Sovereign Credit Risk, Banks' Government Support, and Bank Stock Returns around the World: Discussion of Correa, Lee, Sapriza, and Suarez
Reint E. Gropp
Journal of Money, Credit and Banking,
s1
2014
Abstract
In the years leading up to the 2008–09 financial crisis, many banks around the world greatly expanded their balance sheets to take advantage of cheap and abundantly available funding. Access to international funding markets, in particular, made it possible for banks to reach a size that in some cases was a large multiple of their home countries’ gross domestic product (GDP). In Iceland, for example, assets of the banking system reached up to 900% of GDP in 2007. Similarly, by the end of 2008, assets in UK and Swiss banks exceeded 500% of their countries’ GDPs, respectively. Banks may also have grown rapidly because they may have wanted to reach too-big-to-fail status in their country, implying even lower funding cost (Penas and Unal 2004).
The depth and severity of the 2008–09 financial crisis and the subsequent debt crisis in Europe, however, have cast doubts on the ability of governments to bail out banks when they experience severe difficulties, in particular, in financially fragile environments and faced with large budget imbalances. This has resulted in as what some observers have dubbed a “doom loop”: the combination of weak public finances and weak banks results in a vicious cycle, in which the funding cost of banks increases, as the ability of governments to bail out banks is called into question, in turn increasing the funding cost of these banks and making the likelihood that the government will actually have to step in even higher, which in turn increases funding cost to the government and so forth.
Against this background, the paper by Correa et al. (2014) explores the link between sovereign rating changes and bank stock returns. They show large negative reactions of stock returns in response to sovereign ratings downgrades for banks that are expected to receive government support in case of failure. They find the strongest effects in developed economies, where the credibility of government bail outs is higher ex ante, while the effects are smaller in developing and emerging economies. In my view, the paper makes a number of important contributions to the extant literature.
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The Impact of Institutional and Social Characteristics on Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from Japan
Stefan Eichler, Alexander Karmann, N. Lucke
Annals of Financial Economics,
No. 2,
2013
Abstract
We examine the determinants of Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) focusing on institutional and social factors. Using panel data on 59 countries from 1995 to 2008, we find that host countries with free and open markets and greater cultural distance from Japan attract Japanese FDI. Good institutions, such as a well-developed legal framework and an effective government, are important in promoting Japanese FDI to emerging economies, whereas fewer regulatory restrictions, lower tax burden, and more religious diversity attract Japanese FDI to developed countries. We find that corruption stimulates Japanese FDI to developed countries, which is contrary to most previous research.
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The Ex Ante versus Ex Post Effect of Public Guarantees
H. Evren Damar, Reint E. Gropp, Adi Mordel
D. Evanoff, C. Holthausen, G. Kaufman and M. Kremer (eds), The Role of Central Banks in Financial Stability: How has it Changed? World Scientific Studies in International Economics 30,
2013
Abstract
In October 2006, Dominion Bond Rating Service (DBRS) introduced new ratings for banks that account for the potential of government support. The rating changes are not a reflection of any changes in the respective banks’ credit fundamentals. We use this natural experiment to evaluate the consequences of bail out expectations for bank behavior using a difference in differences approach. The results suggest a striking difference between the effects of bail out probabilities during calm times (“ex ante”) versus during crisis times (“ex post”). During calm times, higher bail-out probabilities result in higher risk taking, consistent with the moral hazard view and much of the empirical literature. However, in crisis times, we find that banks with higher bail out probabilities tend to increase their risk taking less compared to banks that were ex ante unlikely to be bailed-out. Charter values are one part of the explanation: Supported banks may have a funding advantage relative to non-supported banks during the crisis. However, we cannot rule out that other factors also may be playing a role, including tighter supervision of supported banks in crisis times.
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Sovereign Default Risk and Decentralization: Evidence for Emerging Markets
Stefan Eichler, M. Hofmann
European Journal of Political Economy,
No. 32,
2013
Abstract
We study the impact of decentralization on sovereign default risk. Theory predicts that decentralization deteriorates fiscal discipline since subnational governments undertax/overspend, anticipating that, in the case of overindebtedness, the federal government will bail them out. We analyze whether investors account for this common pool problem by attaching higher sovereign yield spreads to more decentralized countries. Using panel data on up to 30 emerging markets in the period 1993–2008 we confirm this hypothesis. Higher levels of fiscal and political decentralization increase sovereign default risk. Moreover, higher levels of intergovernmental transfers and a larger number of veto players aggravate the common pool problem.
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Banks and Sovereign Risk: A Granular View
Claudia M. Buch, Michael Koetter, Jana Ohls
Abstract
In this paper, we use detailed data on the sovereign debt holdings of all German banks to analyse the determinants of sovereign debt exposures and the implications of sovereign exposures for bank risk. Our main findings are as follows. First, sovereign bond holdings are heterogeneous across banks. Larger, weakly capitalised banks and banks with a small depositor base hold more sovereign bonds. Around 31% of all German banks hold no sovereign bonds at all. Second, the sensitivity of banks to macroeconomic factors increased significantly in the post-Lehman period. Banks hold more bonds from euro area countries, from low-inflation countries, and from countries with high sovereign bond yields. Third, there has been no marked impact of sovereign bond holdings on bank risk. This result could indicate the widespread absence of marking-to-market for sovereign bond holdings at the onset of the sovereign debt crisis in Europe.
