Loan Spreads Research Articles

Do bank risk-taking, deposit insurance and financial heterogeneity change periodically with the financial crisis?

ABSTRACT Financial heterogeneity generally refers to differences in the financial environment, which will affect the efficiency and risk of a country’s financial market. This paper describes financial heterogeneity from three aspects: the difference of financial market structure, the difference of financial intervention level and the degree of financial openness, and studies the relationship between financial heterogeneity, deposit insurance coverage and bank risk-taking before and after the 2008 financial crisis, using panel data of 98 market countries. The results show that the nonlinear relationship between bank risk-taking and deposit insurance coverage. This research finds that estimated coefficients’ sign and significance of some variables, such as household saving rate, bank deposit loan spread, their interactions with deposit insurance coverage, and bank credit to bank deposits show cyclical characteristics cross periods.

Don't interfere with my rights! Employee rights violation and the cost of bank loans

AbstractWe study the relationship between the cost of bank loans and the charges filed to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) due to managerial interference in employee rights. Loans issued after the filing of the allegations are associated with significantly higher loan spreads than loans initiated before the filing of allegations. Strong allegations that result in withdrawal with adjustments or compliance tend to positively affect the loan pricing. Further, interfering firms tend to experience higher default risks in the years following the filing of charges. Our paper is the first in the literature to show the impact of violation of employee rights on the cost of bank loans, which has an implication for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) lending where loan contract terms are contingent on borrower ESG performance.

Peluang Dan Tantangan Pembiayaan Online Syariah Dalam Menghadapi Pinjaman Online Ilegal

This study aims to show the opportunities and challenges of Islamic online financing in dealing with illegal online loans favoured by the public. The research method uses literature studies from journals, online news, and other reading materials. The study results found Islamic online financing opportunities in dealing with illegal online loans. Indonesia has a Muslim majority population, high internet users, the issuance of fatwa number 117/DSN-MUI/II/2018, and the spread of bad interest-based online loans. Meanwhile, the challenges of Islamic online financing in dealing with illegal online loans are the low level of Islamic financial literacy, access for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to obtain financing to the banking sector is still low, and online-based security challenges. This research can be used to reference Islamic financing and complement existing theories.

The Corroboration Role of Management Earnings Forecasts in Private Loan Markets

Management earnings forecasts (MEFs) may reduce information risk by corroborating the inferences that lenders draw from their private communication with borrowers. Consistent with this idea, we find that among firms with a general policy of issuing MEFs, those providing MEFs in the 6 months before loan origination with a forecast horizon beyond the origination date enjoy lower loan spreads. The frequency and precision of MEFs are also negatively associated with loan spreads. The associations are stronger when lenders’ need for corroboration of their private information is expected to be greater. The associations are not driven by a firm’s general information environment, signaling of managerial ability, opportunistic disclosure, or competition between public and private debt markets. Moreover, the issuance, frequency, and precision of MEFs are associated with loan amounts more spread out among participating lenders, suggesting that MEFs also reduce information asymmetry within a loan syndicate. Our study provides insight into the corroboration role of publicly disseminated MEFs in private loan markets.

Local gender imbalance and corporate risk-taking

We study the effects of local gender imbalance on corporate risk-taking. We find that firms in areas with a higher local male–female ratio have higher stock return volatilities, leverage ratios and capital expenditure, and less corporate hedging. Consequently, such firms face higher loan spreads, more collateral requirements and capital expenditure restrictions, and have more covenant violations. We address endogeneity concerns by using two instrumental variables for the local male-female ratio: the local prostate cancer and breast cancer mortality rates. We further show that local gender imbalance captures local residents’ risk preferences, which influence corporate policies via both local investor and employee channels.

