Private Borrowing Research Articles

Credit Risk Detection in Peer-to-Peer Lending Using CatBoost

P2P lending (Peer-to-peer lending) is widely used by private borrowers, small businesses, and MSMEs because P2P lending allows individuals and businesses to be able to lend money directly from lenders without the stringent requirements and criteria of traditional banks and financial institutions. However, P2P lending has a credit risk problem characterized by a high failure rate for borrowers to repay their loans. Therefore, a system was necessary to detect credit risk to minimize the risk of P2P lending. In this study, a system had been built using the CatBoost method; the dataset used was taken from the Bondora loan dataset. To measure the performance of the CatBoost algorithm, an evaluation matrix was performed using ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristics) curves and AUC (Area Under Curve) was performed. The experiment consists of three scenarios, of which the best result regards Scenario 2 with a data splitting of 90:10. It was caused by the result of AUC value 0.80329 compared to scenario 1 with a data split of 80:20 with the AUC value around 0.789583, and scenario 3 with a data split of 70:30 with the AUC value around 0.781066, respectively.

Sudden stops and optimal foreign exchange intervention

We model sudden stops in a small open economy as rare discrete events precipitated by increases in the world risk-free rate. When external debt is large, the model exhibits multiple equilibria, one where external debt and consumption remain high, and one with a collapse in external debt and consumption. Private agents delever following an increase in the world interest rate, but they fail to internalize the impact of deleveraging on the price of collateral. For high levels of external debt, even a small increase in the world interest rate can eliminate the high debt equilibrium and the economy experiences a sudden stop. The central bank can use foreign exchange intervention to prevent the sudden stop. If reserves cannot be borrowed, optimal policy is to “lean against the wind”, buying foreign reserves ex-ante when private borrowing is high and selling them after an interest rate shock when private agents are deleveraging.

High discount rates by private actors undermine climate change adaptation policies

Adaptation requires investing now to avoid future damages, and thus adaptation is shaped by discount rates. Although the role of social discount rates in climate policy design has been well documented, the role of private discount rates has been ignored. We illustrate the importance of private discount rates in shaping adaptation investments by empirically demonstrating how household discount rates are negatively correlated with investments in water storage tanks in Central America. High private discount rates are common throughout the world and are a barrier to private adaptation investments. To overcome this barrier, adaptation policies targeted at private actors should ensure that benefits accrue sooner or that costs are lowered or accrue later. Governments or private companies could also offer long-term loans that exploit the differential between the discount rate of the lender and the private borrower.

Save Money to Lose Money? Implications of Opting Out of a Voluntary Audit Review for a Firm’s Cost of Debt*

ABSTRACT An audit review (AR) is a mechanism used by boards to assess the quality of interim financial reports on a timely basis. In Canada, the AR is voluntary, with listed firms mandated to disclose when they choose to not purchase additional audit verification. Given the relatively low cost of an AR, opting out of it can be regarded as a negative signal, especially in the context of lenders’ sensitivity to downside risk. Using a sample of 7,585 firm-year observations from 1,616 public firms in Canada over the period 2004-2015, we document that firms without a voluntary AR have a higher cost of debt than firms with an AR. Furthermore, after firms opt out of the AR, the increase in the cost of debt is accompanied by a rise in discretionary abnormal accruals and managers’ stock-based compensation. Moreover, no-AR firms are more likely to reduce post-switch private borrowing and have lower equity analyst following. Our study is the first to document that although listed borrowers that opt out of an AR have a higher cost of debt financing, they are concurrently able to engage in more earnings management and grant their managers higher stock-based compensation because of lower external monitoring.

