The Impact of Competition on Bank Orientation and Specialization (new titel: The impact of competition on bank orientation)

How do banks react to increased interbank competition? Recent banking theory offers conflicting predictions about the impact of competition on bank orientation - i.e., the choice of relationship based versus transactional banking - and bank industry specialization. We empirically investigate the impact of interbank competition on bank branch orientation and specialization. We employ a unique data set containing detailed information on bank-firm relationships and industry classification. We find that bank branches facing stiff local competition engage relatively more in relationship-based lending but specialize somewhat less in a particular industry. Our results illustrate that competition and relationships are not necessarily inimical.bank orientation, bank industry specialization, competition, lending relationships

Financial integration and entrepreneurial activity: evidence from foreign bank entry in emerging markets

An extensive empirical literature has documented the positive growth effects of equity market liberalization. However, this line of research ignores the impact of financial integration on a category of firms crucial for economic development, i.e. the small entrepreneurial firms. This paper aims to fill this void. We employ a large panel containing almost 60,000 firm–year observations on listed and unlisted companies in Eastern European economies to assess the differential impact of foreign bank lending on firm growth and financing. Foreign lending stimulates growth in firm sales, assets, and leverage, but the effect is dampened for small firms. We also find that firms started during the transition period of 1989-1993 – arguably the most connected businesses – benefit least from foreign bank entry. This finding suggests that foreign banks can help mitigate connected lending problems and improve capital allocation. JEL Classification: G21, L11, L14competition, emerging markets, foreign bank lending, lending relationships

Distance, Lending Relationships, and Competition

A recent string of theoretical papers highlights the importance of geographical distance in explaining pricing and availability of loans to small firms. Lenders located in the vicinity of small firms have significantly lower monitoring and transaction costs, and hence considerable market power if competing financiers are located relatively far. We directly study the effect on loan conditions of the geographical distance between firms, the lending bank, and all other banks in the vicinity. For our study, we employ detailed contract information from more than 15,000 bank loans to small firms and control for relevant relationship, loan contract, bank branch, firm, and regional characteristics. We report the first comprehensive evidence on the occurrence of spatial price discrimination in bank lending. Loan rates decrease in the distance between the firm and the lending bank and increase similarly in the distance between the firm and competing banks. Both effects are statistically significant and economically relevant, are robust to changes in model specifications and variable definitions, and are seemingly not driven by the modest changes over time in lending technology we infer.spatial price discrimination, bank credit, lending relationships

Bank loan announcements and borrower stock returns: does bank origin matter?

Banks play a special role as providers of informative signals about the quality and value of their borrowers. Such signals, however, may have a quality of their own as the banks’ selection and monitoring abilities may differ. Using an event study methodology, we study the importance of the geographical origin and organization of the banks for the investors’ assessments of firms’ credit quality and economic worth following loan announcements. Our sample comprises 986 announcements of bank loans to U.S. firms over the period of 1980- 2003. We find that investors react positively to such announcements if the loans are made by foreign or local banks, but not if the loans are made by banks that are located outside the firm’s headquarters state. Investor reaction is, in fact, the largest when the bank is foreign. Our evidence suggest that investors value relationships with more competitive and skilled banks rather than banks that have easier access to private information about the firms. These results are applicable also to the European markets where regulatory and economic borders do not coincide and bank identities and reputation seem to matter a great deal. JEL Classification: G21, G32, H11, D80bank organization, bank origin, loan announcement return, relationship banking

The Impact of Technology and Regulation on the Geographical Scope of Banking

We review how technological advances and changes in regulation may shape the (future) geographical scope of banking. We first review how both physical distance and the presence of borders currently affect bank lending conditions (loan pricing and credit availability) and market presence (branching and servicing). Next we discuss how technology and regulation have altered this impact and analyse the current state of the European banking sector. We discuss both theoretical contributions and empirical work and highlight open questions along the way. We draw three main lessons from the current theoretical and empirical literature: (1) Bank lending to small businesses in Europe may be characterized both by (local) spatial pricing and resilient (regional and/or national) market segmentation; (2) Because of informational asymmetries in the retail market, bank mergers and acquisitions seem the optimal route of entering another market, long before cross-border servicing or direct entry are economically feasible; (3) Current technological and regulatory developments may to a large extent remain impotent in further dismantling the various residual but mutually reinforcing frictions in the retail banking markets in Europe. We conclude the paper by offering pertinent policy recommendations based on these three lessons.geographical scope, banking, lending relationships, technology, and regulation.

