FOREIGN BANKS AND THE BANK LENDING CHANNEL

We provide new evidence on bank ownership and transmission of monetary policy using bank‐level data on 453 banks in Central and Eastern European economies between 1998 and 2012. Only domestic banks adjust loans to changes in monetary policy, while foreign banks do not. Conventional wisdom says that this is because foreign banks can rely on parent banks' funding to insulate against monetary policy shocks. In this paper we document an alternative explanation. Deposits in foreign banks do not react to monetary policy, hence the bank lending channel is only triggered in domestic banks. (JEL E50, F36, G21)     

NOT ALL BANKS ARE EQUAL: COOPERATIVE BANKING AND INCOME INEQUALITY

This paper studies the role of different types of credit institutions in income inequality. By analyzing Italian local (provincial) credit markets over the 2001–2011 period, we find that cooperative banks mitigate income inequality in local communities more than their commercial counterparts. The results also suggest that it is the specific nature and orientation of cooperative banks, more than their relationship lending technologies, that improve income distribution. The impact of cooperative banking on inequality appears however to be partly channeled by a reduced dynamism of local economies, especially lower migratory flows and business turnover. (JEL G21, G38, O15)     

THE VALUE OF RISK: MEASURING THE SERVICE OUTPUT OF U.S. COMMERCIAL BANKS

Banks often charge implicitly for their services via interest spreads, instead of explicit fees. Much of bank output thus has to be estimated indirectly. In contrast to current statistical practice, dynamic optimizing models of banks argue that compensation for bearing systematic risk is not part of bank output. We apply these models and find that in the U.S. National Accounts between 1997 and 2007, bank output was overestimated by 21% and gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.3%. Compared with current methods, our new estimates imply more plausible estimates of the income share of capital and the return on fixed capital of the banking industry. (JEL E01, E44, O47)     

BANKS,DEBT AND RISK: ASSESSING THE SPILLOVERS OF CORPORATE TAXES

We find evidence of tax-driven strategic allocation of debt and asset risk across group entities of European banks. We evaluate the effects that establishing tax neutrality between debt and equity finance has on systemic risk, and show that the degree of coordination in implementing the hypothetical tax reform matters. In particular, a coordinated elimination of the tax advantage of debt would significantly reduce systemic losses in the event of a severe banking crisis. By contrast, uncoordinated tax reforms are not equally beneficial precisely because national tax policies generate spillovers through cross-border bank activities. (JEL G21, G28, H25)     

INFORMATION,INSTITUTIONS, AND BANKING SECTOR DEVELOPMENT IN WEST AFRICA

Using a new West African panel data set, we provide evidence on the determinants of individual banks' loans and assets in some of the poorest countries in the world. Higher loan default rates reduce both the loans to assets ratio and the volume of assets. However, the size of these effects is sensitive to bank age and ownership structure. Younger, private, domestically owned banks are most affected, suggesting that such banks face the most severe informational disadvantages. Very old government‐owned banks benefit from high default rates. We also explore how the quality of governance impacts on loans and assets. (JEL G21, O16)     

U.S. CREDIT UNIONS: SURVIVAL,CONSOLIDATION, AND GROWTH

This study uses hazard function estimations and time‐series and cross‐sectional growth regressions to examine the impact of exit through merger and acquisition (M&A) or failure, and internally generated growth, on the firm‐size distribution within the U.S. credit union sector. Consolidation through M&A was the principal cause of a reduction in the number of credit unions, but impact on concentration was small. Divergence between the average internally generated growth of smaller and larger credit unions was the principal driver of the rise in concentration. (JEL G21)     

DIFFERENTIAL DEPOSIT GUARANTEES AND THE EFFECT OF MONETARY POLICY ON BANK LENDING

This paper utilizes differences in de jure deposit insurance coverage across banks and changes in coverage over time to identify a bank‐lending channel in Poland. Banks with partial guarantees have a stronger loan response to monetary policy than banks with full guarantees. Furthermore, the weak response of the fully guaranteed banks is attributed to their ability to raise low‐reserve, uninsured time deposits relative to the partially covered banks. When differential coverage is eliminated, there is no disparity in the loan response between the two groups. This lending channel has implications for credit control and financial system development in emerging markets. (JEL E52, G21, G28)     

BENIGN NEGLECT OF COVENANT VIOLATIONS: BLISSFUL BANKING OR IGNORANT MONITORING?

