What Do Financial Intermediaries Do?

This paper presents evidence that the traditional banking business of accepting deposits and making loans has declined significantly in the US in recent years. There has been a switch from directly held assets to pension funds and mutual funds. However, banks have maintained their position relative to GDP by innovating and switching from their traditional business to fee-producing activities. A comparison of investor portfolios across countries shows that households in the US and UK bear considerably more risk from their investments than counterparts in Japan, France and Germany. It is argued that in these latter countries intermediaries can manage risk by holding liquid reserves and intertemporally smoothing. However, in the US and UK competition from financial markets prevents this and risk management must be accomplished using derivatives and other similar techniques. The decline in the traditional banking business and the financial innovation undertaken by banks in the US is interpreted as a response to the competition from markets and the decline of intertemporal smoothing.Intermediation; Risk management; Delegated monitoring; Banks; Participation costs

Markets, Reserves and Lenders of Last Resort as Sources of Bank Liquidity

We study the long standing issue of whether markets can supply banks with sufficient liquidity or whether markets should be complemented with a lender of last resort (LOLR). For this purpose, we develop an extended version of the recent model of Holmström and Tirole (1998) on the supply of liquidity to firms. H&Ts original model analyses liquidity supply to firms that are facing solvency shocks. We apply their framework to banking and extend the framework to admit the analysis of problems associated with transitory liquidity outflows, even absent any change in a bank's value. Our premise is that the scope for moral hazard may increase in connection with liquidity outflows. Moral hazard, which we interpret as the possibility of laxity in banks' monitoring of firms, may increase with liquidity outflows because banks need to increase their monitoring efforts in order to safeguard their own interests. The model illustrates many key aspects the classical LOLR debate. The model shows how moral hazard limits of banks’ ability to borrow from markets to cover liquidity outflows. It also predicts banks’ demand for liquid reserves and the economies associated with centralization of reserves in a liquidity pool when the holding of liquid reserves entails opportunity costs. Finally, the model enables discussion of viable lending policies for the LOLR and contrasts these with the ‘Bagehotian principles’, which are still widely used as benchmark criteria in evaluating LOLR operations.liquidity; lender of last resort; banking; central banking

Informed Trading, Short Sales Constraints and Futures' Pricing

The purpose of this paper is to provide an explanation for relative pricing of futures contracts with respect to underlying stocks using a model incorporating short sales constraints and informational lags between the two markets. In this model stocks and futures are perfect substitutes, except for the fact that short sales are only allowed in futures markets. The futures price is more informative than the stock price, because the existence of short sales constraints in the stock market prohibits trading in some states of the world. If an informed trader with no initial endowment in stocks receives negative information about the common future value of stocks and futures, he is only able to sell futures. Uninformed traders also face a similar short sales constraint in the stock market. As a result of the short sales constraint, the stock price is less informative than the futures price even if the informed trader has received positive information. Stocks can be under- and overpriced in comparison with futures, provided that market makers in stocks and futures only observe the order flow in the other market with a lag. Our theory implies that: 1) the basis is positively associated with the contemporaneous futures returns; 2) the basis is negatively associated with the contemporaneous stock return; 3) futures returns lead stock returns; 4) stock returns also lead futures returns, but to a lesser extent; and 5) the trading volume in the stock market is positively associated with the contemporaneous stock return. The model is tested using daily data from the Finnish index futures markets. Finland provides a good environment for testing our theory, since short sales were not allowed during the period for which we have data (27 May 1988 - 31 May 1994). We find strong empirical support for the implications of our theory.futures' market; short sales constraints; asymmetric information

Confronting Information Asymmetries: Evidence from Real Estate Markets

This paper studies the role of asymmetric information in commercial real estate markets in the U.S. We propose a novel and exogenous measure of information based on the quality of property tax assessments in different regions. Employing direct and indirect information variables, we find strong evidence that information considerations are significant in this market. We show that market participants resolve information asymmetries by purchasing nearby properties, trading properties with long income histories, and avoiding transactions with informed professional brokers. The evidence that the choice of financing is used to address information concerns is mixed and weak.