Lending of Last Resort in Monetary Unions

The European Central Bank’s activities as lender of last resort are especially controversial in Germany. The overriding concern of the critics is an alleged tendency of creating moral hazard on the side of public and private borrowers in the European Monetary Union. This contrasts with the predominant views among German economists in the classical gold standard era, when the newly founded German empire merged the many currency areas in its realm into monetary union. Prominent experts and policy advisors, such as Erwin Nasse, Adolph Wagner and Friedrich Bendixen, argued that in view of the costs of system failures moral hazard ought not to be a predominant consideration at times of crisis. In critical assessments of the Currency vs. Banking debates in England, German commentators questioned the credibility and sustainability of strict rules for monetary policy in banking crises. Some even developed evolutionary views, in which monetary integration is driven by financial markets and lending of last resort becomes a constitutive characteristic of central banking, in particular in the formation of a monetary union. This paper compares the older German views about lending of last resort in monetary unions with the current discourse and explores possible explanations for the differences.

Interest Rates, Sanitation Infrastructure, and Mortality Decline in Nineteenth-Century England and Wales

This paper investigates whether high borrowing costs deterred investment in sanitation infrastructure in late nineteenth-century Britain. Town Councils had to borrow to fund investment, with considerable variation in interest rates across towns and over time. Panel regressions, using annual data from more than 800 town councils, indicate that higher interest rates were associated with lower levels of infrastructure investment between 1887 and 1903. Instrumental variable regressions show that falling interest rates after 1887 stimulated investment and led to lower infant mortality. These findings suggest that Parliament could have expedited mortality decline by subsidizing loans or facilitating private borrowing.

Revisiting the relationship between cross‐border capital flows and credit

AbstractA broad perspective on the sectoral composition of the domestic borrower and recipients of capital flows is needed to deepen the understanding of the mechanisms through which cross‐border capital flows interact with credit provision. Exploring this detail reveals stark differences across (i) credit measures that include only lending by banks and those that encompass all lenders (ii) the sum of all private borrower sectors versus nonfinancial corporation and household credit (iii) advanced economies and emerging markets (iv) instrument and sectoral composition of flows.

Technology is changing lending: Implications for research

Costello, Down, and Mehta (2020) trace their slider intervention to deviations from the credit line amount recommended by a credit scoring model. The deviations are followed by larger delinquency declines and bigger sales orders, and Costello et al. interpret these results using discretion-based theories. However, incremental deviations are concentrated on newer clients rather than those the lender has accumulated soft information about. Deviations also appear larger for public than private borrowers. My discussion evaluates whether these results align with discretion-based theories, and explores alternative interpretations based on salience and unique aspects of the trade credit setting. Differences in interpretation aside, the evidence is informative about technological advances in commercial lending. I conclude with an overview of several recent advances and discuss the implications for lending research.

The Choice Between Public and Private Debt by Russian Companies at Different Stages of the Life Cycle

The problems of formation of the company’s capital structure to date have already been studied well. A large number of theoretical papers and empirical studies devoted to this issue have been published. However, managers are confronted not only with the question of the optimal balance between equity and debt capital, but also with the choice of debt structure in the presence of several of its sources, such as public and private debt. This is a new paradigm in corporate finance. On the one hand, companies are not always ready to issue listed securities at the initial stages of their activity. On the other hand, raising funds in open markets has several advantages. With the help of public debt, one can attract a sufficiently large amount of financial resources with a lower cost in comparison with private borrowing. At the same time, as a rule, the public debt is not secured by the assets in the proper amount.
 According to the author’s opinion, in dealing with this question, companies can take into account not only the current state of the company and its financial indicators, but also the stages of the life cycle, since each of them has its own development features. The purpose of this study is to analyze whether life cycle stages and other financial indicators of a company affect the choice of a source of borrowed capital (private or public debt), thereby to contribute to the development of this research direction. The objects of study are Russian companies. In the empirical part of the study, the binary choice model had been applied.
 The sample size is 1,818 companies, the financial statements for three years were used. The stages of the organization’s life cycle were calculated by the method of V. Dickinson. A number of control variables were also included in the model. The results of empirical analysis indicate that the company decides to issue public debt, regardless of the stage of the life cycle. This allows us to conclude that the company, when conceptually resolving the question about the structure of borrowed capital, relies on economic indicators such as profitability, size of the company, structure of assets and financial leverage. Understanding this fact can also help potential investors in making investment decisions to form conservative portfolios.