Theoretically, bank's loan monitoring activity hinges critically on its capitalization. To proxy for monitoring intensity, we use changes in borrowers' investment following loan covenant violations, when creditors can intervene in the governance of the firm. Exploiting granular bank‐firm relationships observed in the syndicated loan market, we document substantial heterogeneity in monitoring across banks and through time. Better capitalized banks are more lenient monitors that intervene less with covenant violators. Importantly, this hands‐off approach is associated with improved borrowers' performance. Beyond enhancing financial resilience, regulation that requires banks to hold more capital may thus also mitigate the tightening of credit terms when firms experience shocks. (JEL G21, G32, G33, G34)     

OVERSEAS MARKET INFORMATION AND FIRMS' EXPORT DECISIONS

This paper examines how firms' decision to start exporting is affected by the availability of information on export markets. Unlike existing studies that focus on information sharing among firms, we are interested in the information provided by firms' main bank. Specifically, using a unique data set containing information on both Japanese firms' export activities and the experience of their main bank (i.e., their top lender bank) in transacting with other exporting firms, we examine whether main banks act as a conduit of information on export markets. We find that information spillovers through main banks positively affect client firms' decision to start exporting (extensive margin), implying that information on foreign markets provided by banks substantially reduces the fixed entry cost of exporting. On the other hand, we do not find any evidence that information provided by banks has an effect on the export volume or on the growth rate of exports (intensive margin). Our results highlight that channels of information spillovers other than those examined in the literature so far may be of considerable importance. (JEL F10, F14, G21)     

DID TARP DISTORT COMPETITION AMONG SOUND UNSUPPORTED BANKS?

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. (JEL G21, G28, L51)     

HAPPINESS,GROWTH, AND PUBLIC POLICY†

If society's goal is to increase people's feelings of well‐being, economic growth in itself will not do the job. Full employment and a generous and comprehensive social safety net do increase happiness. Such policies are arguably affordable not only in higher income nations but also in countries that account for most of the population of the less‐developed world. These conclusions are suggested by an analysis of a wide range of evidence on happiness in countries throughout the world. (JEL I31, I38, O21, F20, D60, E60)     

DO CAPITAL ADEQUACY REQUIREMENTS MATTER FOR MONETARY POLICY?

Central bankers and financial supervisors can have conflicting goals. While monetary policymakers work to ensure sufficient lending activities as a foundation for high and stable economic growth, supervisors may limit banks’ lending capacities in order to prevent excessive risk taking. We show that, in theory, central bankers can avoid this potential conflict by adopting an interest rate strategy that takes accounts of capital adequacy requirements. Empirical evidence suggests that while policymakers at the Federal Reserve have adjusted their interest rate to neutralizing the procyclical impact of bank capital requirements, those in Germany and Japan have not. (JEL E52, E58, G21)     

BANK CAPITAL AND LIQUIDITY CREATION IN ASIA PACIFIC

We calculate liquidity creation for a large sample of commercial banks in 14 Asia‐Pacific economies from 2005 to 2012. We find that banks in this region created $7.83 trillion in liquidity in 2012, or approximately 3.24 times the total liquidity created in 2005. Large banks and those based in Developing Asia created the highest liquidity. We also investigate the bicausal relationship between liquidity creation and regulatory capital and find that the trade‐off between the benefits of financial stability induced by enhanced capital requirements and those of higher liquidity creation is applicable to all of the sample banks, regardless of bank size and economic region. (JEL G21, G28)     

CHANGING BUSINESS MODELS IN INTERNATIONAL BANK FUNDING

This paper investigates the foreign funding mix of globally active banks. Using BIS international banking statistics for a panel of 12 advanced economies, we detect a structural break in international bank funding at the onset of the great financial crisis. In their postbreak business model, banks rely less on cross‐border liabilities and, instead, tap funds from outside their jurisdictions by making more active use of their subsidiaries and branches, as well as interoffice accounts within the same banking group. (JEL C32, F65, G21)     