Modelling credit spreads on commercial mortgage loans

PurposeThis paper offers empirical evidence on factors influencing credit spreads on commercial mortgage loans. It extends existing work on the pricing of commercial mortgage loans. The authors examine the relative significance of a range of factors on loan pricing that are lender, asset and loan specific. The research explores and quantifies the sources of spread differentials among commercial mortgage loans. The paper contributes to a limited literature on the subject and serves the purpose of price discovery in commercial property lending. It offers a framework to compare actual pricing with fundamental-based estimates of loan spreads.Design/methodology/approachPanel analysis is deployed to examine the cross-section and time-series determinants of commercial mortgage loan margins and credit spreads. Using an exclusive database of loan portfolios in the United Kingdom (UK), the panel analysis enables the authors to analyse and quantify the impact of a number of theory-consistent and plausible factors determining the cost of lending to commercial real estate (CRE), including type and origin of lender, loan size, loan to value (LTV) and characteristics of asset financed – type, location and grade.FindingsSpreads on commercial mortgages and, therefore, loan pricing differ by the type of lender – bank, insurance company and debt fund. The property sector is another significant risk factor lenders price in. The LTV ratio has increased in importance since 2012. Prior to global financial crisis (GFC), lenders made little distinction in pricing different LTVs. Loans secured in secondary assets command a higher premium of 50–60bps. The analysis establishes an average premium of 35bps for loans advanced in regions compared to London. London is particularly seen a less risky region for loan advancements in the post-GFC era.Research limitations/implicationsThe study considers the role of lender characteristics and the changing regulation in the pricing of commercial mortgage loans and provides a framework to study spreads or pricing in this market that can include additional fundamental influences, such as terms of individual loans. The ultimate aim of such research is to assess whether mortgage loans are correctly priced and spotting risks emanating from actual loan spreads being lower than fundamental-based spreads pointing to tight pricing and over-lending.Practical implicationsThe analysis provides evidence on lender criteria that determine the cost of loans. The study confirms that differences in regulation affect loan pricing. The regulatory impact is most visible in the increased significance of LTV. In that sense, regulation has been effective in restricting lending at high LTV levels.Originality/valueThe paper exploits a database of a commercial mortgage loan portfolio to make loan pricing more transparent to the different types of lender and borrowers. Lenders can use the estimates to assess whether commercial loans are fairly priced. Borrowers better understand the relative significance of risk factors affecting margins and the price they are charged. The results of this paper are of value to regulators as they can assist to understand the determinants of loan margins and gauge conditions in the lending market.

WHICH FACTORS MATTER TO DEPOSIT INSURANCE COVERAGE LIMIT? EVIDENCE FROM EMERGING MARKETS

This paper analyzes the effects of the household savings rate, interest rate spread and bank capital to total assets on the relationship between banks’ risk-taking and explicit deposit insurance coverage while controlling for certain macroeconomic factors, bank-level factors and political factors with data from 50 emerging markets. It is found that the U-shaped relationship between banks’ risk-taking and coverage is more apparent in countries with higher household savings rates, lower interest rate spreads or lower bank capital to total assets. The risk-minimizing coverage settings are analyzed and compared with the actual limits for emerging market economies in 2013. For emerging market countries, the effects of the household savings rate, deposit and loan spreads and banks’ capital to assets ratio should be fully considered when setting reasonable deposit insurance coverage, and their interaction with coverage should be emphasized.

Impact of Leveraged Lending Guidance: evidence from nonbank participation in syndicated loans

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the impact of supervisory Leveraged Lending Guidance (LLG) (2013–2014) on risk and structure of syndicated loans arranged by the largest US banks with participation of nonbank lenders.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses supervisory shared national credit loan-level data from 2010 to 2015 and DealScan loan origination data and use linear regressions with clustered standard errors.FindingsThis study finds that the impact of the LLG was mixed. Incidence and risk of leveraged lending declined following the Guidance, as reflected in lower nonbank syndicate participation. However, the covenant protections weakened and loan spreads at origination declined. This study also provides evidence that some risky lending originations shifted to nonbank entities outside of the banking regulatory environment.Originality/valueThis study contributes and expands literature on the impact of regulatory guidance on loan risk, terms and structure, focusing on nonbank participation in syndicated commercial loans.

Does Restricting Managers' Discretion through GAAP Impact the Usefulness of Accounting Information in Debt Contracting?†

ABSTRACTWe examine whether restricting managers' discretion through GAAP impacts the usefulness of accounting information in debt contracting. Our study informs standard setters and regulators regarding the debt contracting implications of limiting managers' discretion via accounting standards. We predict and find that under more restrictive standards, lenders make more non‐GAAP modifications to GAAP‐based performance measures, suggesting that restrictions of managers' discretion reduce the usefulness of accounting information. We perform two additional analyses to enhance identification. First, in line‐item‐level analysis, we document a positive relation between the exclusion of specific nonrecurring items from contractual definitions of earnings and the number of restrictions in the GAAP standards that apply to each specific item each year. Second, using difference‐in‐differences tests around standard changes, we find that the propensity to exclude items varies positively with changes in the restrictiveness of related standards. Moreover, we predict and find that restrictive standards are also positively associated with loan spreads but significantly less so when lenders adjust GAAP numbers in loan contracts. Overall, this study improves our understanding of how attributes of accounting standards impact the usefulness of accounting information.

Conservatorship, quantitative easing, and mortgage spreads: a new multi-equation score-driven model of policy actions

Abstract In this paper, the effects of United States (US) policy actions on mortgage-backed security and mortgage loan spreads are measured, by using data before, during, and after the US subprime mortgage crisis. We study the effects of the following policy actions: (i) the placement of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into US Government conservatorship; (ii) the US Federal Reserve quantitative easing (QE) programs. We provide the following contributions to the literature: (i) for a robust measurement of policy effects, a new multi-equation score-driven t-QVARMA (quasi-vector autoregressive moving average) model is used. (ii) In addition to the measurement of the effects of QE, the effects of government conservatorship are also measured in this paper. (iii) Furthermore, the data period of the relevant literature is extended to the period of June 1998 to March 2020.