Existence and Non-Triviality of Equilibria in Economies with Default and Government

This paper attempts to accommodate the government into Dubey, Geanakoplos and Shubik (2005) framework in an explicit way, and proves that a non-trivial equilibrium exists. By non-trivial equilibrium, we mean an equilibrium where there exists trading in the financial markets and some private borrower defaults. The government, characterised by its spending and tax plans\footnote{Both are assumed to be exogenous like in Gale (1990).}, enters our economic model by trading financial assets in order to balance its budget. Proof of existence is made by considering a generalised game \`a la Debreu (1952)\footnote{Already well known in the GEI literature.}, and its non-triviality is obtained by using the non-differentiable optimisation theory.

Credit Constraints and the Government Spending Multiplier

This paper studies the government spending multiplier in a quantitative model with credit constraints. We have four key results. First, credit constraints reduce the liquidity-trap government spending multiplier. This occurs partly because credit constraints weaken the “expected inflation channel” that has been central to large liquidity-trap spending multipliers in quantitative models. Second, this result holds even if the rise in government spending does not alter the tightness of the credit constraints. Third, the rise in government spending crowds out private borrowing, which leads to tighter credit constraints and even smaller spending multipliers. Fourth, with credit constraints, the liquidity-trap spending multiplier could be smaller than the spending multiplier during normal times.

Technology is Changing Lending: Implications for Research (A Discussion of Costello, Down, and Mehta (2020))

Costello, Down, and Mehta (2020) trace their slider intervention to deviations from the credit line amount recommended by a credit scoring model. The deviations are followed by larger delinquency declines and bigger sales orders, and Costello et al. interpret these results using discretion-based theories. However, incremental deviations are concentrated on newer clients rather than those the lender has accumulated soft information about. Deviations also appear larger for public than private borrowers. My discussion evaluates whether these results align with discretion-based theories, and explores alternative interpretations based on salience and unique aspects of the trade credit setting. Differences in interpretation aside, the evidence is informative about technological advances in commercial lending. I conclude with an overview of several recent advances and discuss the implications for lending research.

Giving MMT the credit it is due

Discussions of Modern Monetary Theory elicit surprisingly strong passions. Many of the critiques of MMT by conventional macroeconomists are valid, yet there is a resistance to giving MMT the credit it deserves. MMT puts a comprehensive framework for describing the quantity and price of money at its center, while conventional macro has framed fiscal policy choices through a narrow prism of loanable funds, which suggests higher budget deficits will compete with private borrowers leading to higher rates and lower investment. That prediction has not been born out precisely because broader drivers of money demand and supply have undergone major shifts reflecting demographics and the evolution of credit availability. For me, the most problematic aspect of MMT is the political economy prescription that fiscal authorities be responsible for maintaining low and stable inflation. In an era of dysfunctional and polarized politics, the value of an independent central bank is likely to be greater than ever. Getting the relationship between deficits and interest rates wrong has dented the credibility of conventional macroeconomics and it would be wise to put a broader framework for money at the center of discussions around policy tradeoffs.

ФИНАНСОВАЯ ГЛОБАЛИЗАЦИЯ КАК ГАРАНТ ЭФФЕКТИВНОСТИ ЭКОНОМИКИ СТРАНЫ (Financial Globalization as a Guarantor of the Effectiveness of the Country's Economy)

Russian Abstract: В статье автором указывается, что одной из основных тенденций развития мировой экономики последних лет является процесс глобализации. Поэтому, проведение взвешенной политики в области государственных и частных заимствований, своевременное принятие мер, необходимых для укрепления позиции государства в управлении образовавшейся задолженностью государственного сектора экономики и регулирования внешней задолженности частного сектора — важный фактор, обеспечивающий макроэкономическую стабильность страны, так как чрезмерный внешний долг негативно отражается на кредитоспособности страны в целом. English Abstract: In the article, the author points out that one of the main trends in the development of the world economy in recent years is the process of globalization. Therefore, the implementation of a balanced policy in the field of public and private borrowing, the timely adoption of measures necessary to strengthen the state's position in managing the arrears of the public sector of the economy and regulation of external debt of the private sector is an important factor ensuring the country's macroeconomic stability, as excessive external debt is negatively reflected on the creditworthiness of the country as a whole.

