Eric James Higgins

What is the value of recourse to asset-backed securities? A clinical study of credit card banks

The present paper uses data from revolving credit card securitizations to show that, conditional on being in a position where implicit recourse has become necessary and actually providing that recourse, recourse to securitized debt may benefit short- and long-term stock returns, and long-term operating performance of sponsors. The paper suggests that this result may come about because those sponsors providing the recourse do not seem to be extreme default or insolvency risks. However, sponsors providing recourse do experience an abnormal delay in their normal issuance cycle around the event. Hence, it appears that the asset-backed securities market is like the commercial paper market, where a firms ability to issue is directly correlated with credit quality. Therefore, although in violation of regulatory guidelines and FASB140, recourse may have beneficial effects for sponsors by revealing that the shocks that made recourse necessary are transitory. ; Also issued as Payment Cards Center Discussion Paper No. 03-04

The Impact of External Monitoring and Public Reporting on Business Performance in a Global Manufacturing Industry

This study examines the importance of external monitoring and public reporting on the performance of firms in the global apparel industry. By focusing on the relevance of company reputation in the global community, the authors examine financial performance and stock market reaction to the release of information describing the manufacturing practices of firms made available by a third-party monitor. Using agency theory as a predictive framework, industry-wide changes in market measures of company risk as a result of third-party monitoring are found, suggesting that society values such external reports. The authors’ findings are important to business and society because they bridge the gap in knowledge about how voluntary compliance programs are supplemented by external monitoring and reporting for firms operating in the global environment. This work suggests that external monitoring is valuable to business and society by reducing information asymmetry between the two groups and encouraging accurate assessment of the risks associated with global operations.

Deriving Credit Portfolio Diversification Properties from Large Asset-Backed Security Pools

The present analysis estimates Markowitz portfolio correlations for retail loan portfolios. The correlations are derived from almost

The Information Content of the 1999 Announcement of Funds from Operation Changes for Real Estate Investment Trusts

1 trillion of asset backed security pools originated by more than five hundred issuers between January 2000 and September 2003. Such a broad sample, comprised of several hundred thousand pool-month observations, provides a unique opportunity to infer asset correlation structures of commercial bank assets. Since the types of loans analyzed are rarely traded, Markowitz correlations are estimated from five different loan performance measures. The analysis demonstrates that the performance of many different loan credit types is weakly correlated, and is sometimes even negatively correlated. Hence, there is the potential to eliminate a significant amount of risk in diversified credit portfolios.