Vasso Ioannidou

Tests of Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Theories of Collateral Using Private and Public Information

Collateral is a widely used, but not well understood, debt contracting feature. Two broad strands of theoretical literature explain collateral as arising from the existence of either ex ante private information or ex post incentive problems between borrowers and lenders. However, the extant empirical literature has been unable to isolate each of these effects. This paper attempts to do so using a credit registry that is unique in that it allows the researcher to have access to some private information about borrower risk that is unobserved by the lender. The data also includes public information about borrower risk, loan contract terms, and ex post performance for both secured and unsecured loans. The results suggest that the ex post theories of collateral are empirically dominant, although the ex ante theories are also valid for customers with short borrower-lender relationships that are relatively unknown to the lender.

Deposit Insurance and Bank Risk-Taking: Evidence from Internal Loan Ratings

We analyze the effect of deposit insurance on the risk-taking behavior of banks in the context of a quasi-natural experiment using detailed credit registry data. Using the case of an emerging economy, Bolivia, which introduced a deposit insurance system during the sample period, we compare the risk-taking behavior of banks before and after the introduction of this system. We find that in the post-deposit insurance period, banks are more likely to initiate riskier loans (i.e., loans with worse internal ratings at origination). These loans carry higher interest rates and are associated with worse ex-post performance (i.e., they have higher default and delinquency rates). Banks do not seem to compensate for the extra risk by increasing collateral requirements or decreasing loan maturities. We also find evidence that the increase in risk-taking is due to the decrease in market discipline from large depositors. Finally, differences between large (too-big-to-fail) and small banks diminished in the post-deposit insurance period.

On the Non-Exclusivity of Loan Contracts: An Empirical Investigation

Credit contracts are non-exclusive. A string of theoretical papers shows that nonexclusivity generates important negative contractual externalities. Employing a unique dataset, we identify how the contractual externality stemming from the non-exclusivity of credit contracts affects credit supply. In particular, using internal information on a creditor’s willingness to lend, we find that a creditor reduces its loan supply when a borrower initiates a loan at another creditor. Consistent with the theoretical literature on contractual externalities, the effect is more pronounced the larger the loans from the other creditor. We also find that the initial creditor’s willingness to lend does not change if its existing and future loans retain seniority over the other creditors’ loans and are secured with assets whose value is high and stable over time.

Foreigners vs. Natives: Bank Lending Technologies and Loan Pricing

Can distance-related information asymmetries in credit markets be overcome with contract design and credit scoring models? To answer this question, we explore differences in foreign and domestic banks’ credit contract terms and pricing models. Using a sample of firms that borrow from both domestic and foreign banks in the same month, we show that foreign banks are more likely to demand collateral and grant shorter maturity loans than domestic banks. Foreign banks also base their pricing on internal credit ratings and collateral pledges, while domestic banks price according to the length, depth and breadth of their relationship with a firm. These findings confirm that foreign banks can overcome informational disadvantages using contract design and credit scoring models. However, we also show that there are limitations, with foreign banks facing higher default rates and lower returns on lending if not using collateral and short maturity as disciplining tools.

Determinants and Valuation Effects of the Home Bias in European Banks' Sovereign Debt Portfolios

We document that large European banks hold sovereign debt portfolios heavily biased toward domestic government debt. This bias is stronger if the sovereign is risky and shareholder rights are strong, as evidence of a risk-shifting explanation of the home bias. In addition, the bias is stronger if the sovereign is risky and the government has positive ownership in the bank, as evidence of a government pressure channel. The home bias is positively valued by the stock market, as reflected by a positive association between the home bias and Tobin’s q. The home bias premium declines with domestic sovereign risk, but less so for highly leveraged banks, suggesting that both the risk-shifting and government pressure channels are operative. The European Central Bank’s large injections of liquidity in December 2011 and February 2012 reduced the marginal value of the home bias by allowing banks to expand their exposure to domestic government debt.

Bank-firm relationships: A review of the implications for firms and banks in normal and crisis times

Banks are important providers of external finance to firms. In order to solve asymmetric information problems, firms and banks often engage in bank-firm relationships. Relationship banking occurs when a bank and a borrower enter multiple mutual interactions and both parties invest in obtaining some counterparty specific information, binding bank and firm, to a certain degree, to each other. This chapter starts with a discussion of reasons for having exclusive versus non-exclusive relationships. It provides a concise overview on the determinants of the number and intensity of bank-firm relationships, and reviews how relationship banking generates costs and benefits for both banks and firms. We show that on average bank-firm relationships generate value for both. The costs and benefits of bank-firm relationships, however, vary substantially with whether an economy is in normal or crisis times.

Reexamining the Empirical Relation between Loan Risk and Collateral: The Role of the Economic Characteristics of Collateral

Abstract: This paper offers a possible explanation for the conflicting results in the literature concerning the empirical relation between collateral and loan risk. We posit that certain economic characteristics of collateral may be associated with the empirical dominance of different risk-collateral channels implied by economic theory, namely the “lender selection,” “borrower selection,” “risk-shifting,” and “loss mitigation” channels. Each of these four channels has different predictions regarding the empirical relations between collateral and loan risk. For our sample of commercial loans, we find that the “lender selection” channel appears to be especially important for outside collateral, the “risk-shifting” and “loss mitigation” channels are important for liquid collateral, and the “borrower selection” channel appears to hold weakly for nondivertible collateral. Our results suggest that the conflicting results in the extant riskcollateral literature may occur because different samples may be dominated by collateral with different economic characteristics.

Banks As Patient Lenders: Evidence from a Tax Reform

We study how a greater reliance on deposits affects bank lending policies. For identification, we exploit a tax reform in Italy that induced households to substitute bank bonds with deposits. We show that the reform led to larger increases (decreases) in term deposits (bonds) in areas where households held more bonds before the reform. We then find that banks with larger increases in deposits did not change their overall credit supply, but increased credit-lines and the maturity of term-loans. These results are consistent with key theories on the role of deposits as a discipline device and of banks as liquidity providers.

Why) Do Central Banks Care about Their Profits

We document that central banks are significantly more likely to report slightly positive profits than slightly negative profits, especially amid greater political pressure, the public’s receptiveness to more extreme political views, and when governors are reappointable. The propensity to report small profits over small losses is correlated with more lenient monetary policy and higher inflation. We conclude that profitability concerns, although absent from standard theory, are present and effective in practice. These findings inform a debate about the political economy of central banking, monetary stability, and the effectiveness of non-traditional central banking.