Search Results
Briefing
The Collateral Channel and Bank Credit
We identify the firm-level and aggregate effects of collateral price shocks on business lending and investment — also known as the collateral channel — using detailed bank-firm-loan level data that allow us to observe the pledging of real estate collateral and to control for credit demand and supply conditions. At the firm level, a 1-percentage-point increase in collateral values leads to an increase of 12 basis points in credit growth, whereas the average elasticity of credit to collateral values in the cross-section of metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) is seven times larger. Our ...
Working Paper
The Collateral Channel and Bank Credit
Our paper studies the role of the collateral channel for bank credit using confidential bank-firm-loan data. We estimate that for a 1 percent increase in collateral values,firms pledging real estate collateral experience a 12 basis point higher growth in banklending with higher sensitivities for more credit constrained firms. Higher real estatevalues boost firm capital expenditures and lead to lower unemployment and higheremployment growth and business creation. Our estimates imply that as much as 37percent of employment growth over the period from 2013 to 2019 can be attributed to the ...
Working Paper
Do Costly Internal Equity Injections Reveal Bank Expectations about Post-Crisis Real Outcomes?
We construct a novel signal of bank expectations utilizing confidential data and a regulatory constraint imposed on bank internal capital markets during the 2008 crisis that made internal equity injections to commercial bank subsidiaries difficult to reverse. When the US government initiated a $176 billion recapitalization program during the crisis, this constraint made it costly ex-ante for multi-bank holding companies (MBHC) to use these funds for the purpose of recapitalizing subsidiaries against future anticipated losses; in contrast, lending the funds to subsidiaries was exempt from the ...
Discussion Paper
Ring-Fencing and “Financial Protectionism” in International Banking
Some market watchers and academic researchers are concerned about a “Balkanization” of banking, owing to a sharp decline in cross-border international banking activity (see chart below), and an increased home bias of financial transactions. Meanwhile, policy and regulatory efforts are under consideration that may further induce banks to shift away from international activity, including ring-fencing of domestic banking operations, other forms of “financial protectionism,” and enhanced oversight and prudential measures.
Discussion Paper
Measuring Global Bank Complexity
Paraphrasing a famous Supreme Court opinion: “I know bank complexity when I see it.” This expression probably speaks to the truth that, if we look at a given banking organization, we ought to be able to state whether it is more or less “complex.” And yet, such an approach hardly offers any guidance if one wants to understand the intricacies of global banks and to monitor and regulate them. What should be the appropriate metrics? It seems to us that there is not a consensus just yet on what complexity might mean in the context of banking. The global dimension of a bank adds many ...
Working Paper
The Internal Capital Markets of Global Dealer Banks
This study uncovers the existence of a trillion-dollar internal capital market that played a central role in the financing of dealer banks during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Hand-collecting a novel set of dealer microdata at the subsidiary level, I present the first set of facts on the evolution of interaffiliate loans between U.S. primary dealers and their (primarily foreign) siblings. First, the aggregate size of these dealer internal capital markets quadrupled from $335 billion in 2001 to $1.2 trillion by 2007. Second, 25 percent of total repurchase agreements and 61 percent of total ...
Working Paper
The Collateral Channel and Bank Credit
Our paper studies the role of the collateral channel for bank credit using confidential bank-firm-loan data. We estimate that for a 1 percent increase in collateral values, firms pledging real estate collateral experience a 12 basis point higher growth in bank lending with higher sensitivities for more credit constrained firms. Higher real estate values boost firm capital expenditures and lead to lower unemployment and higher employment growth and business creation. Our estimates imply that as much as 37 percent of employment growth over the period from 2013 to 2019 can be attributed to the ...
Working Paper
Un-used Bank Capital Buffers and Credit Supply Shocks at SMEs during the Pandemic
Did banks curb lending to creditworthy small and mid-sized enterprises (SME) during the COVID-19 pandemic? Sitting on top of minimum capital requirements, regulatory capital buffers introduced after the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) are costly regions of "rainy day" equity capital designed to absorb losses and provide lending capacity in a downturn. Using a novel set of confidential loan level data that includes private SME firms, we show that "buffer-constrained" banks (those entering the pandemic with capital ratios close to this regulatory buffer region) reduced loan commitments to ...