Suomen Pankin Julkaisuarkisto
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Assessing the development of the European retail payments market from a historical perspective received
No full textChanging consumer expectations are shaping the retail payments market at the global level. Within the European Union, the renewed regulatory framework, the revised Payment Services Directive, gives a further boost by fostering innovation and com-petition in the European retail payments market. In this evolving payment landscape, assessing the current state and forecasting potential development paths may benefit from a look at the past.This paper reviews past developments, discusses potential regulatory implications, and outlines a vision of future developments in the European retail payments market. It concludes that an evolutionary path is more likely than a revolutionary one. Regarding the future regulatory framework for retail payments, it proposes that the movement from entity-based towards more activity-based regulation should be continued
Banks’ equity performance and the term structure of interest rates
No full textUsing an extensive global sample, this paper investigates the impact of the term structure of interest rates on bank equity returns. Decomposing the yield curve to its three constituents (level, slope and curvature), the paper evaluates the time‐varying sensitivity of the bank's equity returns to these constituents by using a diagonal dynamic conditional correlation multivariate GARCH framework. Evidence reveals that the empirical proxies for the three factors explain the variations in equity returns above and beyond the market‐wide effect. More specifically, shocks to the long‐term (level) and short‐term (slope) factors have a statistically significant impact on equity returns, while those on the medium‐term (curvature) factor are less clear‐cut. Bank size plays an important role in the sense that exposures are higher for SIFIs and large banks compared to medium and small banks. Moreover, banks exhibit greater sensitivities to all risk factors during the crisis and post‐crisis periods compared to the pre‐crisis period though these sensitivities do not differ for market‐oriented and bank‐oriented financial systems
The impact of social capital on economic attitudes and outcome
No full textThis article traces the extant literature on the impact of social capital on economic attitudes and outcomes. Special attention is paid to clarify conceptual ambiguities, measurement techniques, channels of influence, and identification strategies. Insights derived from the literature are then used to analyze the marketplace lending industry in China, where the size of the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending market is larger than that of the rest of the world combined. Ironically, approximately two-thirds of these online P2P lending platforms have failed. Empirical evidence from the monthly operating data of 735 lending platforms and transaction level data from one prominent platform (Renrendai) shows that platforms in provinces with high social capital have low risk of failure, and borrowers in provinces with high social capital can borrow at low interest rate and are less likely to default. We also provide observations to guide future economic research on social capital
Persistent and transient inefficiency : Explaining the low efficiency of Chinese big banks
No full textA vast literature shows that China's five largest state-owned banks (the Big Five) suffer from low cost efficiency. We offer a new explanation of this situation, by decomposing overall efficiency of Chinese banks into two parts: persistent and transient efficiency. Using the model of Kumbhakar, Lien, and Hardaker (2014) based on the stochastic frontier approach, we measure persistent and transient efficiency for a large sample of 166 Chinese banks over the period 2008–2015. We show that the lower efficiency of China's Big Five banks is almost entirely due to low persistent cost efficiency, indicating structural problems. On the contrary, the Big Five banks transient efficiency is similar to other Chinese banks, reflecting a good aptitude to minimize their costs in the short-term. Our findings support the view that major structural reforms are needed to enhance the efficiency of China's Big Five banks. © 2019 Elsevier Inc.Published in BOFIT Discussion Paper 16/2018
Credit allocation when borrowers are economically linked: An empirical analysis of bank loans to corporate customers
No full textUsing detailed loan level data, we examine bank lending to corporate customers relying on principal suppliers. Customers experience larger loan spreads, higher intensity of covenants and greater likelihood of requiring collateral when they depend more on the principal supplier for inputs. The positive association between the customer’s loan spread and its dependence on the principal supplier is less pronounced when the bank has a prior loan outstanding with the principal supplier, and when the bank has higher market share in the industry. Longer relationships between the customer and its principal supplier, and between the bank and the principal supplier, mitigate lending constraints. The evidence is consistent with corporate suppliers serving as an informational bridge between the lender and the customer
Investor relations and IPO performance
No full textWe analyze the value of investor relations (IR) strategies to IPO firms. We find that firms that are less visible and have inexperienced management tend to hire IR consultants prior to the issue date. IR consultants help create positive news coverage before an IPO, as reflected in a more optimistic tone of published media. Their presence is associated with higher underpricing at the IPO date but with lower long-run returns. IR-backed IPOs also exhibit disproportionately higher insider-related agency problems, as IR-induced higher underpricing tends to occur primarily in IPOs where underwriter and venture capitalist agency conflicts are more severe. These findings suggest that the IR programs of IPO firm are mostly short-term oriented and facilitate the ulterior motives of some insiders (underwriters and venture capitalists) targeting higher first-day returns
Finance and wealth inequality
No full textUsing a global sample, this paper investigates the determinants of wealth inequality capturing various economic, financial, political, institutional, and geographical indicators. Using instrumental variable Bayesian model averaging, it reveals that only a handful of indicators robustly matters and finance plays a key role. It reports that while financial depth increases wealth inequality, efficiency and access to finance reduce inequality. In addition, redistribution and education are associated with lower inequality whereas wars and openness to international trade contribute to greater wealth inequality
The effect of the ECB’s conventional monetary policy on the real economy : FAVAR-approach
No full textThis study applies factor-augmented vector autoregressive models to investigate the effect of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) conventional monetary policy on the real economy. More specifically, the study examines how unanticipated changes in the ECB’s policy rate have affected unemployment rate and industrial production. The effect of monetary policy on unemployment rate and industrial production is estimated to be strong and statistically significant using the data from January 1999 to July 2017 or from the pre-crisis period. However, after the beginning of the crisis the responses weaken drastically and become sometimes statistically insignificant, indicating that the effect of the ECB’s conventional monetary policy became weaker after the financial crisis. This finding is extremely interesting because one could presume either weaker or stronger effect based on economic theory
Bank accounting regulations, enforcement mechanisms, and financial statement informativeness : cross-country evidence
No full textWe construct measures of accounting regulations and enforcement mechanisms that are specific to a country's banking industry. Using a sample of major banks in 37 economies, we find that the informativeness of banks’ financial statements, measured by the value relevance of earnings and common equity, is higher in countries with stricter bank accounting regulations and countries with stronger enforcement. These findings suggest that superior bank accounting and enforcement mechanisms enhance the informativeness of banks’ financial statements. In addition, we find that the effects of bank accounting regulations are more pronounced in countries with stronger enforcement in the banking industry, suggesting that enforcement is complementary to bank accounting regulations in achieving higher value relevance of financial statements. Our study has important policy implications for bank regulators
Leverage dynamics and the burden of debt
No full textIn addition to leverage, the debt service burden of households and firms is an important link between financial and real developments at the aggregate level. Using US data from 1985 to 2017, we find that the debt service burden has sizeable negative effects on expenditure. Its interplay with leverage also explains several data puzzles, including the lack of above trend output growth during credit booms and the severity of ensuing recessions, without appealing to large shocks or nonlinearities. Estimating the model with data up to 2005, it predicts credit and expenditure paths that closely match actual developments before and during the Great Recession.Published in Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 3/2016 http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:bof-20160405107