Interbank market integration, loan rates, and firm leverage

We study the effect of interbank market integration on small firm finance in the build-up to the 2007-2008 financial crisis. We use a comprehensive data set that contains contract terms on individual loans to 6,047 firms across 14 European countries between 1998:01 and 2005:12. We account for the selection that arises in the loan request and approval process. Our findings imply that integration of interbank markets resulted in less stringent borrowing constraints and in substantially lower loan rates. The decrease was strongest in markets with competitive banking sectors. We also find that in the most rapidly integrating markets, firms became substantially overleveraged during the build-up to the crisis. JEL Classification: E51, G15, G21, G34Bank competition, firm leverage, Interbank markets, loan rates, selection

Empirical Evidence on the Duration of Bank Relationships

We present evidence on the duration of firm-bank relationships using a unique panel data set of connections between Oslo Stock Exchange-listed firms and their banks for the period 1979-1994. We focus on the determinants of the duration of a relationship and the causes for ending an existing bank relationship. We find that duration itself does not greatly influence the likelihood of ending a relationship: short-lived relationships are as likely to end as long-lived relationships. We also find firms that maintain simultaneous multiple-bank relationships are more likely to end a bank relationship than a single-bank firm and that small, highly-leveraged "growth" firms are more likely to end a bank relationship than large, low-leveraged "value" firms.banking relationships, hazard models, duration analysis JEL Codes: G21, C41

Rules versus Discretion in Loan Rate Setting

We propose a heteroscedastic regression model to identify the determinants of the dispersion in interest rates on loans granted to small and medium sized enterprises. We interpret unexplained deviations as evidence of the banks’ discretionary use of market power in the loan rate setting process. “Discretion” in the loan-pricing process is most important, we find, if: (i) loans are small and uncollateralized; (ii) firms are small, risky and difficult to monitor; (iii) firms’ owners are older, and, (iv) the banking market where the firm operates is large and highly concentrated. We also find that the weight of “discretion” in loan rates of small credits to opaque firms has decreased somewhat over the last fifteen years, consistent with the proliferation of information-technologies in the banking industry. Overall, our results reflect the relevance in the credit market of the costs firms face in searching information and switching lenders.financial intermediation. loan rates, price discrimination, variance analysis

Distressed relationships: lessons from the Norwegian banking crisis

This paper measures the economy-wide impact of bank distress on the loss of relationship benefits. We use the near-collapse of the Norwegian banking system during the period 1988 to 1991 to measure the impact of bank distress announcements on the stock prices of firms maintaining a relationship with a distressed bank. We find that although banks experience large and permanent downward revisions in their equity value during the event period, firms maintaining relationships with these banks face only small and temporary changes, on average, in stock price. In other words, the aggregate impact of bank distress on the real economy appears small. We analyze the cross-sectional variation in firm abnormal returns and find that firms that maintain international bank relationships suffer more upon announcement of bank distress

Rules versus discretion in loan rate setting

We propose a heteroscedastic regression model to identify the determinants of the dispersion in interest rates on loans granted to small and medium sized enterprises. We interpret unexplained deviations as evidence of the banks’ discretionary use of market power in the loan rate setting process. “Discretion” in the loan-pricing process is most important, we find, if: (i) loans are small and uncollateralized; (ii) firms are small, risky and difficult to monitor; (iii) firms’ owners are older, and, (iv) the banking market where the firm operates is large and highly concentrated. We also find that the weight of “discretion” in loan rates of small credits to opaque firms has decreased somewhat over the last fifteen years, consistent with the proliferation of information-technologies in the banking industry. Overall, our results reflect the relevance in the credit market of the costs firms face in searching information and switching lenders.financial intermediation, loan rates, price discrimination, variance analysis.