Standard banking theory suggests that there exists an optimal level of credit risk that yields maximum bank profit. We identify the optimal level of risk-weighted assets that maximizes banks’ returns in the full sample of US banks over the period 1996–2011. We find that this optimal level is cyclical for the average bank, being higher than the realized credit risk in relatively stable periods w...

This paper first examines various definitions of Kornai’s soft budget constraint (SBC) and the difficulties involved in interpreting data on losses, subsidies and financing, and then considers selective evidence from transition economies. Stocks of overdue trade credit are no larger than in Western economies and firms in transition economies (TEs) typically impose hard budget constraints on eac...

Article history: Received 21 August 2013 Accepted 15 November 2013 Available online 19 December 2013 Capital adequacy plays an important role in determining banking activities. A bank must hold a minimum level of capital to ensure sufficient funds to buffer against unexpected losses or adverse shocks. This study analyzes and compares Islamic and conventional banks in 14 Organization of Islamic ...

This paper investigates the effects of bank internationalization on risk-taking. We find that internationalization increases bank risk-taking: the Z-score of US banks that engage in foreign activities is lower than that of their purely domestic peers. The results are consistent with the empirical dominance of the market risk hypothesis, whereby internationalization increases banks’ risk due to ...

The odds of a current syndicate relationship between two lenders depend upon their previous alliances. The odds are significantly higher [lower] and strongest for a current lead–participant relationship with a continuation [reversal] of their previous roles. To illustrate, the odds are nearly four times higher when two lenders have allied in the previous 5 years. The strength of lead–participan...

The surrender option embedded in many life insurance products is a clause that allows policyholders to terminate the contract early. Pricing techniques based on the American Contingent Claim (ACC) theory are often used, though the actual policyholders’ behavior is far from optimal. Inspired by many prepayment models for mortgage backed securities, this paper builds a Rational Expectation (RE) m...

We highlight the ex ante risk-shifting incentives faced by a bank’s shareholders/managers when CoCos (contingent convertible capital) are part of the capital structure. The risk shifting incentive arises from the wealth transfers that the shareholders will receive upon the CoCo’s conversion under CoCo designs widely used in practice. Specifically we show that for principal writedown and nondilu...

This paper investigates how a firm’s borrowing cost evolves as it ages. Using a new data set of more than 200,000 bank-dependent small firms for 1997-2002, we find the following. First, the distribution of borrowing costs tends to become less skewed to the right over time, which can be partially attributed to “selection” (i.e., exits of defaulting firms reduce the total borrowing costs), but is...

We analyze the risk implications of European bank consolidation on the probability of default of acquiring banks. Using the Merton distance to default model, we show that the average bank merger is risk neutral. We examine the extent to which merger motives linked to risk diversification and regulatory incentives explain the observed risk effects of M&A. However, we find only limited evidence c...

External finance is critical for less established entrepreneurs, so poor investor protection can hinder competition. We model how lobbying for weaker investor protection reduces access to finance and decreases competition in countries where politicians are less accountable to voters. Weaker accountability thus produces a smaller economic elite. As empirical support for this result, in a broad p...