Enhancing Bank Transparency: A Re-assessment

Transparency regulation aims at reducing financial fragility by strengthening market discipline. There are however two elementary properties of banking that may render such regulation inefficient at best and detrimental at worst. First, an extensive financial safety net may eliminate the disciplinary effect of transparency regulation. Second, achieving transparency is costly for banks, as it dilutes their charter values, and hence it also reduces their private costs of risk-taking. We consider both the direct costs of complying with disclosure requirements and the indirect transparency costs stemming from imperfect property rights governing information and specify the conditions under which transparency regulation can (and cannot) reduce financial fragility.information disclosure; market discpline; bank transparency; deposit insurance; financial safety net

Commercial banks in the securities business: a review

An analysis of the potential effects of commercial banks' expansion into the securities business, focusing on gains, such as information advantages and economies of scope, as well as on potential costs, including conflicts of interest and risk considerations.Bank holding companies ; Banking Act of 1933 ; Securities

Aggregate Price Effects of Institutional Trading: A Study of Mutual Fund Flow and Market Returns

We study the relation between market returns and aggregate flow into U.S. equity funds, using daily flow data. The concurrent daily relation is positive. Our tests show that this concurrent relation reflects flow and institutional trading affecting returns. This daily relation is similar in magnitude to the price impact reported for an individual institution's trades in a stock. Aggregate flow also follows market returns with a one-day lag. The lagged response of flow suggests either a common response of both returns and flow to new information, or positive feedback trading.

Blockholder Identity, Equity Ownership Structures and Hostile Takeovers

We determine firms' equity ownership structures and provide a theory of hostile takeovers by distinguishing the roles of two types of blockholders: rich investors and institutional investors. We also distinguish the roles of two types of stock markets: the block market and the market with small investors. Rich investors have their own money at stake while institutional investors are run by proffessional managers and hence face agency conflicts. Because rich investors face no agency problems they are better at monitoring managers. If their wealth is insufficient to control all corporations, then "agency-cost free" capital is scarce. We investigate the allocation of this scarce resource. A hostile takeover is the consequence of a state-contingent allocation of agency-cost free capital. We show that only rich investors engage in hostile takeovers. Institutional investors instead are either permanent blockholding monitors or facilitate takeovers by selling blocks to rich investors. Even though all firms are ex ante identical, some may rely on the takeover mechanism while others rely on permanent institutional monitoring. We characterize the ownership structure of firms showing, in particular, that (ex ante) identical firms can have different ownership structures. Some can have initially dispersed ownership while others have an institutional blockholder.

Offer Price, Target Ownership Structure and IPO Performance

Although the choice of an IPO offer price level would seem to have little economic significance, firms do not decide this arbitrarily. Our findings suggest that firms select their IPO offer prices to target a desired ownership structure, which in turn has implications for underpricing and post-IPO performance. Higher priced IPOs are marketed by more reputed underwriters and attract a relatively larger institutional investment. These IPOs are relatively more underpriced, possibly as compensation for the monitoring and information benefits provided by institutional investors. IPOs whose offer prices are below the median level seem to be targeted towards a retail investor clientele. These IPOs are also relatively more underpriced, possibly as a cost of adverse selection. Our finding that long-run performance increases with offer price confirms that higher priced IPOs are better firms.Initial public offerings; share prices; share allocation

Competition in Banking: Switching Costs and the Limits of Antitrust Enforcement

The antitrust intervention in banking has always been heavily influenced by considerations of stability. Regulation has historically given precedence to the stability objective, relegating thus competition to second place. In fact, in the case of banking, price competition tends to encourage overly speculative behaviours, which essentially entail acceptance of excessive risk, with a resultant volatility that could potentially harm depositors, and ultimately compromise the stability of the economic system as a whole. The consequence of this approach is that banking market becomes extremely rigid on the supply side and structurally not equipped for a competitive orientation, and banks come to occupy a privileged position vis-à-vis governments that--to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the countries and the situations--enables them to sidestep the antitrust authorities. In such a scenario, the trade-off between stability and competition cannot be totally resolved through traditional antitrust actions, which are sometimes at odds with the stability objective and hampered by the constraints of the previously defined regulatory framework. It is precisely these considerations, found in a significant portion of the literature, that provide the starting base for the hypothesis of this work and namely the proposal of a novel demand side perspective, i.e. one which focuses on the central role of consumers in the competitive process. If intervention on the supply side is hampered a priori by the regulatory framework, it is nevertheless possible to implement pro-competition actions on the demand side, for example by enhancing the ability of consumers to change from one provider to the other without impacting on the market structure. In operational terms, the proposed approach is to leverage consumer mobility in order to stimulate the currently weakened competition between firms. This would make it possible to pursue the traditional antitrust objectives of efficiency and welfare maximisation, without necessarily impacting on stability.