Borrowers Under Water! Rare Disasters, Regional Banks, and Recovery Lending
Michael Koetter, Felix Noth, Oliver Rehbein
Abstract
We show that local banks provide corporate recovery lending to firms affected by ad-verse regional macro shocks. Banks that reside in counties unaffected by the natural disaster that we specify as macro shock increase lending to firms inside affected counties by 3%. Firms domiciled in flooded counties, in turn, increase corporate borrowing by 16% if they are connected to banks in unaffected counties. We find no indication that recovery lending entails excessive risk-taking or rent-seeking. However, within the group of shock-exposed banks, those without access to geographically more diversified interbank markets exhibit more credit risk and less equity capital.
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Buy, Keep, or Sell: Economic Growth and the Market for Ideas
Ufuk Akcigit, Murat Alp Celik, Jeremy Greenwood
Econometrica,
No. 3,
2016
Abstract
An endogenous growth model is developed where each period firms invest in researching and developing new ideas. An idea increases a firm's productivity. By how much depends on the technological propinquity between an idea and the firm's line of business. Ideas can be bought and sold on a market for patents. A firm can sell an idea that is not relevant to its business or buy one if it fails to innovate. The developed model is matched up with stylized facts about the market for patents in the United States. The analysis gauges how efficiency in the patent market affects growth.
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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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How Selective Are Real Wage Cuts? A Micro-analysis Using Linked Employer–Employee Data
Boris Hirsch, Thomas Zwick
LABOUR: Review of Labour Economics and Industrial Relations,
No. 4,
2015
Abstract
Using linked employer–employee panel data for Germany, we investigate whether firms implement real wage reductions in a selective manner. In line with insider–outsider and several strands of efficiency wage theory, we find strong evidence for selective wage cuts with high-productivity workers being spared even when controlling for permanent differences in firms' wage policies. In contrast to some recent contributions stressing fairness considerations, we also find that wage cuts increase wage dispersion among peers rather than narrowing it. Notably, the same selectivity pattern shows up when restricting our analysis to firms covered by collective agreements or having a works council.
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Bank Market Power, Factor Reallocation, and Aggregate Growth
R. Inklaar, Michael Koetter, Felix Noth
Journal of Financial Stability,
2015
Abstract
Using a unique firm-level sample of approximately 700,000 firm-year observations of German small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), this study seeks to identify the effect of bank market power on aggregate growth components. We test for a pre-crisis sample whether bank market power spurs or hinders the reallocation of resources across informationally opaque firms. Identification relies on the dependence on external finance in each industry and the regional demarcation of regional banking markets in Germany. The results show that bank markups spur aggregate SME growth, primarily through technical change and the reallocation of resources. Banks seem to need sufficient markups to generate the necessary private information to allocate financial funds efficiently.
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The Impact of Dark Trading and Visible Fragmentation on Market Quality
Hans Degryse, Frank de Jong, Vincent van Kervel
Review of Finance,
No. 4,
2015
Abstract
Two important characteristics of current equity markets are the large number of competing trading venues with publicly displayed order books and the substantial fraction of dark trading, which takes place outside such visible order books. This article evaluates the impact on liquidity of dark trading and fragmentation in visible order books. Dark trading has a detrimental effect on liquidity. Visible fragmentation improves liquidity aggregated over all visible trading venues but lowers liquidity at the traditional market, meaning that the benefits of fragmentation are not enjoyed by investors who choose to send orders only to the traditional market.
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Public Bank Guarantees and Allocative Efficiency
Reint E. Gropp, Andre Guettler, Vahid Saadi
Abstract
In the wake of the recent financial crisis, many governments extended public guarantees to banks. We take advantage of a natural experiment, in which long-standing public guarantees were removed for a set of German banks following a lawsuit, to identify the real effects of these guarantees on the allocation of credit (“allocative efficiency”). Using matched bank/firm data, we find that public guarantees reduce allocative efficiency. With guarantees in place, poorly performing firms invest more and maintain higher rates of sales growth. Moreover, firms produce less efficiently in the presence of public guarantees. Consistently, we show that guarantees reduce the likelihood that firms exit the market. These findings suggest that public guarantees hinder restructuring activities and prevent resources to flow to the most productive uses.
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The Dynamics of Bank Spreads and Financial Structure
Reint E. Gropp, Christoffer Kok, J.-D. Lichtenberger
Quarterly Journal of Finance,
No. 4,
2014
Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of within banking sector competition and competition from financial markets on the dynamics of the transmission from monetary policy rates to retail bank interest rates in the euro area. We use a new dataset that permits analysis for disaggregated bank products. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we test whether development of financial markets and financial innovation speed up the pass through. We find that more developed markets for equity and corporate bonds result in a faster pass-through for those retail bank products directly competing with these markets. More developed markets for securitized assets and for interest rate derivatives also speed up the transmission. Further, we find relatively strong effects of competition within the banking sector across two different measures of competition. Overall, the evidence supports the idea that developed financial markets and competitive banking systems increase the effectiveness of monetary policy.
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Regulation, Innovation and Technology Diffusion - Evidence from Building Energy Efficiency Standards in Germany
Makram El-Shagi, Claus Michelsen, Sebastian Rosenschon
Discussionpapers des DIW Berlin,
No. 1371,
2014
Abstract
The impact of environmental regulation on technology diffusion and innovations is studied using a unique data set of German residential buildings. We analyze how energy efficiency regulations, in terms of minimum standards, affects energy-use in newly constructed buildings and how it induces innovation in the residential-building industry. The data used consists of a large sample of German apartment houses built between 1950 and 2005. Based on this information, we determine their real energy requirements from energy performance certificates and energy billing information. We develop a new measure for regulation intensity and apply a panel-error-correction regression model to energy requirements of low and high quality housing. Our findings suggest that regulation significantly impacts technology adoption in low quality housing. This, in turn, induces improvements in the high quality segment where innovators respond to market signals.
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Leverage, Balance-Sheet Size and Wholesale Funding
H. Evren Damar, Césaire Meh, Yaz Terajima
Journal of Financial Intermediation,
No. 4,
2013
Abstract
Positive co-movements in bank leverage and assets are associated with leverage procyclicality. As wholesale funding allows banks to quickly adjust leverage, banks with wholesale funding are expected to exhibit higher leverage procyclicality. Using Canadian data, we analyze (i) if leverage procyclicality exists and its dependence on wholesale funding, (ii) market factors associated with this procyclicality, and (iii) if banking-sector leverage procyclicality forecasts market volatility. The findings suggest that procyclicality exists and that its degree positively depends on use of wholesale funding. Furthermore, funding-market liquidity matters for this procyclicality. Finally, banking-sector leverage procyclicality can forecast volatility in the equity market.
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