FDI AND INCOME INEQUALITY: EVIDENCE FROM A PANEL OF U.S. STATES

This study employs state‐level panel data to explore the relationship between inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and income inequality in the United States. Using panel cointegration techniques that allow for cross‐sectional heterogeneity and cross‐sectional dependence, we find that, in the long run, FDI exerts a significant and robust negative effect on income inequality in the United States. This result for the United States as a whole does not imply that FDI narrows income gaps in each individual state. There is considerable heterogeneity in the long‐run effects of FDI on income inequality across states, with some states (21 out of 48 cases) exhibiting a positive relationship between FDI in income inequality.(JEL F21, D31, C23)     

FRACTIONALIZATION,POLARIZATION, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: IDENTIFYING THE TRANSMISSION CHANNELS

In this article, we examine empirically both the direct and indirect links between ethnic fragmentation and economic growth. We find that both ethnic fractionalization and polarization are negatively associated with growth if considered in isolation; an effect that is though primarily attributed to their link to other growth‐related activities (i.e., investment, conflict, control of corruption, fertility). We study the corresponding transmission channels and calculate their relative importance in explaining a development curse based on ethnic diversity. For both measures of ethnic fragmentation, we find the corruption channel to be the most important one. (JEL C21, O11, Z13)     

MONEY,OUTPUT, AND INFLATION IN THE LONGER TERM: MAJOR INDUSTRIAL COUNTRIES, 1880–2001

We study how fluctuations in money growth correlate with fluctuations in real output growth and inflation. Using band‐pass filters, we extract cycles from each time series that last 2–8 (business cycles) and 8–40 (longer‐term cycles) years. We employ annual data, 1880–2001 without gaps, for 11 industrial countries. Fluctuations in money growth do not play a systematic role at business cycle frequencies. However, money growth leads or affects contemporaneously inflation, but not real output growth, in the longer run. Also, formal break tests indicate no structural changes for the longer‐term money growth and inflation relationship, despite changes in policy regimes.(JEL E3)     

INSTITUTIONS,HOUSEHOLD CREDIT COMPOSITION,AND THE BUSINESS CYCLE

We show that the negative effect of household credit growth on subsequent economic growth documented in the recent literature is not the same across countries. The effect is stronger in countries with weak institutions where the fraction of consumer credit in total household credit is greater. That is an important nuance as consumer credit is a sizable part of household credit in many emerging markets and its rapid buildup should be observed with the same caution as a rapid buildup in housing credit. (JEL G21, E32, E44)     

THE CREDIT‐CHANNEL TRANSMISSION MECHANISM AND THE NONLINEAR GROWTH AND WELFARE EFFECTS OF INFLATION AND TAXES

With the credit‐channel effect driven by the central bank's open market operations, this paper's model easily gives rise to the nonlinear inflation‐growth nexus, which is evidenced by a number of cross‐country empirical studies. The threshold level of the inflation rate is found to be lower when tax rates are higher. The presence of the credit‐channel effect also provides the rationale for setting positive (and smaller than 1) tax rates on consumption, labor income, and capital income. The optimal tax rates rise as the inflation target declines. Under a fiscal policy rule where labor and capital income taxes move proportionally to each other, the optimal capital income tax rate could be higher than the optimal labor income tax rate. Under a sufficiently large central bank balance sheet, the credit‐channel effect will be so weak that inflation and all kinds of taxes are growth and welfare repressing. This provides a rationale for central banks that have implemented quantitative easing policies to shrink their balance sheets. (JEL E58, E62, O42)     

LEGISLATIVE TURNOVER,FISCAL POLICY,AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM U.S. STATE LEGISLATURES

Increased turnover among legislators can make them short‐sighted, affecting fiscal policy and economic growth. We exploit the exogenous variation in legislative turnover induced by term limit laws and by redistricting in the 50 U.S. states, finding that increased turnover increases capital spending by state governments, which may be designed to constrain future governments. The changes may cause long‐run distortions in the economy, reducing long‐term economic growth. (JEL H72, H73, H76)