IT Use, Productivity, and Market Power in Banking
Michael Koetter, Felix Noth
Journal of Financial Stability,
No. 4,
2013
Abstract
Information management is a core process in banking that can resolve information asymmetries and thereby help to mitigate competitive pressure. We test if the use of information technology (IT) contributes to bank output, and how IT-augmented bank productivity relates to differences in market power. Detailed bank-level information on the use of IT reveals a substantial upward bias in bank productivity estimates when ignoring banks’ IT expenditures. IT-augmented bank productivity correlates positively with Lerner markups. A mere increase in IT expenditures, however, reduces markups. Results hold across a range of bank output definitions and productivity estimation methods.
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Do Banks Benefit from Internationalization? Revisiting the Market Power–Risk Nexus
Claudia M. Buch, C. T. Koch, Michael Koetter
Review of Finance,
No. 4,
2013
Abstract
We analyze the impact of bank internationalization on domestic market power (Lerner index) and risk for German banks. Risk is measured by the official declaration of regulatory authorities that a bank is distressed. We distinguish the volume of foreign assets, the number of foreign countries, and different modes of foreign entry. Our analysis has three main results. First, higher market power is associated with lower risk. Second, holding assets in many countries reduce market power at home, but banks with a higher share of foreign assets exhibit higher market power. Third, bank internationalization is only weakly related to bank risk.
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Evidence on the Effects of Inflation on Price Dispersion under Indexation
Juliane Scharff, S. Schreiber
Empirical Economics,
No. 1,
2012
Abstract
Distortionary effects of inflation on relative prices are the main argument for inflation stabilization in macro models with sticky prices. Under indexation of non-optimized prices, those models imply a nonlinear and dynamic impact of inflation on the cross-sectional price dispersion (relative price or inflation variability, RPV). Using US sectoral price data, we estimate such a relationship between inflation and RPV, also taking into account the endogeneity of inflation by using two- and three-stage least-squares and GMM techniques, which turns out to be relevant. We find an effect of (expected) inflation on RPV, and our results indicate that average (“trend”) inflation is important for the RPV-inflation relationship. Lagged inflation matters for indexation in the CPI data, but is not important empirically in the PPI data.
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IWH-Bauumfrage im August 2012: Verhaltenere Stimmung am Bau
Brigitte Loose
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 8,
2012
Abstract
Die 300 vom IWH befragten ostdeutschen Bauunternehmen beurteilen ihre Geschäftslage im August leicht und die Geschäftsaussichten deutlich schlechter als in der vorangegangenen Befragung im Juni. Ähnliche Abweichungen ergeben sich im Vorjahresvergleich. Insbesondere fällt der um 13 Saldenpunkte geringere Index für die Aussichten auf, der die bis zum Frühjahr 2013 reichenden Baugeschäfte widerspiegelt.
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29.08.2012 • 29/2012
IWH-Bauumfrage im August 2012: Verhaltenere Stimmung am Bau
Die 300 vom IWH befragten ostdeutschen Bauunternehmen beurteilen ihre Geschäftslage im August leicht und die Geschäftsaussichten deutlich schlechter als in der vorangegangenen Befragung im Juni. Ähnliche Abweichungen ergeben sich im Vorjahresvergleich. Insbesondere fällt der um 13 Saldenpunkte geringere Index für die Aussichten auf, der die bis zum Frühjahr 2013 reichenden Baugeschäfte widerspiegelt. Die aktuelle Geschäftslage wird nur wenig ungünstiger bewertet als noch vor einem Jahr. Da die als Folge des Kälteeinbruchs im Februar notwendigen Aufholarbeiten im Frühsommer abgeschlossen waren, stellen sich die aktuellen Baugeschäfte nun nicht mehr ganz so dynamisch dar. Die auffallend skeptischere Bewertung der Geschäftsaussichten bis zum Frühjahr 2013 dürfte dagegen der Zuspitzung der Krise im Euroraum und der inzwischen weltweiten konjunkturellen Abkühlung geschuldet sein, die aufgrund sinkender Absatzerwartungen vor allem das Investitionsverhalten der Unternehmen negativ beeinflussen dürfte.
