Mind the Gap: The Difference Between U.S. and European Loan Rates
Tobias Berg, Anthony Saunders, Sascha Steffen, Daniel Streitz
Review of Financial Studies,
No. 3,
2017
Abstract
We analyze pricing differences between U.S. and European syndicated loans over the 1992–2014 period. We explicitly distinguish credit lines from term loans. For credit lines, U.S. borrowers pay significantly higher spreads, but lower fees, resulting in similar total costs of borrowing in both markets. Credit line usage is more cyclical in the United States, which provides a rationale for the pricing structure difference. For term loans, we analyze the channels of the cross-country loan price differential and document the importance of: the composition of term loan borrowers and the loan supply by institutional investors and foreign banks.
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International Banking and Cross-Border Effects of Regulation: Lessons from Canada
H. Evren Damar, Adi Mordel
International Journal of Central Banking,
No. 1,
2017
Abstract
We study how changes in prudential requirements affect cross-border lending of Canadian banks by utilizing an index that aggregates adjustments in key regulatory instruments across jurisdictions. We show that when a destination country tightens local prudential measures, Canadian banks increase the growth rate of lending to that jurisdiction, and the effect is particularly significant when capital requirements are tightened and weaker if banks lend mainly via affiliates. Our evidence also suggests that Canadian banks adjust foreign lending in response to domestic regulatory changes. The results confirm the presence of heterogeneous spillover effects of foreign prudential requirements.
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Structural Reforms in Banking: The Role of Trading
Jan Pieter Krahnen, Felix Noth, Ulrich Schüwer
Journal of Financial Regulation,
No. 1,
2017
Abstract
In the wake of the recent financial crisis, significant regulatory actions have been taken aimed at limiting risks emanating from banks’ trading activities. The goal of this article is to look at the alternative reforms in the US, the UK and the EU, specifically with respect to the role of proprietary trading. Our conclusions can be summarized as follows: First, the focus on a prohibition of proprietary trading, as reflected in the Volcker Rule in the US and in the current proposal of the European Commission (Barnier proposal), is inadequate. It does not necessarily reduce risk-taking and it is likely to crowd out desired trading activities, thereby possibly affecting financial stability negatively. Second, trading separation into legally distinct or ring-fenced entities within the existing banking organizations, as suggested under the Vickers proposal for the UK and the Liikanen proposal for the EU, is a more effective solution. Separation limits cross-subsidies between banking and proprietary trading and diminishes contagion risk, while still allowing for synergies and risk management across banking, non-proprietary trading, and proprietary trading.
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International Banking and Cross-border Effects of Regulation: Lessons from Germany
Jana Ohls, Markus Pramor, Lena Tonzer
International Journal of Central Banking,
Supplement 1, March
2017
Abstract
We analyze the inward and outward transmission of regulatory changes through German banks’ (international) loan portfolio. Overall, our results provide evidence for international spillovers of prudential instruments. These spillovers are, however, quite heterogeneous between types of banks and can only be observed for some instruments. For instance, domestic affiliates of foreign-owned global banks reduce their loan growth to the German economy in response to a tightening of sector-specific capital buffers, local reserve requirements, and loan-to-value ratios in their home country. Furthermore, from the point of view of foreign countries, tightening reserve requirements is effective in reducing lending inflows from German banks. Finally, we find that business and financial cycles matter for lending decisions.
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Assessing the Effects of Regulatory Bank Levies
Claudia M. Buch, Lena Tonzer, Benjamin Weigert
VOX CEPR's Policy Portal,
2017
Abstract
In response to the Global Crisis, governments have implemented restructuring and resolution regimes backed by funds financed by bank levies. Bank levies aim to internalise system risk externalities and to provide funding for bank recovery and resolution. This column explores bank levy design by considering the German and European cases. The discussion points to the importance of structured policy evaluations to determine the effects of levies.
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Banks Credit and Productivity Growth
Fadi Hassan, Filippo di Mauro, Gianmarco Ottaviano
ECB Working Paper,
No. 2008,
2017
Abstract
Financial institutions are key to allocate capital to its most productive uses. In order to examine the relationship between productivity and bank credit in the context of different financial market set-ups, we introduce a model of overlapping generations of entrepreneurs under complete and incomplete credit markets. Then, we exploit firm-level data for France, Germany and Italy to explore the relation between bank credit and productivity following the main derivations of the model. We estimate an extended set of elasticities of bank credit with respect to a series of productivity measures of firms. We focus not only on the elasticity between bank credit and productivity during the same year, but also on the elasticity between credit and future realised productivity. Our estimates show a clear Eurozone core-periphery divide, the elasticities between credit and productivity estimated in France and Germany are consistent with complete markets, whereas in Italy they are consistent with incomplete markets. The implication is that in Italy firms turn to be constrained in their long-term investments and bank credit is allocated less efficiently than in France and Germany. Hence capital misallocation by banks can be a key driver of the long-standing slow productivity growth that characterises Italy and other periphery countries.
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How Do Insured Deposits Affect Bank Risk? Evidence from the 2008 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act
Claudia Lambert, Felix Noth, Ulrich Schüwer
Journal of Financial Intermediation,
January
2017
Abstract
This paper tests whether an increase in insured deposits causes banks to become more risky. We use variation introduced by the U.S. Emergency Economic Stabilization Act in October 2008, which increased the deposit insurance coverage from $100,000 to $250,000 per depositor and bank. For some banks, the amount of insured deposits increased significantly; for others, it was a minor change. Our analysis shows that the more affected banks increase their investments in risky commercial real estate loans and become more risky relative to unaffected banks following the change. This effect is most distinct for affected banks that are low capitalized.
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Bank Response to Higher Capital Requirements: Evidence from a Quasi-natural Experiment
Reint E. Gropp, Thomas Mosk, Steven Ongena, Carlo Wix
Abstract
We study the impact of higher capital requirements on banks’ balance sheets and its transmission to the real economy. The 2011 EBA capital exercise provides an almost ideal quasi-natural experiment, which allows us to identify the effect of higher capital requirements using a difference-in-differences matching estimator. We find that treated banks increase their capital ratios not by raising their levels of equity, but by reducing their credit supply. We also show that this reduction in credit supply results in lower firm-, investment-, and sales growth for firms which obtain a larger share of their bank credit from the treated banks.
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State Aid and Guarantees in Europe
Reint E. Gropp, Lena Tonzer
T. Beck, B. Casu (eds): The Palgrave Handbook of European Banking, London,
2016
Abstract
During the recent financial crisis, governments massively intervened in the banking sector by providing liquidity assistance and capital support to banks in distress. This helped stabilize the financial system in the short run. However, public bailouts also bear the risk of longer-term distortions, for example, by affecting bailout expectations of banks. In this chapter, the authors first provide an overview of state aid interventions during the recent crisis episode. The third section then analyzes the effects of state aid on financial stability from a theoretical view. This is followed by the description of results obtained from empirical studies. The link between the provision of state aid and politics is discussed in the section “Institutional Design and Policy Implications”. Finally, in the section “The European Banking Union” the authors describe the elements of the European Banking Union meant to resolve and restructure banks in distress and to lower the need for public intervention. Based on the preceding analysis, conclusions are drawn regarding the new design.
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