Information Sharing, Holdup, and External Finance: Evidence from Private Firms

Abstract To mitigate holdup by an informed incumbent lender, a private borrower may publicly share information in order to increase lender competition. Despite proprietary costs, a subset of private borrowers voluntarily share private information in loan and credit underwriting agreements. These borrowers switch lenders at a 16% higher rate and receive lower loan financing costs. For private firms that go public, we analyze changes in the net benefits of information sharing and study the potential estimation bias from unobservable borrower quality. This setting corroborates our inference that voluntary information sharing reduces lender holdup and alleviates financial constraints for private firms. Received May 25, 2017; editorial decision August 8, 2018 by Editor David Denis.

Liquidity and macroeconomic management in emerging markets

Emerging markets have received considerable attention for foreign investment and international diversification due to the possibility of higher earnings and a low level of integration with global equity markets. These high returns often need to be balanced by the high liquidity costs of trading in illiquid emerging markets. Several studies have shown that central bank and government policies are significant determinants of market liquidity. We investigate the influence of monetary and fiscal policy variables on the market and firm level liquidity of eight emerging stock markets of Asia. Using four different (il)liquidity measures and nine macroeconomic variables, we find that changes in the money supply, government expenditure and private borrowing significantly affect stock market liquidity. Illiquidity is also strongly affected by the bank rate, short-term interest rate and government borrowing. We demonstrate that ‘crowding out’ and ‘cost of funds’ effects exist in these markets. Other major findings are that some markets are more sensitive to local macroeconomic news than world factors, the impact on size based portfolios largely depends on the instruments used by the central banks and government, the liquidity of the manufacturing sector is affected by changes in any policy variables, financial institutions are only influenced by monetary policy variables, and the service sector is least affected.

Public debt in economies with heterogeneous agents

We study public debt in competitive equilibria in which a government chooses transfers and taxes optimally and in addition decides how thoroughly to enforce debt contracts. If the government enforces perfectly, asset inequality is determined in an optimum competitive equilibrium but the level of government debt is not. Welfare increases if private debt contracts are not enforced. Borrowing frictions let the government gather monopoly rents that come from issuing public debt without facing competing private borrowers. Regardless of whether the government chooses to enforce private debt contracts, the level of initial government debt does not affect an optimal allocation.

Domestic Creditor Rights and External Private Debt

This article unbundles institutions protecting domestic and foreign creditors' rights. We estimate a negative relation between the degree of domestic rights protection and the external stock of private non-guaranteed debt in 85 developing countries. A supply-side explanation is that strong domestic protection supports reliable outside financing options for potential external debt defaulters; foreign investors anticipating this would tighten credit constraints ex ante. Then we formalise the argument in a private borrowing and default model, and show that centralisation is no longer necessarily welfare superior.

A note on optimal fiscal policy in an economy with private borrowing limits

We consider the implications for optimal fiscal policy when taxes are non-distortionary and households are heterogeneous and borrowing constrained. The main result is that optimal policy keeps some households borrowing constrained in order to reduce interest rates on government debt.

Additional Credit for Liquidity-Constrained Individuals: High-Interest Consumer Credit in Korea

ABSTRACTWe find that the delinquency probability on formal sector debts of private loan borrowers in Korea increases from 2.4% to 20% in the first year after the borrowing and to 32% in the second year. This increase happens despite private loan borrowers trying to rebuild their financial health by reducing formal sector debts, credit card cash service balances, and credit card purchases during the post-borrowing period. This limits the possibility of moral hazard driving the results. Private loan amounts are positively associated with the delinquency probability after controlling other commonly used variables, suggesting that they contain additional information on the worsening financial situation of an individual.