To Invest or Not to Invest, That Is the Question: Analysis of Firm Behavior under Anticipated Shocks
Dejan Kovač, Nikola Kleut, Boris Podobnik, Vuk Vukovic
Plos One,
No. 8,
2016
Abstract
When companies are faced with an upcoming and expected economic shock some of them tend to react better than others. They adapt by initiating investments thus successfully weathering the storm, while others, even though they possess the same information set, fail to adopt the same business strategy and eventually succumb to the crisis. We use a unique setting of the recent financial crisis in Croatia as an exogenous shock that hit the country with a time lag, allowing the domestic firms to adapt. We perform a survival analysis on the entire population of 144,000 firms in Croatia during the period from 2003 to 2015, and test whether investment prior to the anticipated shock makes firms more likely to survive the recession. We find that small and micro firms, which decided to invest, had between 60 and 70% higher survival rates than similar firms that chose not to invest. This claim is supported by both non-parametric and parametric tests in the survival analysis. From a normative perspective this finding could be important in mitigating the negative effects on aggregate demand during strong recessionary periods.
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Did TARP Distort Competition Among Sound Unsupported Banks?
Michael Koetter, Felix Noth
Economic Inquiry,
No. 2,
2016
Abstract
This study investigates if the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) distorted price competition in U.S. banking. Political indicators reveal bailout expectations after 2009, manifested as beliefs about the predicted probability of receiving equity support relative to failing during the TARP disbursement period. In addition, the TARP affected the competitive conduct of unsupported banks after the program stopped in the fourth quarter of 2009. Loan rates were higher, and the risk premium required by depositors was lower for banks with higher bailout expectations. The interest margins of unsupported banks increased in the immediate aftermath of the TARP disbursement but not after 2010. No effects emerged for loan or deposit growth, which suggests that protected banks did not increase their market shares at the expense of less protected banks.
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Structural Reforms in Banking: The Role of Trading
Jan Pieter Krahnen, Felix Noth, Ulrich Schüwer
Abstract
In the wake of the recent financial crisis, significant regulatory actions have been taken aimed at limiting risks emanating from trading in bank business models. Prominent reform proposals are the Volcker Rule in the U.S., the Vickers Report in the UK, and, based on the Liikanen proposal, the Barnier proposal in the EU. A major element of these reforms is to separate “classical” commercial banking activities from securities trading activities, notably from proprietary trading. While the reforms are at different stages of implementation, there is a strong ongoing discussion on what possible economic consequences are to be expected. The goal of this paper is to look at the alternative approaches of these reform proposals and to assess their likely consequences for bank business models, risk-taking and financial stability. Our conclusions can be summarized as follows: First, the focus on a prohibition of only proprietary trading, as envisaged in the current EU proposal, is inadequate. It does not necessarily reduce risk-taking and it likely crowds out desired trading activities, thereby negatively affecting financial stability. Second, there is potentially a better solution to limit excessive trading risk at banks in terms of potential welfare consequences: Trading separation into legally distinct or ring-fenced entities within the existing banking organizations. This kind of separation limits cross-subsidies between banking and proprietary trading and diminishes contagion risk, while still allowing for synergies across banking, non-proprietary trading and proprietary trading.
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Asymmetric Investment Responses to Firm-specific Uncertainty
Julian Berner, Manuel Buchholz, Lena Tonzer
Abstract
This paper analyzes how firm-specific uncertainty affects firms’ propensity to invest. We measure firm-specific uncertainty as firms’ absolute forecast errors derived from survey data of German manufacturing firms over 2007–2011. In line with the literature, our empirical findings reveal a negative impact of firm-specific uncertainty on investment. However, further results show that the investment response is asymmetric, depending on the size and direction of the forecast error. The investment propensity declines significantly if the realized situation is worse than expected. However, firms do not adjust their investment if the realized situation is better than expected, which suggests that the uncertainty effect counteracts the positive effect due to unexpectedly favorable business conditions. This can be one explanation behind the phenomenon of slow recovery in the aftermath of financial crises. Additional results show that the forecast error is highly concurrent with an ex-ante measure of firm-specific uncertainty we obtain from the survey data. Furthermore, the effect of firm-specific uncertainty is enforced for firms that face a tighter financing situation.
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College Choice and the Selection of Mechanisms: A Structural Empirical Analysis
J.-R. Carvalho, T. Magnac, Qizhou Xiong
Abstract
We use rich microeconomic data on performance and choices of students at college entry to study the interaction between the revelation of college preferences through exams and the selection of allocation mechanisms. We propose a method in which preferences and expectations of students are identified from data on choices and multiple exam grades. Counterfactuals we consider balance costs arising from congestion and exam organization. Moving to deferred acceptance or inverting the timing of choices and exams are shown to increase welfare. Redistribution among students or schools is sizeable in all counterfactual experiments.
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16.12.2015 • 45/2015
German Economy: Strong domestic demand compensates for weak exports
The upturn of the German economy is expected to gain further momentum as a consequence of strong domestic demand. Real gross domestic product is expected to increase by 1.6% in 2016. Consumer prices are expected to rise by 0.9%. Unemployment is expected to rise slightly because it will take time to integrate refugees into the labour market.
Oliver Holtemöller
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03.12.2015 • 44/2015
Migration Affects Labour Market in Eastern Germany
Migration increasingly affects the labour market in Eastern Germany, having effects on employment and unemployment figures as well as the number of recipients of social assistance benefits under the SGB II regulations. Particularly with countries in Middle and Eastern Europe, countries affected by the European debt and confidence crisis and with people seeking asylum, there are large increases meeting the dimensions in Western Germany. However, migrants overall still form a significantly smaller percentage of the population and other labour market parameters in Eastern Germany, since migration was a lot stronger in Western Germany during the last decades. While on the short run negative effects on unemployment have to be expected, there are also chances, in the medium- and long-term, to soften the expectable demographic problems, if integration and qualification are supported.
Oliver Holtemöller
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