Filtern
Dokumenttyp
- Arbeitspapier (7) (entfernen)
Sprache
- Englisch (7) (entfernen)
Volltext vorhanden
- ja (7)
Gehört zur Bibliographie
- nein (7)
Schlagworte
- Wettbewerb (7) (entfernen)
Institut
- Center for Financial Studies (CFS) (7) (entfernen)
Market discipline for financial institutions can be imposed not only from the liability side, as has often been stressed in the literature on the use of subordinated debt, but also from the asset side. This will be particularly true if good lending opportunities are in short supply, so that banks have to compete for projects. In such a setting, borrowers may demand that banks commit to monitoring by requiring that they use some of their own capital in lending, thus creating an asset market-based incentive for banks to hold capital. Borrowers can also provide banks with incentives to monitor by allowing them to reap some of the benefits from the loans, which accrue only if the loans are in fact paid o.. Since borrowers do not fully internalize the cost of raising capital to the banks, the level of capital demanded by market participants may be above the one chosen by a regulator, even when capital is a relatively costly source of funds. This implies that capital requirements may not be binding, as recent evidence seems to indicate. JEL Classification: G21, G38
This paper discusses the role of internal corporate ratings as a means by which commercial banks condense their informational advantage and preserve it vis-à-vis a competitive lending market. In drawing on a unique data set collected from leading universal banks in Germany, we are able to evaluate the extent to which non-public information determines corporate ratings. As a point of departure, the paper describes a sample of rating systems currently in use, and points at methodological differences between them. Relying on a probit analysis, we are able to show that the set of qualitative, or soft, factors is not simply redundant with respect to publicly available accounting data. Rather, qualitative information tends to be decisive in at least one third of cases. It tends to improve the firms' overall corporate rating. In the case of conflicting rating changes, i.e. when qualitative and quantitative rating changes have opposing signs, quantitative criteria dominate the overall rating change. Furthermore, the more restrictive the weighting scheme as part of the rating methodology is, the stronger is the impact of qualitative information on the firms' overall rating. The implications of our results underline the need to define stringent rating standards, from both a risk management and a regulatory point of view. Revised edition published in: ZEW Wirtschaftsanalysen 2001, Bd 54, Baden-Baden, Nomos
We model the impact of bank mergers on loan competition, reserve holdings and aggregate liquidity. A merger changes the distribution of liquidity shocks and creates an internal money market, leading to financial cost efficiencies and more precise estimates of liquidity needs. The merged banks may increase their reserve holdings through an internalization effect or decrease them because of a diversification effect. The merger also affects loan market competition, which in turn modifies the distribution of bank sizes and aggregate liquidity needs. Mergers among large banks tend to increase aggregate liquidity needs and thus the public provision of liquidity through monetary operations of the central bank. Klassifikation: D43, G21, G28, L13
In Germany a public discussion on the "power of banks" has been going on for decades now with power having at least two meanings. On the one hand it is the power of banks to control public corporations through direct shareholdings or the exercise of proxy votes - this is the power of banks in corporate control. On the other hand it is market power - due to imperfect competition in markets for financial services - that banks exercise vis-à-vis their loan and deposit customers. In the past, bank regulation has often been blamed to undermine competition and the working of market forces in the financial industry for the sake of soundness and stability of financial services firms. This chapter tries to shed some light on the historical development and current state of bank regulation in Germany. In so doing it tries to embed the analysis of bank regulation into a more general industrial organisation framework. For every regulated industry, competition and regulation are deeply interrelated as most regulatory institutions - even if they do not explicitly address the competitiveness of the market - either affect market structure or conduct. This paper tries to uncover some of the specific relationships between monetary policy, government interference and bank regulation on the one hand and bank market structure and economic performance on the other. In so doing we hope to point to several areas for fruitful research in the future. While our focus is on Germany, some of the questions that we raise and some of our insights might also be applicable to banking systems elsewhere. Revised version forthcoming in "The German Financial System", edited by Jan P. Krahnen and Reinhard H. Schmidt, Oxford University Press.
Exchanges in Europe are in a process of consolidation. After the failure of the proposed merger between Deutsche Börse and Euronext, these two groups are likely to become the nuclei for further mergers and co-operation with currently independent exchanges. A decision for one of the groups entails a decision for the respective trading platform. Against that background we evaluate the attractiveness of the two dominant continental European trading systems. Though both are anonymous electronic limit order books, there are important differences in the trading protocols. We use a matched-sample approach to compare execution costs in Euronext Paris and Xetra. We find that both quoted and effective spreads are lower in Xetra. When decomposing the spread we find no systematic differences in the adverse selection component. Realized spreads, on the other hand, are significantly higher in Euronext. Neither differences in the number of liquidity provision agreements nor differences in the minimum tick size or in the degree of domestic competition for order flow explain the different spread levels. We thus conclude that Xetra is the more efficient trading system. JEL Classification: G10, G15
This paper analyzes dynamic equilibrium risk sharing contracts between profit-maximizing intermediaries and a large pool of ex-ante identical agents that face idiosyncratic income uncertainty that makes them heterogeneous ex-post. In any given period, after having observed her income, the agent can walk away from the contract, while the intermediary cannot, i.e. there is one-sided commitment. We consider the extreme scenario that the agents face no costs to walking away, and can sign up with any competing intermediary without any reputational losses. We demonstrate that not only autarky, but also partial and full insurance can obtain, depending on the relative patience of agents and financial intermediaries. Insurance can be provided because in an equilibrium contract an up-front payment e.ectively locks in the agent with an intermediary. We then show that our contract economy is equivalent to a consumption-savings economy with one-period Arrow securities and a short-sale constraint, similar to Bulow and Rogo. (1989). From this equivalence and our characterization of dynamic contracts it immediately follows that without cost of switching financial intermediaries debt contracts are not sustainable, even though a risk allocation superior to autarky can be achieved. JEL Klassifikation: G22, E21, D11, D91.
In this study the firms' choice of the number of bank relationships is analyzed with respect to influential factors like borrower quality, size and the existence of a close housebank relationship. Then, the number of bank relationships is used as a proxy to examine if bank competition is reflected in loan terms. It is shown that the number of bank relationships is foremost determined by borrower size and the existence of a housebank relationship. Loan rate spreads are not effected by the number of bank relationships. However, borrowers with a small number of bank relationships provide more collateral and get more credit. These effects are amplified by a housebank relationship. Housebanks get more collateral and are ready to take a larger stake in the financing of their customers.