ling Liu

The determinants of global bank credit-default-swap spreads

Using a sample of 161 global banks in 23 countries, we examine the applicability of structural models and bank fundamentals to price global bank credit risk. First, we find that variables predicted by structural models (leverage, volatility, and risk-free rate) are significantly associated with bank CDS spreads. Second, some CAMELS indicators, including asset quality, cost efficiency, and sensitivity to market risk, contain incremental information for bank CDS prices. Moreover, leverage and asset quality have had a stronger impact on bank CDS since the onset of the recent financial crisis. Banks in countries with lower stock market volatility and/or more financial conglomerates restrictions tend to have lower CDS spreads. Deposit insurance appears to have an adverse effect on CDS spreads, indicating a moral hazard problem. Keywords: bank credit default swaps, structural models, CAMELS, global banks

Bank Market Power and Loan Contracts: Empirical Evidence

Using a sample of syndicated loan facilities granted to US corporate borrowers from 1987 to 2013, we directly gauge the lead banks’ market power, and test its effects on both price and non-price terms in loan contracts. We find that bank market power is positively correlated with loan spreads, and the positive relation holds for both non-relationship loans and relationship loans. In particular, we report that, for relationship loans, lending banks charge lower loan price for borrowing firms with lower switching cost. We further employ a framework accommodating the joint determination of loan contractual terms, and document that the lead banks’ market power is positively correlated with collateral and negatively correlated with loan maturity. In addition, we report a significant and negative relationship between banking power and the number of covenants in loan contracts, and the negative relationship is stronger for relationship loans.

Bank market power and loan growth

The authors explore the impact of bank market power on the provision of credit using multi-year, bank-level data from 131 countries. Their findings reconcile the opposing views of the theory on this matter and indicate the existence of a U-shaped relationship between bank market power and loan growth. Specifically, they find that high market power, as measured by high values of the Lerner index, diminishes bank loan growth in accordance with the traditional industrial organization approach. However, they also document that, after a certain threshold, a further increase in bank market power results in greater credit expansion in line with the information hypothesis. These findings are robust to the inclusion of country-specific time effects and to alternative variants of the Lerner index.

Bank enforcement actions and the terms of lending

Formal enforcement actions issued against banks for violations of laws and regulations related to safety and soundness can theoretically have both positive and negative effects on the terms of lending. Using hand-collected data on such enforcement actions issued against U.S. banks, we show that they have a strong negative effect on price terms (loan spreads and fees) for corporate loans and a positive one on non-price terms (loan maturity, size, covenants, and collateral). The results also indicate that in the absence of enforcement actions, the cost of borrowing during the subprime crisis would have been much higher, while punished banks intensify use of collateral.

Do Social Networks Encourage Risk-Taking? Evidence from Bank CEOs

This paper investigates the impact of CEO’s social network on bank risk and observes a significant positive association. Adopting a difference-in-difference approach, using deaths and retirements within networks, it confirms that the findings are causal. It also reports that well-connected bank CEOs take more risk when more of their social ties are linked to informationally opaque firms and when the labor market offers fewer employment options. In addition, diversity of social ties (professional and educational) helps to mitigate the impact on risk. Finally, it reveals an inefficient trade-off between bank risk and return, suggesting that executive social networks lead to excessive bank risk.