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Working Paper
Examining the Financial Accelerator: Bank Responses to the 2014 Oil Price Shock
We exploit the 2014 decline in oil prices to understand how banks change contract terms for distressed firms. Using panel data on new and existing loans, we find that firms most financially affected by the 2010 oil price shock initially increased their use of credit. However, those same firms ultimately saw increased borrowing costs, smaller loan sizes, and fewer originations and renewals than less affected firms as the oil price decline persisted. We then demonstrate that credit spreads rose more than might be predicted based on changes in firm risk alone, suggesting that lending standards ...
Working Paper
Banking on Deforestation: The Cost of Nonenforcement
Despite surging environmental laws, how their enforcement influences banks’ management of climate risks remains underexplored. Using the Brazilian Amazon as a laboratory, we examine the impact of a shock to environmental law enforcement capacity on bank management of risks arising from deforestation — a significant but understudied climate risk. After enforcement declined, Brazilian banks significantly altered their priorities to more short-term profitability over longer-term risk concerns. Banks greatly increased lending to agribusinesses engaged in deforestation and actively shifted ...
Report
International banking and cross-border effects of regulation: lessons from the United States
Domestic prudential regulation can have unintended effects across borders and may be less effective in an environment where banks operate globally. Using U.S. micro-banking data for the first quarter of 2000 through the third quarter of 2013, this study shows that some regulatory changes indeed spill over. First, a foreign country?s tightening of limits on loan-to-value ratios and local currency reserve requirements increase lending growth in the United States through the U.S. branches and subsidiaries of foreign banks. Second, a foreign tightening of capital requirements shifts lending by ...
Discussion Paper
Could Rising Household Debt Undercut China’s Economy?
Although there has been a notable deceleration in the pace of credit growth recently, the run-up in debt in China has been eye-popping, accounting for more than 60 percent of all new credit created globally over the past ten years. Rising nonfinancial sector debt was driven initially by an increase in corporate borrowing, which surged in 2009 in response to the global financial crisis. The most recent leg of China’s credit boom has been due to an important shift toward household lending. To better understand the rise in household debt in China and its implications for financial stability ...
Working Paper
Oil Price Fluctuations and US Banks
We document a sizable effect of oil price fluctuations on US banking variables by estimating an SVAR with sign restrictions as in Baumeister and Hamilton (2019). We find that oil market shocks that lead to a contraction in world economic activity unambiguously lower the amount of bank credit to the US economy, tend to decrease US banks' net worth, and tend to increase the US credit spread. The effects can be strong and long-lasting, or more modest and short-lived, depending on the source of the oil price fluctuations. The effects are stronger for smaller and lower leveraged banks.
Report
Pirates without Borders: The Propagation of Cyberattacks through Firms’ Supply Chains
We document the supply chain effects of the most damaging cyberattack in history. The disruptions propagated from the directly hit firms to their customers, causing a four-fold amplification of the initial drop in profits. These losses were larger for affected customers with fewer alternative suppliers. Internal liquidity buffers and increased borrowing, mainly through bank credit lines, helped firms navigate the shock. The cyberattack also led to persisting adjustments to the supply chain network, with affected customers more likely to create new relationships with alternative suppliers and ...
Report
Bank Economic Capital
Conventional measures of bank solvency fail to account for the unique liquidity risks posed by deposits. Using public regulatory data, we develop a novel measure, economic capital, that jointly quantifies the impact of credit, liquidity, and market risk. We validate that economic capital is a more timely and accurate indicator of bank health than standard solvency measures. Using our framework, we examine the evolution of banking sector solvency and find that following the GFC low interest rates depressed economic capital even as liquidity and market risks grew. We conclude with several ...