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The Role of Securitization in Bank Liquidity and Funding Management
Elena Loutskina
Journal of Financial Economics,
No. 3,
2011
Abstract
This paper studies the role of securitization in bank management. I propose a new index of “bank loan portfolio liquidity” which can be thought of as a weighted average of the potential to securitize loans of a given type, where the weights reflect the composition of a bank loan portfolio. I use this new index to show that by allowing banks to convert illiquid loans into liquid funds, securitization reduces banks' holdings of liquid securities and increases their lending ability. Furthermore, securitization provides banks with an additional source of funding and makes bank lending less sensitive to cost of funds shocks. By extension, the securitization weakens the ability of the monetary authority to affect banks' lending activity but makes banks more susceptible to liquidity and funding crisis when the securitization market is shut down.
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Extreme Risks in Financial Markets and Monetary Policies of the Euro-candidates
Hubert Gabrisch, Lucjan T. Orlowski
Comparative Economic Studies,
No. 4,
2011
Abstract
This study investigates extreme tail risks in financial markets of the euro-candidate countries and their implications for monetary policies. Our empirical tests show the prevalence of extreme risks in the conditional volatility series of selected financial variables, that is, interbank rates, equity market indexes and exchange rates. We argue that excessive instability of key target and instrument variables should be mitigated by monetary policies. Central banks in these countries will be well-advised to use both standard and unorthodox (discretionary) tools of monetary policy while steering their economies out of the financial crisis and through the euro-convergence process.
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The Quantity Theory Revisited: A New Structural Approach
Makram El-Shagi, Sebastian Giesen
Abstract
While the long run relation between money and inflation is well established, empirical evidence on the adjustment to the long run equilibrium is very heterogeneous. In this paper we show, that the development of US consumer price inflation between 1960Q1 and 2005Q4 is strongly driven by money overhang. To this end, we use a multivariate state space framework that substantially expands the traditional vector error correction approach. This approach allows us to estimate the persistent components of velocity and GDP. A sign restriction approach is subsequently used to identify the structural shocks to the signal equations of the state space model, that explain money growth, inflation and GDP growth. We also account for the possibility that measurement error exhibited by simple-sum monetary aggregates causes the consequences of monetary shocks to be improperly identified by using a Divisia monetary aggregate. Our findings suggest that when the money is measured using a reputable index number, the quantity theory holds for the United States.
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Distance Functions for Matching in Small Samples
Eva Dettmann, Christian Schmeißer, Claudia Becker
Computational Statistics & Data Analysis,
No. 5,
2011
Abstract
The development of ‘standards’ for the application of matching algorithms in empirical evaluation studies is still an outstanding goal. The first step of the matching procedure is the choice of an appropriate distance function. In empirical evaluation situations often the sample sizes are small. Moreover, they consist of variables with different scale levels which have to be considered explicitly in the matching process. A simulation is performed which is directed towards these empirical challenges and supplements former studies in this respect. The choice of the analysed distance functions is determined by the results of former theoretical studies and recommendations in the empirical literature. Thus, two balancing scores (the propensity score and the index score) and the Mahalanobis distance are considered. Additionally, aggregated statistical distance functions not yet used for empirical evaluation are included. The matching outcomes are compared using non-parametric scale-specific tests for identical distributions of the characteristics in the treatment and the control groups. The simulation results show that, in small samples, aggregated statistical distance functions are the better choice for summarising similarities in differently scaled variables compared to the commonly used measures.
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07.12.2010 • 68/2010
Weiterhin sinkender Energieverbrauch in Mehrfamilienhäusern
Der Energieverbrauch für Raumwärme in Mehrfamilienhäusern ist rückläufig. Das zeigen die aktuellen Ergebnisse des ista-IWH-Energieeffizienz-index für die Abrechnungsperiode 2009. Gegenüber 2006 ist der bundesweite Indexwert von 107 auf 98,5 gesunken. Dies entspricht einem Rückgang des durchschnittlichen Energiebedarfs um rund 13,4 Kilowattstunden je Quadratmeter Wohnfläche (kWh/m2) pro Jahr bzw. um rund –8,9%.
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