Olivier De Jonghe

Bank Capital Management: International Evidence

We examine the dynamic behavior of bank capital using a global sample of 64 countries during the 1994–2010 period. Banks achieve deleveraging primarily through equity growth (rather than asset liquidation). In contrast, they achieve leveraging through reduced earnings retention and substantial asset expansion. The speed of capital structure adjustment is heterogeneous across countries. Banks make faster capital structure adjustments in countries with more stringent capital requirements, better supervisory monitoring, more developed capital markets, and high inflation. In times of crises, banks adjust their capital structure significantly more quickly.

Do stock markets discipline US bank holding companies : Just monitoring, or also influencing?

This paper presents evidence that bank managers adjust key strategic variables following a risk and/or valuation signal from the stock market. Banks receive a risk signal when they exhibit substantially higher (semi-)volatility compared to the best performing bank(s) with similar characteristics, and a valuation signal when they are undervalued relative to the average bank with similar characteristics. We document, using a partial adjustment model, that bank managers adjust the long-term target value of key strategic variables and the speed of adjustment towards those targets following a risk and/or negative valuation signal. We interpret this as evidence of stock market influencing. We show that our results are unlikely to be driven by indirect influencing by regulators, subordinated debtholders, retail or wholesale depositors. Finally, we show that the likelihood that banks receive a risk and/or valuation signal increases with opaqueness, managerial discretion and specialization.

Lending concentration, bank performance and systemic risk: exploring cross-country variation

Using both market-based and annual report-based approaches to measure lending specialization for a broad cross-section of banks and countries over the period 2002 to 2011, this paper is the first to empirically gauge the relationship between bank lending specialization and bank performance and stability in an international sample. Theory suggests that banks might benefit from specialization in the form of higher screening and monitoring efficiency, while a diversified loan portfolio might also enhance stability. This paper finds that sectoral specialization increases volatility and systemic risk exposures, while not leading to higher returns. The paper also documents important time, cross-bank, and cross-county variation in this relationship, which is stronger post 2007, for richer countries, countries without regulatory requirements on diversification, banks with lower market power, and banks with more traditional intermediation models.

Some Borrowers are More Equal than Others: Bank Funding Shocks and Credit Reallocation

This paper provides evidence on the strategic lending decisions made by banks facing a negative funding shock. Using bank-firm level credit data, we show that banks reallocate credit within their loan portfolio in at least three different ways. First, banks reallocate to sectors where they have a high market share. Second, they also reallocate to sectors in which they are more specialized. Third, they reallocate credit towards low-risk _rms. These reallocation effects are economically large. A standard deviation increase in sector market share, sector specialization or firm soundness reduces the transmission of the funding shock to credit supply by 22, 8 and 10 %, respectively.

The Impact of Bank Shocks on Firm-Level Outcomes and Bank Risk-Taking

Current empirical methods to identify and assess the impact of bank shocks rely strictly on firms borrowing from multiple banks and ignore the many firms borrowing from only one bank. Yet, such single-relationship firms may be the most prone and sensitive to bank-loan supply shocks. Therefore, we develop time-varying cross-sectional measures of bank-loan supply that include these single-relationship firms. Using bank-firm matched credit data from Belgium for the period 2002-2012, we examine their information content and impact on firm outcomes and bank risk-taking. Our estimated supply shocks correlate significantly with interbank liabilities growth and bank lending standards. Firms borrowing from banks with negative supply shocks exhibit lower growth, investment and sales. Positive supply shocks are associated with bank risk-taking behaviour at the extensive margin. Importantly, in order to capture these effects in our sample, it is crucial to include the single-relationship firms in the identification of the supply shocks.

Competition in EU banking

This chapter discusses recent EU-wide movements in bank competition and concentration. We start with a concise overview of the most frequently used competition and concentration measures. Given that different measures may capture different aspects of bank competition, we focus on the differences and similarities between concentration and competition measures for a broad sample of EU banks. We show that a high level of bank concentration does not necessarily imply a low level of competition and that competition measures such as the Boone indicator (Boone, The Economic Journal, 118(531), 1245–1261, 2008) and the H-statistic (Panzar and Rosse, The Journal of Industrial Economics, 35(4), 443–456, 1987) might capture different aspects of bank competition. Next, we discuss the evolution of bank competition in the EU over time. We end with an overview of recent findings on three important issues concerning bank competition: the impact of bank competition on bank risk-taking, the relationship between bank competition and systemic risk and the relationship between bank competition and switching costs for bank customers.

Funding shocks and banks' credit reallocation

This paper provides evidence on the strategic lending decisions made by banks facing a negative funding shock. Using bank-firm level credit data, we show that banks reallocate credit within their domestic loan portfolio in at least three different ways. First, banks reallocate to sectors where they have high sector presence. Second, they also reallocate to sectors in which they are heavily specialized. Third, they reallocate credit towards low-risk firms. These reallocation effects are economically large. A standard deviation improvement in sector presence, sector specialization or firm risk reduces the transmission of the funding shock to credit supply by 20, 13 and 10%, respectively. We also provide insight in the timing of these reallocation decisions. Reallocation to sectors in which a bank has a high sector presence is almost instantaneous, while sector specialization starts playing a role four to five months after the shock.