Board corruption and loan contracts

AbstractIn this study, we examine the effects of board corruption on the financing costs of firms. We construct an index of perceived corruption that uses the average level of corruption that is linked to a director's surname. The evidence shows that lending banks attach higher spreads and stricter covenants to the loan contracts of firms with high perceived board corruption. Specifically, when the perceived board corruption increases after mergers and acquisitions, firms are charged higher loan spreads. Further analysis shows that the effects of board corruption on financing costs become stronger when firms have weak governance mechanisms. These results show that banks recognize board corruption as a source of agency problem with borrowers when they make lending decisions.

How Does Monetary Policy Affect Prices of Corporate Loans?

<ns3:p>This paper studies the impact of unanticipated monetary policy news around FOMC announcements on secondary market corporate loan spreads. I find that the reaction of loan spreads to monetary policy news is weaker than that of bond spreads: following an unanticipated monetary policy tightening (easing) shock, loan spreads do not increase (decrease) as much as bond spreads do. Decomposition of the spreads into compensations for expected defaults and risk premiums shows that differential reactions of loan and bond risk premiums are the main driver of the differential spread reactions. This paper further finds that the weaker loan spread reactions to monetary policy shocks are more pronounced for riskier loans. Lastly, reactions of primary market loan spreads to monetary policy shocks are also muted. These findings highlight heterogeneous impacts of monetary policy across different types of corporate credit markets, possibly reflecting heterogeneous investor demand responses to monetary policy in those markets.</ns3:p>

Uncertainty and the Cost of Bank versus Bond Finance

AbstractHow does uncertainty affect the costs of raising finance in the bond market and via bank loans? Empirically, this paper finds that heightened uncertainty is accompanied by an increase in corporate bond spreads, whereas spreads on bank loans remain unchanged. This finding can be explained with a model that includes costly state verification and in which banks maintain long‐term relationships with borrowers and acquire information beyond what is publicly available. After an unexpected increase in uncertainty, the probability of borrower default increases. Banks leave the loan spread unchanged to maintain the relationship. In contrast, bond spreads increase because investors demand compensation for the increased default risk.

Bank loans during the 2008 quantitative easing

We examine the effect of quantitative easing on the supply of bank loans. During the Fed’s quantitative easing programs, lending banks reduced relatively more loan spreads, offered longer loan maturities, provided larger loans, and loosened more covenants for firms whose long-term bond ratings were below BBB and were lower than those with investment-grade bond ratings. Furthermore, we find that new bank loans in this period were associated with a reduction in a firm’s value and an increase in default risk. These results indicate that banks took greater risk during the 2008 quantitative easing by relaxing lending standards to relatively riskier borrowers.

Changes in the effect of corporate tax avoidance on the cost of debt over the past 25 years

PurposeThis study aims to examine how the effect of corporate tax avoidance on the cost of debt has changed in the period 1993–2017. Although it is known that tax avoidance has significantly increased during this period (Dyreng et al., 2017), little evidence exists on how this change alters the effect of tax avoidance on the cost of debt. This study investigates how changes in tax avoidance modify the association between tax avoidance and the cost of debt.Design/methodology/approachBy using a comprehensive sample of 15,825 loan facilities issued to US public firms in the period 1993–2017, this study tests the time-series changes in the association between tax avoidance and the cost of debt.FindingsThis study finds that a positive association between tax avoidance and the cost of debt has been declined over the past 25 years. Accordingly, tax avoidance in general no longer increases the loan spread after the enactment of domestic production activities deduction. However, the risker end of tax avoidance does still increase the loan spread.Originality/valueThis study spotlights the time-series changes in the effect of corporate tax avoidance on the cost of debt, showing how lenders perception on corporate tax avoidance has altered in accordance with changes in corporate tax practice.

Informational switching costs, bank competition, and the cost of finance

This paper studies the links between competition in the lending market and spreads of bank loans in Brazil. Empirical evidence from private banks shows a positive relationship between market power, measured by the Lerner index, and the cost of finance, measured by loan spreads over the treasury curve. Moreover, information acquired through relationship lending is used differently by private and state-owned banks. On the one hand, private banks engage in a strategy of first competing fiercely for clients by offering a lower loan interest rate and later increasing rates as the relationship with the firm evolves, consistent with the holdup problem. On the other hand, state-owned banks reduce the spreads as they deepen their relationship with the firm, consistent with sharing of the informational benefits from their relationship.

