Banking risks around the world - the implicit safety net subsidy approach

The author calculates gross safety net subsidies for a large sample of banks in 12 countries, to assess the relationship between the risk-taking behavior of banks, and certain ban characteristics. He finds that gross safety net subsidies are higher for banks that have concentrated ownership, that are affiliated with a business group, that are small, or that have high credit growth, and for banks in countries with low GDP per capita, high inflation, or poor quality, and enforcement of the legal system. These findings suggest that the moral hazard behavior of a bank depends on its institutional environment, and its corporate governance structure. The author also presents a matrix that shows estimates of safety net subsidies for a range of given combinations of equity volatilities, and equity-to-deposit ratios. These figures could be used as input to an early warning system, for both individual, and systemic banking problems.Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Environmental Economics&Policies,Hazard Risk Management

Risk and efficiency in East Asian banks

The author uses a linear programming technique (data envelopment analysis) to estimate the inefficiencies of banks in Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, and, Thailand. He applies this technique to the pre-crisis period 1992-96. Assessing a Bank's overall performance requires assessing both efficiency and risk factors, so the author also introduces a measure of risk taking. This risk measure helps predict which banks were restructured after the crisis of 1997. The author finds that foreign-owned banks took little risk relative to other banks in East Asia, and that family-owned and company-owned banks were among the highest-risk takers. Banks restructured after the 1997 crisis had excessive credit growth, were mostly family-owned or company-owned, and were almost never foreign-owned.Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Financial Intermediation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banking Law

The political economy of deposit insurance

The author uses a political economy framework to analyze cross-country differences in deposit insurance coverage. He finds supporting evidence of the significance of private interest theories in explaining coverage of deposit insurance. Deposit insurance coverage is significantly higher in countries where poorly capitalized banks dominate the market and in countries where depositors are poorly educated. The author does not find that coverage is significantly related to political-institutional variables, such as the degree of democracy or restraints on the executive, or to proxies for the general level of institutional development, such as per capita income or property rights. These results provide evidence in support of the private interest view, according to which risky banks lobby for extensive coverage.Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Financial Intermediation,Banks&Banking Reform,Insurance&Risk Mitigation,InsuranceLaw,Banks&Banking Reform,Insurance&Risk Mitigation,Insurance Law,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Financial Intermediation

Loan loss provisioning and economic slowdowns : too much, too late?

Only recently has the debate on bank capital regulation devoted specific attention to the role that bank loan loss provisions can play as part of a minimum capital regulatory framework. Several national regulators have adopted or are planning to introduce a cyclically adjustable requirement for loan loss provisions, and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is considering how to provide adequate treatment to provisioning practices within a broad bank capital regulatory framework. The authors contribute to the ongoing debate by exploring the available evidence about bank provisioning practices around the world. They find that in the vast majority of cases banks tend to delay provisioning for bad loans until it is too late-when cyclical downturns have already set in-possibly magnifying the impact of the economic cycle on the income and capital of banks. Notwithstanding the considerable variation in the patterns followed by banks around the world, Laeven and Majnoni find that the size and timing of provisions tend to improve with the level of economic development.International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Banks&Banking Reform,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Banking Law,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Banking Law,Economic Theory&Research,Insurance&Risk Mitigation,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism

Is There a Diversification Discount in Financial Conglomerates?

This paper investigates whether the diversity of activities conducted by financial institutions influences their market valuations. We find that there is a diversification discount: The market values financial conglomerates that engage in multiple activities, e.g., lending and non-lending financial services, lower than if those financial conglomerates were broken into financial intermediaries that specialize in the individual activities. While difficult to identify a single causal factor, the results are consistent with theories that stress intensified agency problems in financial conglomerates that engage in multiple activities and indicate that economies of scope are not sufficiently large to produce a diversification premium.

Financial development, property rights, and growth

The authors analyze how property rights affect the allocation of firms'available resources among different types of assets. In particular, they investigate empirically for a large number of countries whether firms in environments with more secure property rights allocate available resources more toward intangible assets and consequentially grow faster. The authors find that improved asset allocation due to better property rights has an effect on growth in sectoral value added equal to improved access to financing arising from greater financial development. The results are robust, using various samples and specifications, including controlling for growth opportunities.Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Governance Indicators,Real&Intellectual Property Law

The quality of the legal system, firm ownership, andfirm size

Employment in developing countries is disproportionately concentrated in very small firms. The authors examine the extent to which the distribution of firm size is related to the quality of the legal system using data from Mexico. They combine Lucas'(1978) model of firm size with Himmelberg, Hubbard, and Love's (2001) consideration of idiosyncratic risk in a framework in which the distribution of entrepreneurial talent and aversion to idiosyncratic risk combine to determine the optimal size of firms. Their data allows them to focus on the differential impact of the legal system on proprietorships and corporations. Moreover, by focusing on firms in a single country, the data draw attention to the importance of variation in the administration of justice and the enforcement of legal verdicts. The authors find that Mexican states with more effective legal systems have larger firms. A one-standard deviation improvement in the quality of the legal system increases the average firm size by about 10-15 percent. The impact of the legal system is greatest in sectors in which proprietorships dominate. This pattern is consistent with better legal systems increasing the investment of firm owners by reducing the idiosyncratic risk they face. All of these findings are upheld when the authors instrument for institutional variables using the log of indigenous population in 1900 and the active presence of the drug trade in the state.Small Scale Enterprise,Small and Medium Size Enterprises,Banks&Banking Reform,Microfinance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Small Scale Enterprise,Private Participation in Infrastructure,Microfinance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform

Resolution of failed banks by deposit insurers : cross-country evidence

There is a wide cross-country variation in the institutional structure of bank failure resolution, including the role of the deposit insurer. The authors use quantitative analysis for 57 countries and discuss specific country cases to illustrate this variation. Using data for over 1,700 banks across 57 countries, they show that banks in countries where the deposit insurer has the responsibility of intervening failed banks and the power to revoke membership in the deposit insurance scheme are more stable and less likely to become insolvent. Involvement of the deposit insurer in bank failure resolution thus dampens the negative effect that deposit insurance has on banks'risk taking.Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Financial Intermediation,Corporate Law,Insurance&Risk Mitigation

Complex Ownership Structures and Corporate Valuations

The bulk of corporate governance theory examines the agency problems that arise from two extreme ownership structures: 100 percent small shareholders or one large, controlling owner combined with small shareholders. In this paper, we question the empirical validity of this dichotomy. In fact, one-third of publicly listed firms in Europe have multiple large owners, and the market value of firms with multiple blockholders differs from firms with a single large owner and from widely-held firms. Moreover, the relationship between corporate valuations and the distribution of cash-flow rights across multiple large owners is consistent with the predictions of recent theoretical models.

Does judicial efficiency lower the cost of credit:

The authors investigate the effect of judicial efficiency on banks'lending spreads for a large cross section of countries. They measure bank interest rate spreads for 106 countries at an aggregate level, and for 32 countries at the level of individual banks. The authors find that-after controlling for a number of other country characteristics-judicial efficiency, in addition to inflation, is the main driver of interest rate spreads across countries. This suggests that in addition to improving the overall macroeconomic climate in a country, judicial reforms, through a better enforcement of legal contracts, are critical to lowering the cost of financial intermediation for households and firms.Payment Systems&Infrastructure,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Financial Intermediation,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism