Search Results
Working Paper
Did FDICIA enhance market discipline on community banks? a look at evidence from the jumbo-CD market
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991 (FDICIA) directed the FDIC to resolve bank failures in the least costly manner, shifting more of the failure-resolution burden to jumbo-CD holders. We examine the sensitivity of jumbo-CD yields and runoffs to failure risk before and after FDICIA. We also examine the economic significance of estimated risk sensitivities before and after the Act, looking at the implied impact of risk on bank funding costs and profits. The evidence indicates that yields and runoff were sensitive to risk before and after FDICIA, but that this ...
Working Paper
On the relevance of credit market structure to monetary policy
Credit affects the economy via various channels: its price, collateral requirements and the extent of rationing. Would the intensity of monetary transmission be affected by the market structure of the credit industry? Using a spatial competition framework I demonstrate how credit market structure can affect the transmission of monetary policy changes into real activity via the volume of credit. The paper also points that monetary tightening may render lending unprofitable and consequently beget a credit crunch; the extent of credit market robustness to contractive monetary policy is shown to ...
Working Paper
In search of the natural rate of unemployment
The natural rate of unemployment can be measured as the time-varying steady state of a structural vector autoregression. For post-War U.S. data, the natural rate implied by this approach is more volatile than most previous estimates, with its movements accounting for the bulk of the variation in the unemployment rate, as well as substantial portions of the variation in aggregate output and inflation. These movements, in turn, can be related to variables associated with labor-market search theory, including unemployment benefits, labor productivity, real wages, and sectoral shifts in the labor ...
Working Paper
A unified analysis of executive pay: the case of the banking industry
This study examines executive compensation determinants in the U.S. banking industry. Multiple theories of executive pay are discussed and tested using a relatively homogenous sample. We perform an in-depth look at the corporate governance and ownership structure of the companies selected. We explore the simultaneous relationship between compensation, firm performance, and board strength, exploiting variables unique to the banking industry. Our primary finding is that after controlling for both regulatory oversight and external market discipline, a strong board is associated with higher firm ...
Working Paper
Economies of integration in banking: an application of the survivor principle
Despite the growing concentration of U.S. banking assets in mega-banks, most academic research finds that scale and scope economies are small. I apply the survivor principle to the banking industry between 1984 and 2002 and find that the so-called economies of integration are significant. These results hold after accounting for off-balance- sheet activities and after replicating the results at the holding company level. Regression analysis reveals that deregulation of branching restrictions, especially at the state level, played a significant role in allowing banks to exploit these economies. ...
Working Paper
Community bank performance in the presence of county economic shocks
A potentially troubling characteristic of the U.S. banking industry is the geographic concentration of many community banks* offices and operations. If geographic concentration of operations exposes banks to local market risk, we should observe a widespread decline in their financial performance following adverse economic shocks. By analyzing the performance of a sample of geographically concentrated U.S. community banks exposed to severe unemployment shocks in the 1990s, we find that banks are not particularly sensitive to local economic deterioration. Indeed, performance at banks in ...
Working Paper
Dividends, stock repurchases and signaling: evidence from U.S. panel data
This paper exploits yearly accounting data from 1977 to 1994 to test the relative signaling power of dividends and net stock repurchases. The specification controls for potential agency cost and asset dissipation effects. Specifically, we regress changes in future income before extraordinary items on changes in dividends, changes in net stock repurchases, and a host of control variables. We also split the sample at 1981 to measure the impact of changes in the relative taxation of distribution methods. For the full twenty-year sample, only dividend changes are correlated with changes in future ...
Working Paper
Can feedback from the jumbo-CD market improve off-site surveillance of community banks?
We examine the value of feedback from the jumbo-certificate-of-deposit (CD) market in the off-site surveillance of community banks. Using accounting data, we construct proxies for default premiums on jumbo CDs. Then, we produce rank orderings of community banks -- defined as institutions holding less than $500 million in assets (constant 1999 dollars) -- based on these proxies. Next, we use an econometric surveillance model to generate rank orderings based on the probability of encountering financial distress. Finally, we compare these rank orderings as tools for flagging emerging problems. ...
Working Paper
The future of small banks
This paper is a report to the Banking Supervision and Regulation Division on research that I conducted on the future of small banks while working in the Division as a Visiting Scholar. In this paper, small banks are identified as those with total assets less than $1 billion. Small banks have an important role in financing economic activity in the U.S., through their loans to small businesses. In addition, the Banking Supervision and Regulation Division of the St. Louis Fed has a vital interest in the future of small banks because most of the staff in this Division are involved in supervising ...
Working Paper
Scale economies and geographic diversification as forces driving community bank mergers
Mergers of community banks across economic market areas potentially reduce both idiosyncratic and local market risk. Idiosyncratic risk may be reduced because the larger post merger bank has a larger customer base. Negative credit and liquidity shocks from individual customers would have smaller effects on the portfolio of the merged entity than on the individual community banks involved in the merger. Geographic dispersion of banking activities across economic market areas may reduce local market risk because an adverse economic development that is unique to one market area will not affect a ...