The cost of foreign-currency lending

Lending to corporates in foreign currencies can expose banks to substantial currency risk. Using global syndicated loan data, we find that a one-standard-deviation increase in exchange rate volatility increases loan spreads somewhere in the range between 5.5 and 16.1 basis points for loans made in a currency different from the lenders’. This implies excess interest of approximately 1 to 3 USD million for loans of average size and duration. We also show that this finding is mostly attributed to credit constraints and deviations from perfect competition in international lending markets, and that borrowers can lower the extra cost by forming strong lending relationships with their banks.

The E ect of Government-Sponsored Enterprise Participation on Syndicated Loan Spreads

The E ect of Government-Sponsored Enterprise Participation on Syndicated Loan Spreads

Modern financial and economic crises and the stability of the financial and banking system of Ukraine

Factors, problems and risks are analyzed and systematized, in particular, technical-technological and innovation backwardness, peculiarities of economic cycles in economic systems of countries at different stages of development, as well as due to increasing competitiveness of some of them in the globalized world. crisis. It is shown that the situation worsens when the world economy grows, and against its background, imbalances in the global financial system are growing and speculative capital is spreading. It is revealed that the first global crisis of 2008–2010 was provoked by the uncontrolled spread of mortgage loans in the US real estate markets and the transfer of these processes to other countries, resulting in "financial bubbles", a market crash and a chain reaction involving others. markets. Emphasis is placed on the fact that when Ukraine's economy was in a state of permanent crisis, the domestic banking system withstood all domestic economic, financial, currency and other changes, as well as external turbulence, which provoked the strengthening of negative trends. It is established that the second financial and economic crisis of 2014–2016 is largely due to internal problems: much lower technological structure (third-fourth compared to fifth-sixth in economically developed countries), significant lag of Ukrainian industry in terms of innovation from industry EU countries, a high level of depreciation of fixed assets, much higher resource intensity and lower productivity, unrealistic in a few years to carry out innovative modernization of machine-building industries for the production of means of production. An acute threat has been revealed that the unlimited increase in speculative capital has exacerbated structural imbalances between the real and financial sectors. The main negative consequences of the crisis for the financial and banking system are systematized: they include more than three devaluations of the hryvnia, liquidation of more than a hundred banks and privatization of the largest of them, Privatbank, closure of several thousand banking branches and large–scale unemployment. It is confirmed that the third financial and economic crisis of 2020–2021 has a natural origin – it was caused by the pandemic COVID-19 caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV, and its consequences. It is established that the corona crisis has provoked various negative effects on the work of industry and social services, has caused significant damage to all countries and the vast majority of the world's population. It is shown that Ukraine proved to be more resilient to these troubles and the pre-crisis revival began in the second quarter of this year. It is substantiated that the implementation of macroprudential policy measures aimed at preventing the accumulation and implementation of systemic risks in the financial sector will help increase the stability of the financial and banking system, properly perform its main functions – financial intermediation and payments – and crisis management. It is shown that timely and effective implementation of macroprudential instruments will increase the stability of the national economy and reduce GDP volatility. Key words: financial and economic crisis, stability of the financial and banking system, economic cycle, market turbulence, inflation, capital movements, financial markets.

The effect of borrower country financial system and corporate governance system types on the spread of syndicated loans

PurposeThis study aims to analyse the effect of borrower’s countries on syndicated loan spreads, featuring countries according to institutional factors, namely, financial systems and corporate governance systems.Design/methodology/approachThis study is an empirical investigation based on a unique sample of more than 85,000 syndicated loans from 122 countries. The paper uses standard and two-stage least squares regression analysis to test whether the types of financial and corporate governance systems affect loan spreads.FindingsThe paper finds that borrowers from countries with financial systems oriented towards the banking-based paradigm pay lower interest rate spreads than those from countries with financial systems oriented towards the market-based paradigm. In addition, there is evidence that borrowers from countries with more developed financial systems pay lower spreads. The results also show that borrowers from countries with an Anglo-Saxon governance system pay higher spreads than borrowers from countries with a Continental governance system.Research limitations/implicationsThis study does not consider potential promiscuous relationships that can arise at the ownership structure and governance level between banks and borrowers and may affect loan spreads.Practical implicationsThis study suggests that financial and corporate governance systems are essential factors in the financial intermediation process. Furthermore, the evidence indicates that corporates with higher potential agency costs and higher potential information asymmetry are requested to pay higher spreads. Therefore, the opportunities to such corporates invest optimally tend to be scarcer.Originality/valueThe paper highlights the impact of institutional factors on the cost of financing, characterising the countries according to the type of financial system and the type of corporate governance system. The study finds that borrowers from countries with bank-based financial systems pay lower interest rate spreads than those from countries with market-based financial systems. The paper also highlights how the level of financial development affects the cost of financing. The paper focusses on non-financial firms, unlike financial firms, which have been the focus of several empirical studies on topics relating to the cost of funding and corporate governance.