The disposition of failed Japanese bank assets: lessons from the U.S. savings and loan crisis

This paper reviews the Japanese experience with “put guarantees” recently offered in the sale of several failed banks. These guarantees, meant to address information asymmetry problems, are shown to create moral hazard problems of their own. In particular, the guarantees make acquiring banks reluctant to accept first-best renegotiations with problem borrowers. These issues also arose in the U.S. Savings and Loan crisis. Regulators in that crisis turned to an alternative guarantee mechanism known as “loss-sharing arrangements,” with apparently positive results. I introduce a formal debt model to examine the conditions determining the relative merits of these guarantees. The results show that both forms of guarantees reduce expected regulator revenues, but that the impact of economic downturns on the relative desirability of the two guarantees is ambiguous. ; Published in FRBSF Economic Review (2002), p 1-15Japan

Financial globalization and monetary policy discipline

The literature appears to have reached a consensus that financial globalization has had a "disciplining effect" on monetary policy, as it has reduced the returns from--and hence the temptation for--using monetary policy to stabilize output. As a result, monetary policy over recent years has placed more emphasis on stabilizing inflation, resulting in reduced inflation and greater output stability. However, this consensus has not been accompanied by convincing empirical evidence that such a relationship exists. One reason is likely to be that de facto measures of financial globalization are endogenous, and that instruments for financial globalization are elusive. In this paper, I introduce a new instrument, financial remoteness, as a plausibly exogenous instrument for financial openness. I examine the relationship between financial globalization and median inflation levels over an 11 year cross-section from 1994 through 2004, as well as a panel of 5-year median inflation levels between 1980 and 2004. The results confirm a negative relationship between median inflation and financial globalization in the base specification, but this relationship is sensitive to the inclusion of conditioning variables or country fixed effects, precluding any strong inferences.Monetary policy ; Inflation (Finance) ; Globalization

Financial development and growth: are the APEC nations unique?

This paper examines panel evidence concerning the role of financial development in economic growth. I decompose the well-documented relationship between financial development and growth to examine whether financial development affects growth solely through its contribution to growth in factor accumulation rates, or whether it also has a positive impact on total factor productivity, in the manner of Benhabib and Spiegel (2000). I also examine whether the growth performances of a subsample of APEC countries are uniquely sensitive to levels of financial development. The results suggest that indicators of financial development are correlated with both total factor productivity growth and investment. However, many of the results are sensitive to the inclusion of country fixed effects, which may indicate that the financial development indicators are proxying for broader country characteristics. Finally, the APEC subsample countries appear to be more sensitive to financial development, both in the determinations of subsequent total factor productivity growth and in rates of factor accumulation, particularly accumulation of physical capital.Economic development ; Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Organization)

Bank charter value and the viability of the Japanese convoy system

This paper compares the performance of a convoy banking system, similar to that which prevailed in Japan, to a fixed-premium deposit insurance regime. Under this system, failed banks are merged with healthy banks, rather than closed, so that the banking system itself provides the safety net for guaranteed deposits. While neither regime is generally preferable over the other, the results show that the performance of the convoy system is more sensitive to changes in bank charter values and the overall health of the banking system. The recent breakdown of the convoy system may therefore be partly attributable to adverse changes in these characteristics in the Japanese banking system.Banks and banking - Japan

Threshold effects in international lending

The author's dynamic model of international borrowing subject to credit constraint was developed for an economy with increasing returns to physical capital. Increases in the capital stock within the nonconvex range increase debtor borrowing opportunities. Conversely, a temporary liquidity shock may permanently lower the economy's growth path. Introducing aggregate nonconvexities also has different implications for policy on debt overhangs. In particular, the model allows for rational relending by creditors. It also predicts that new money ( or interest capitalization ) is in the interest of creditors and will be part of a debt restructuring strategy - as it was recently for Mexico and the Philippines.Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Growth,Environmental Economics&Policies,Housing Finance

The role of relative performance in bank closure decisions

This paper studies a competitive banking industry subject to common and idiosyncratic shocks. The induced correlation across bank portfolio returns can be used by a regulator to improve inferences about bank portfolio choices. We compare two types of closure rules: (1) an 'absolute closure rule', which closes banks when their own individual asset/liability ratios fall below a given threshold, and (2) a 'relative closure rule', which closes banks when their asset/liability ratios fall below the industry average by a given amount. ; Two main results emerge from the model. First, a relative closure rule implies forbearance during 'bad times', defined as adverse realizations of the common shock. This forbearance occurs for incentive reasons, not because of irreversibilities or political economy considerations. Second, a relative closure rule is less costly to taxpayers, and the cost savings increase with the relative variance of the common shock. ; To evaluate the model, we estimate a panel-logit regression using a sample of U.S. commercial banks for the period 1992 through 1997. We find strong evidence that U.S. bank closures are based on relative performance. Individual and average asset/liability ratios are both significant predictors of bank closure, and their coefficient estimates are consistent with the theory. We conclude that relative performance is a valuable input to bank closure decisions, and that U.S. bank regulators seem to be aware of this.Bank failures

Financial turbulence and the Japanese main bank

The Japanese "main bank" relationship, under which a bank holds equity in a firm and plays a leading role in its decision-making and financing, may leave a firm dependent on its main bank for financing due its information advantage over other potential lenders. While alternative sources of finance may mitigate this dependency, it may resurface during episodes of financial turbulence. ; We examine the sensitivity of returns on portfolios of Japanese firm equity to the returns of their main banks using a three-factor arbitrage-pricing model. We find no significant dependence on main bank returns when coefficient values are constrained to remain constant over the entire sample. However, the data strongly suggest a structural break subsequent to the last quarter of 1997, a turbulent period for Japanese financial markets. When a structural break is introduced, main bank sensitivity increases after the break, usually to significantly positive levels.Banks and banking - Japan ; Finance

Moderate inflation and the deflation-depression link

In a recent paper, Atkeson and Kehoe (2004) demonstrated the lack of a robust empirical relationship between inflation and growth for a cross-section of countries with 19th and 20th century data, concluding that the historical evidence only provides weak support for the contention that deflation episodes are harmful to economic growth. In this paper, we revisit this relationship by allowing for inflation and growth to have a nonlinear specification dependent on inflation levels. In particular, we allow for the possibility that high inflation is negatively correlated with growth, while a positive relationship exists over the range of negative-to-moderate inflation. Our results confirm a positive relationship between inflation and growth at moderate inflation levels, and support the contention that the relationship between inflation and growth is non-linear over the entire sample range.Inflation (Finance)