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Report
International Trade, Risk and the Role of Banks
Banks play a critical role in international trade by providing trade finance products that reduce the risk of exporting. This paper employs two new data sets to shed light on the magnitude and structure of this business, which, as we show, is highly concentrated in a few large banks. The two principal trade finance instruments, letters of credit and documentary collections, covered about 10 percent of U.S. exports in 2012. They are preferred for larger transactions, which indicates the existence of substantial fixed costs in the provision and use of these instruments. Letters of credit are ...
Report
No guarantees, no trade: how banks affect export patterns
This study provides evidence that shocks to the supply of trade finance have a causal effect on U.S. exports. The identification strategy exploits variation in the importance of banks as providers of letters of credit across countries. The larger a U.S. bank?s share of the trade finance market in a country, the larger should be the effect on exports to that country if the bank changes its supply of letters of credit. We find that a shock of one standard deviation to a country?s supply of letters of credit increases export growth, on average, by 1.5 percentage points. The effect is larger for ...
Working Paper
Institutional Investors, the Dollar, and U.S. Credit Conditions
This paper documents that an appreciation of the U.S. dollar is associated with a reduction in the supply of commercial and industrial loans by U.S. banks. An increase in the broad dollar index by 2.5 points (one standard deviation) reduces U.S. banks' corporate loan originations by 10 percent. This decline is driven by a reduction in the demand for loans on the secondary market where prices fall and liquidity worsens when the dollar appreciates, with stronger effects for riskier loans. Today, the main buyers of U.S. corporate loans---and, hence, suppliers of funding for these loans---are ...
Working Paper
Learning and the Value of Trade Relationships
This paper quantifies the value of importer-exporter relationships. We show that almost 80 percent of U.S. imports take place in pre-existing relationships, with sizable heterogeneity across countries, and show that traded quantities and survival increase as relationships age. We develop a two-country general equilibrium trade model with learning that is consistent with these facts. A model-based measure of relationship value explains survival during the 2008-09 crisis. Knowledge accumulated within long-term relationships is quantitatively important: wiping out all memory from previous ...
Working Paper
International Trade Risk and the Role of Banks
International trade exposes exporters and importers to substantial risks. To mitigate these risks, firms can buy special trade finance products from banks. This paper explores under which conditions and to what extent firms use these products. We find that letters of credit and documentary collections cover about 10 percent of U.S. exports and are preferred for larger transactions, indicating substantial fixed costs. Letters of credit are employed the most for exports to countries with intermediate contract enforcement. Compared to documentary collections, they are used for riskier ...
Working Paper
International Transfer Pricing and Tax Avoidance : Evidence from Linked Trade-Tax Statistics in the UK
This paper employs unique data on export transactions and corporate tax returns of UK multinational firms and finds that firms manipulate their transfer prices to shift profits to lower-taxed destinations. It uncovers three new findings on tax-motivated transfer mispricing in real goods. First, transfer mispricing increases substantially when taxation of foreign profits changes from a worldwide to a territorial approach in the UK, with multinationals shifting more profits into low-tax jurisdictions. Second, transfer mispricing increases with a firm's R&D intensity. Third, tax-motivated ...
Working Paper
No Guarantees, No Trade: How Banks Affect Export Patterns
How relevant are financial instruments to manage risk in international trade for exporting? Employing a unique dataset of U.S. banks' trade finance claims by country, this paper estimates the effect of shocks to the supply of letters of credit on U.S. exports. We show that a one-standard deviation negative shock to a country's supply of letters of credit reduces U.S. exports to that country by 1.5 percentage points. This effect is stronger for smaller and poorer destinations. It more than doubles during crisis times, suggesting a non-negligible role for finance in explaining the Great Trade ...
Working Paper
The Effect of U.S. Stress Tests on Monetary Policy Spillovers to Emerging Markets
This paper shows that monetary policy and prudential policies interact. U.S. banks issue more commercial and industrial loans to emerging market borrowers when U.S. monetary policy eases. The effect is less pronounced for banks that are more constrained through the U.S. bank stress tests, reflected in a lower minimum capital ratio in the severely adverse scenario. This suggests that monetary policy spillovers depend on banks? capital constraints. In particular, during a period of quantitative easing when liquidity is abundant, banks are more flexible, and the scope for adjusting lending is ...
Discussion Paper
Who Owns U.S. CLO Securities? An Update by Tranche
Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 crisis, leveraged loans have deteriorated and concerns about CLOs, the main buyers of loans on the secondary market, have increased. These concerns have reduced the demand for new CLOs, making it harder for firms to borrow through leveraged loans on the primary market, as banks have found it more difficult to sell loans on the secondary market.
Discussion Paper
Who Owns U.S. CLO Securities
Despite the increasing importance of U.S. CLOs, information on the holders of U.S. CLO securities is very limited. This note provides a breakdown of CLO investors by location and investor type using data from the Treasury International Capital (TIC) system. We find that most U.S. CLOs are held by U.S. investors and that the holdings are concentrated in insurance companies, mutual funds, and depository institutions.