Essays on financial fragility and regulation (original) (raw)

Banking Competition and Stability: The Role of Leverage

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

This paper reexamines the classical issue of the possible trade-offs between banking competition and financial stability by highlighting different types of risk and the role of leverage. By means of a simple model we show that competition can affect portfolio risk, insolvency risk, liquidity risk, and systemic risk differently. The effect depends crucially on banks' liability structure, on whether banks are financed by insured retail deposits or by uninsured wholesale debts, and on whether the indebtness is exogenous or endogenous. In particular we suggest that, while in a classical originate-to-hold banking industry competition might increase financial stability, the opposite can be true for an originate-to-distribute banking industry of a larger fraction of market short-term funding. This leads us to revisit the existing empirical literature using a more precise classification of risk. Our theoretical model therefore helps to clarify a number of apparently contradictory empirical results and proposes new ways to analyze the impact of banking competition on financial stability.

Banking Competition, Risk and Regulation*

Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 2004

In a dynamic framework banks compete for customers by setting lending conditions for the loans they supply, taking into account the capital adequacy requirements posed by the regulator. By easing its lending conditions a bank faces a tradeoff between attracting more demand for loans, thus making higher per-period profits, and a deterioration of the quality of its loan portfolio, thus a higher risk of failure. Our main results state that more stringent capital adequacy requirements lead commercial banks to set more stringent loan conditions to their customers, and we show that increased competition in the banking industry leads banks to behave more risky. In this model we also look at risk-adjusted capital requirements and show that risk-based regulation is effective. We extend the basic model to have banks choose both their lending conditions and the level of bank capital. In this extended model it turns out that it may be beneficial for a bank to hold more equity than prescribed by the regulator, even though equity is more expensive than attracting deposits. We show that the same conclusions with respect to the effectiveness of regulation hold as in the standard model.

1 Bank Leverage , Financial Fragility and Prudential Regulation

2013

We analyse the determinants of banks’ balance-sheet and leverage-ratio dynamics and their role in increasing financial fragility. Our results are twofold. First, we show that there is a value of bank's leverage that minimises financial fragility. Second, we show that this value depends on the overall business climate, the expected value of the collateral and the riskless interest rate. This result leads us to advocate the establishment of an adjustable leverage ratio, depending on economic conditions, rather than the fixed ratio provided for under the new Basel III regulation.

Banking Competition, Risk and Regulation a

Scand J Econ, 2004

Banking competition, risk, and regulation W. Bolt and A. F. Tieman In a dynamic framework banks compete for customers by setting lending conditions for the loans they supply, taking into account the capital adequacy requirements posed by the regulator. By easing its lending conditions a bank faces a tradeoff between attracting more demand for loans, thus making higher per-period profits, and a deterioration of the quality of its loan portfolio, thus a higher risk of failure. Our main results state that more stringent capital adequacy requirements lead commercial banks to set more stringent loan conditions to their customers, and we show that increased competition in the banking industry leads banks to behave more risky. In this model we also look at risk-adjusted capital requirements and show that risk-based regulation is effective. We extend the basic model to have banks choose both their lending conditions and the level of bank capital. In this extended model it turns out that it may be beneficial for a bank to hold more equity than prescribed by the regulator, even though equity is more expensive than attracting deposits. We show that the same conclusions with respect to the effectiveness of regulation hold as in the standard model.

Financial Fragility and Prudential Regulation

2014

We analyse the determinants of bank balance-sheets and leverage-ratio dynamics, and their role in increasing financial fragility. Our results are twofold. First, we show that there is a value of bank leverage that minimises financial fragility. Second, we show that this value depends on the overall business climate, the expected value of the collateral provided by firms, and the risk-free interest rate. These results lead us to advocate for the establishment of an adjustable leverage ratio depending on economic conditions, rather than the fixed ratio provided for under the new Basel III

Bank leverage, financial fragility and prudential regulation

2013

We analyse the determinants of banks' balance-sheet and leverage-ratio dynamics and their role in increasing financial fragility. Our results are twofold. First, we show that there is a value of bank's leverage that minimises financial fragility. Second, we show that this value depends on the overall business climate, the expected value of the collateral and the riskless interest rate. This result leads us to advocate the establishment of anadjustableleverage ratio, depending on economic conditions, rather than the fixed ratio provided for under the new Basel III regulation.

Regulation, Competition and Banking Markets

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014

Banks use a mix of wholesale and deposit funds to finance lending. If a country is a net importer of wholesale funds, then a financial crisis in a foreign country can 'infect' the banking system by raising the cost of wholesale funds. Indeed, countries such as Australia imported a crisis through the wholesale funding market in the recent global financial crisis. We present a model to show how a rise in the costs of wholesale funding can trigger a crisis in an otherwise healthy banking sector. We also consider a range of government policies, such as 'bailouts', minimum equity requirements, entry restrictions and limits on wholesale funding, that may be deployed to prevent such a crisis. In particular, we focus on the implications of such policies for the structure and level of competition in banking and the rates paid by borrowers and received by depositors, in 'normal times'. We show that some policies, such as minimum equity requirements, can stabilise the banking sector, while ad hoc policies, such as debt guarantees or bailouts, destabilise the banking sector. Other policies, such as licensing, can limit competition but have ambiguous implications for bank stability.

Competition and Bank Risk the Role of Securitization and Bank Capital

IMF Working Papers, 2019

We examine how bank competition in the run-up to the 2007–2009 crisis affects banks’ systemic risk during the crisis. We then investigate whether this effect is influenced by two key bank characteristics: securitization and bank capital. Using a sample of the largest listed banks from 15 countries, we find that greater market power at the bank level and higher competition at the industry level lead to higher realized systemic risk. The results suggest that the use of securitization exacerbates the effects of market power on the systemic dimension of bank risk, while capitalization partially mitigates its impact.

Bank Competition and Financial Stability

Journal of Financial Services Research, 2008

Under the traditional "competition-fragility" view, more bank competition erodes market power, decreases profit margins, and results in reduced franchise value that encourages bank risk taking. Under the alternative "competition-stability" view, more market power in the loan market may result in higher bank risk as the higher interest rates charged to loan customers make it harder to repay loans, and exacerbate moral hazard and adverse selection problems. The two strands of the literature need not necessarily yield opposing predictions regarding the effects of competition and market power on stability in banking. Even if market power in the loan market results in riskier loan portfolios, the overall risks of banks need not increase if banks protect their franchise values by increasing their equity capital or engaging in other risk-mitigating techniques. We test these theories by regressing measures of loan risk, bank risk, and bank equity capital on several measures of market power, as well as indicators of the business environment, using data for 8,235 banks in 23 developed nations. Our results suggest that-consistent with the traditional "competition-fragility" view-banks with a higher degree of market power also have less overall risk exposure. The data also provides some support for one element of the "competitionstability" view-that market power increases loan portfolio risk. We show that this risk may be offset in part by higher equity capital ratios.