Interbank contagion at work: evidence from a natural experiment

This paper tests financial contagion due to interbank linkages. For identification we exploit an idiosyncratic, sudden shock caused by a large-bank failure in conjunction with detailed data on interbank exposures. First, we find robust evidence that higher interbank exposure to the failed bank leads to large deposit withdrawals. Second, the magnitude of contagion is higher for banks with weaker fundamentals. Third, interbank linkages among surviving banks further propagate the shock. Finally, we find results suggesting that there are real economic effects. These results suggest that interbank linkages act as an important channel of contagion and hold important policy implications. JEL Classification: G21, G28, E58Bank runs, banking crisis, Contagion, Deposit Insurance, Interbank Market, liquidity dry-ups, macro-prudential analysis, systemic risk, wholesale depositors

Ex Post (In) Efficient Negotiation and Breakdown of Trade

This paper examines frictions in contract renegotiation and its implications for allocative efficiency of contracts. Using a novel audit study methodology, we find that contracting parties in general are reluctant to engage in hold up. However, many efficient renegotiations of contracts also do not happen for the fear of being seen as extracting surplus. We also find that ex ante contracts are structured to mitigate losses arising from breach risk rather than hold up. The results also highlight that role of norms of fairness and reputation concerns in sustaining transactions in settings where contracts are primarily incomplete

Understanding Bank Runs: The Importance of Depositor-Bank Relationships and Networks

We use a unique, new, database to examine micro depositor level data for a bank that faced a run. We use minute-by-minute depositor withdrawal data to understand the effectiveness of deposit insurance, the role of social networks, and the importance of bank-depositor relationships in influencing depositor propensity to run. We employ methods from the epidemiology literature which examine how diseases spread to estimate transmission probabilities of depositors running, and the significant underlying factors. We find that deposit insurance is only partially effective in preventing bank runs. Further, our results suggest that social network effects are important but are mitigated by other factors, in particular the length and depth of the bank-depositor relationship. Depositors with longer relationships and those who have availed of loans from a bank are less likely to run during a crisis, suggesting that cross-selling acts not just as a revenue generator but also as a complementary insurance mechanism for the bank. Finally, we find there are long term effects of a solvent bank run in that depositors who run do not return back to the bank. Our results help understand the underlying dynamics of bank runs and hold important policy implications.

Screening in New Credit Markets: Can Individual Lenders Infer Borrower Creditworthiness in Peer-to-Peer Lending?

The current banking crisis highlights the challenges faced in the traditional lending model, particularly in terms of screening smaller borrowers. The recent growth in online peer-to-peer lending marketplaces offers opportunities to examine different lending models that rely on screening by multiple peers. This paper evaluates the screening ability of lenders in such peer-to-peer markets. Our methodology takes advantage of the fact that lenders do not observe a borrower's true credit score but only see an aggregate credit category. We find that lenders are able to use available information to infer a third of the variation in creditworthiness that is captured by a borrower's credit score. This inference is economically significant and allows lenders to lend at a 140-basis-points lower rate for borrowers with (unobserved to lenders) better credit scores within a credit category. While lenders infer the most from standard banking "hard" information, they also use non-standard (subjective) information. Our methodology shows, without needing to code subjective information that lenders learn even from such "softer" information, particularly when it is likely to provide credible signals regarding borrower creditworthiness. Our findings highlight the screening ability of peer-to-peer markets and suggest that these emerging markets may provide a viable complement to traditional lending markets, especially for smaller borrowers.

Screening in New Credit Markets: Can Individual Lenders Infer Borrower Creditworthiness in Peer-to-Peer Lending?

The current banking crisis highlights the challenges faced in the traditional lending model, particularly in terms of screening smaller borrowers. The recent growth in online peer-to-peer lending marketplaces offers opportunities to examine different lending models that rely on screening by multiple peers. This paper evaluates the screening ability of lenders in such peer-to-peer markets. Our methodology takes advantage of the fact that lenders do not observe a borrower’s true credit score but only see an aggregate credit category. We find that lenders are able to use available information to infer a third of the variation in creditworthiness that is captured by a borrower’s credit score. This inference is economically significant and allows lenders to lend at a 140-basis-points lower rate for borrowers with (unobserved to lenders) better credit scores within a credit category. While lenders infer the most from standard banking “hard” information, they also use non-standard (subjective) information. Our methodology shows, without needing to code subjective information that lenders learn even from such “softer” information, particularly when it is likely to provide credible signals regarding borrower creditworthiness. Our findings highlight the screening ability of peer-to-peer markets and suggest that these emerging markets may provide a viable complement to traditional lending markets, especially for smaller borrowers

Screening Peers Softly: Inferring the Quality of Small Borrowers

The recent banking crisis highlights the challenges faced in credit intermediation. New online peer-to-peer lending markets offer opportunities to examine lending models that primarily cater to small borrowers and that generate more types of information on which to screen. This paper evaluates screening in a peer-to-peer market where lenders observe both standard financial information and soft, or nonstandard, information about borrower quality. Our methodology takes advantage of the fact that while lenders do not observe a borrower’s exact credit score, we do. We find that lenders are able to predict default with 45% greater accuracy than what is achievable based on just the borrower’s credit score, the traditional measure of creditworthiness used by banks. We further find that lenders effectively use nonstandard or soft information and that such information is relatively more important when screening borrowers of lower credit quality. In addition to estimating the overall inference of creditworthiness, we also find that lenders infer a third of the variation in the dimension of creditworthiness that is captured by the credit score. This credit-score inference relies primarily upon standard hard information, but still draws relatively more from softer or less standard information when screening lower-quality borrowers. Our results highlight the importance of screening mechanisms that rely on soft information, especially in settings targeted at smaller borrowers.

Securities trading by banks and credit supply: Micro-evidence from the crisis

We analyze securities trading by banks during the crisis and the associated spillovers to the supply of credit. We use a proprietary data set that has the investments of banks at the security level for 2005–2012 in conjunction with the credit register from Germany. We find that—during the crisis—banks with higher trading expertise (trading banks) increase their investments in securities, especially in those that had a larger price drop, with the strongest impact in low-rated and long-term securities. Moreover, trading banks reduce their credit supply, and the credit crunch is binding at the firm level. All of the effects are more pronounced for trading banks with higher capital levels. Finally, banks use central bank liquidity and government subsidies like public recapitalization and implicit guarantees mainly to support trading of securities. Overall, our results suggest an externality arising from fire sales in securities markets on credit supply via the trading behavior of banks