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Option value of credit lines as an explanation of high credit card rates
Credit lines offered by credit cards contain an option arising from changing default probabilities of cardholders. The option value can explain high credit card rates and high profits of card issuers. The card rate producing zero profit for card issuers is higher than interest rates on most other loans because rational cardholders borrow more money when they become riskier. Furthermore, cardholders borrowing when the option is out of the money may be less responsive to credit cared rates due to higher switching costs and carelessness. Card issuers, therefore, keep card rates at high levels ...
Journal Article
The determinants of consumer installment credit
Report
The relationship between government financial condition and expected tax rates reflected in municipal bond yields
Yields on long-term municipal bonds reflect both current and expected future tax rates. This paper derives expected changes in tax rates from yields on short- and long-term municipal bonds and examines the relationship between expected changes in tax rates and the financial condition of the federal government between 1965 and 1994. The main empirical result is that a positive relationship exists between the expected tax rate and federal debt. Inflation also positively affects the expected tax rate, suggesting that investors may expect tight fiscal policies when inflation is high. Qualitative ...
Journal Article
Capital ratios as predictors of bank failure
The current review of the 1988 Basel Capital Accord has put the spotlight on the ratios used to assess banks? capital adequacy. This article examines the effectiveness of three capital ratios?the first based on leverage, the second on gross revenues, and the third on risk-weighted assets?in forecasting bank failure over different time frames. Using 1988-93 data on U.S. banks, the authors find that the simple leverage and gross revenue ratios perform as well as the more complex risk-weighted ratio over one- or two-year horizons. Although the risk-weighted measures prove more accurate in ...
Report
Why did thrift goodwill matter in 1989?
The Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 limits thrift goodwill that can be counted as regulatory capital. This paper examines if and why the goodwill clause adversely affected the market value of thrifts. The main findings are that goodwill had a large negative effect on the stock returns of low-capital thrifts in 1989 and that the negative effect persisted in the following two years. These findings suggest that a reduced put option value accounted for a large portion of the stock-price decline. The role of asymmetric information appears to have been small.
Journal Article
Explanations for the increased riskiness of banks in the 1980s