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Flight Patterns and Yields of European Government Bonds
Gregor von Schweinitz
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 10,
2013
Abstract
The current European Debt Crisis has led to a reinforced effort to identify the sources of risk and their influence on yields of European Government Bonds. Until now, the potentially nonlinear influence and the theoretical need for interactions reflecting flight-to-quality and flight-to-liquidity has been widely disregarded. I estimate government bond yields of the Euro-12 countries without Luxembourg from May 2003 until December 2011. Using penalized spline regression, I find that the effect of most explanatory variables is highly nonlinear. These nonlinearities, together with flight patterns of flight-to-quality and flight-to-liquidity, can explain the co-movement of bond yields until September 2008 and the huge amount of differentiation during the financial and the European debt crisis without the unnecessary assumption of a structural break. The main effects are credit risk and flight-to-liquidity, while the evidence for the existence of flight-to-quality and liquidity risk (the latter measured by the bid-ask spread and total turnover of bonds) is comparably weak.
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The Term Structure of Sovereign Default Risk in EMU Member Countries and Its Determinants
Stefan Eichler, Dominik Maltritz
Journal of Banking and Finance,
No. 6,
2013
Abstract
We analyze the determinants of sovereign default risk of EMU member states using government bond yield spreads as risk indicators. We focus on default risk for different time spans indicated by spreads for different maturities. Using a panel framework we analyze whether there are different drivers of default risk for different maturities. We find that lower economic growth and larger openness increase default risk for all maturities. Higher indebtedness only increases short-term risk, whereas net lending, trade balance and interest rate costs only drive long-term default risk.
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Islamic Finance in Europe
Pierluigi Caristi, Stéphane Couderc, Angela di Maria, Filippo di Mauro, Beljeet Kaur Grewal, Lauren Ho, Sergio Masciantonio, Steven Ongena, Sajjad Zaher
ECB Occasional Paper,
No. 146,
2013
Abstract
Islamic finance is based on ethical principles in line with Islamic religious law. Despite its low share of the global financial market, Islamic finance has been one of this sector's fastest growing components over the last decades and has gained further momentum in the wake of the financial crisis. The paper examines the development of and possible prospects for Islamic finance, with a special focus on Europe. It compares Islamic and conventional finance, particularly as concerns risks associated with the operations of respective institutions, as well as corporate governance. The paper also analyses empirical evidence comparing Islamic and conventional financial institutions with regard to their: (i) efficiency and profitability; and (ii) stability and resilience. Finally, the paper considers the conduct of monetary policy in an Islamic banking context. This is not uncomplicated given the fact that interest rates - normally a cornerstone of monetary policy - are prohibited under Islamic finance. Liquidity management issues are thus discussed here, with particular reference to the euro area.
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Gauging the Effects of Fiscal Stimulus Packages in the Euro Area
Mathias Trabandt, Roland Straub, Günter Coenen
Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control,
No. 2,
2013
Abstract
We seek to quantify the impact on euro area GDP of the European Economic Recovery Plan (EERP) enacted in response to the financial crisis of 2008–2009. To do so, we estimate an extended version of the ECB's New Area-Wide Model with a richly specified fiscal sector. The estimation results point to the existence of important complementarities between private and government consumption and, to a lesser extent, between private and public capital. We first examine the implied present-value multipliers for seven distinct fiscal instruments and show that the estimated complementarities result in fiscal multipliers larger than one for government consumption and investment. We highlight the importance of monetary accommodation for these findings. We then show that the EERP, if implemented as initially enacted, had a sizeable, although short-lived impact on euro area GDP. Since the EERP comprised both revenue and expenditure-based fiscal stimulus measures, the total multiplier is below unity.
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Grant Dependence, Regulation and the Effects of Formula-based Grant Systems on German Local Governments: A Data Report for Saxony-Anhalt
Peter Haug
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 2,
2013
Abstract
Recent empirical studies have found – seemingly − efficiency-enhancing effects of vertical grants on local public service provision. The main purpose of this paper is to prepare an elaborate theoretical and empirical analysis of these contradictory results. Therefore, it investigates if certain fiscal and institutional conditions (fiscal stress, fiscal rank-preserving vertical grant systems, input- and output regulation), that might help to explain these empirical findings, are characteristic of at least some parts of the local government sector or certain regions. The German state of Saxony-Anhalt is chosen for case study purposes. The main results are: First, the local governments suffer from severe fiscal problems such as high grant dependency, low tax revenues and the prevalent inability to finance investments by own resources. Second, the output- and input-regulation density of certain mandatory municipal services (schools, childcare facilities, fire protection) is high. Finally, the most important vertical grant category for local governments, the formula-based grants (“Schlüsselzuweisungen”), can be described as mainly exogenous, unconditional block grants that in most cases preserve the relative fiscal position of the grant recipients.
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