) and for other factors such as imperfect coverage. In this paper we present the weighting scheme of the SHIW and assess its impact on bias and variance of selected estimators. Empirical evidences show that the increasing variability induced by using weighted estimators is compensated by the bias reduction even when performing analysis on sample domains. A set of longitudinal weights is also proposed to account for the selection process and the attrition of the SHIW panel component. These weights, giving their enhanced description of the “panel population”, should be better suited to perform longitudinal analysis; nevertheless their higher variance implies that they wouldn’t always be preferable in terms of mean square error.Survey Methods

Bank profitability and taxation

This paper investigates how bank profitability is affected by corporate income tax (CIT) using aggregate data on the banking sector of the main industrialized countries for the period 1981-2003. Two main novelties emerge with respect to the existing literature. First, the paper explicitly considers that CIT is not specific to the banking sector, so that changes in the CIT rate can affect both banks and borrowing firmsÂ’ behaviour. Thus, with the help of a simple theoretical model we derive a set of predictions about the impact of CIT on banksÂ’ income statement. Second, by considering all the main components of banksÂ’ profit and loss accounts, we are able to test such predictions and to disentangle the extent to which a bank is able to shift its tax-burden onto its borrowers, depositors, and purchasers of fee-generating services. It turns out that CIT has a substantial impact on the composition of banking sector revenues but cannot explain large differences in the level of profitability across countries.tax-shifting, corporate income tax, bank profitability

Bank Capital and Lending Behaviour: Empirical Evidence for Italy

This paper investigates the existence of cross-sectional differences in the response of lending to monetary policy and GDP shocks owing to a different degree of bank capitalization. The effects on lending of shocks to bank capital that are caused by a specific (higher than 8 per cent) solvency ratio for highly risky banks are also analyzed. The paper adds to the existing literature in three ways. First, it considers a measure of capitalization (the excess capital) that is better able to control for the riskiness of banksÂ’ portfolios than the well-known capital-to-asset ratio. Second, it disentangles the effects of the "bank lending channel" from those of the "bank capital channel" in the case of a monetary shock; it also provides an explanation for asymmetric effects of GDP shocks on lending based on the link between bank capital and risk aversion. Third, it uses a unique dataset of quarterly data for Italian banks over the period 1992-2001; the full coverage of banks and the long sample period helps to overcome some distributional bias detected for other available public datasets. The results indicate that well-capitalized banks can better shield their lending from monetary policy shocks as they have easier access to non-deposit fund-raising consistently with the "bank lending channel" hypothesis. A "bank capital channel" is also detected, with stronger effects for cooperative banks that have a larger maturity mismatch. Capitalization also influences the way banks react to GDP shocks. Again, the credit supply of well-capitalized banks is less pro-cyclical. The introduction of a specific solvency ratio for highly risky banks determines an overall reduction in lending.Basel standards; monetary transmission mechanisms; bank lending; bank capital

Bank heterogeneity and interest rate setting: what lessons have we learned since Lehman Brothers?

A substantial literature has investigated the role of relationship lending in shielding borrowers from idiosyncratic shocks. Much less is known about how lending relationships and bank-specific characteristics affect the functioning of the credit market in an economy-wide crisis, when banks may find it difficult to perform the role of shock absorbers. We investigate how bank-specific characteristics (size, liquidity, capitalization, funding structure) and the bank-firm relationship have influenced interest rate setting since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Unlike the existing literature, which has focused chiefly on the amount of credit granted during the crisis, we look at its cost. The data on a large sample of loans from Italian banks to non-financial firms suggest that close lending relationships kept firms more insulated from the financial crisis. Further, spreads increased by less for the customers of well-capitalized, liquid banks and those engaged mainly in traditional lending business.bank interest rate setting, lending relationship, bank lending channel, financial crisis.