This paper examines the implications of bank activity and short-term funding strategies for bank risk and return using an international sample of 1,334 banks in 101 countries leading up to the 2008 ...financial crisis. Expansion into noninterest income-generating activities such as trading increases the rate of return on assets, and it could offer some risk diversification benefits at very low levels. Nondeposit, wholesale funding in contrast lowers the rate of return on assets, while it can offer some risk reduction at commonly observed low levels of nondeposit funding. A sizable proportion of banks, however, attract most of their short-term funding in the form of nondeposits at a cost of enhanced bank fragility. Overall, banking strategies that rely prominently on generating noninterest income or attracting nondeposit funding are very risky, consistent with the demise of the US investment banking sector.
We model the opportunities and incentives generated by international tax differences for international profit shifting by multinationals. The model considers not only profit shifting arising from ...international tax differences between affiliates and parent companies, but also from tax differences between affiliates in different host countries. Our model yields the prediction that a multinational's profit shifting in a country depends on a weighted average of international tax rate differences between all countries where the multinational is active. Using a unique dataset containing detailed firm-level information on the parent companies and subsidiaries of European multinationals and information about the international tax system, we test our model and empirically examine the extent of intra-European profit shifting by European multinationals. On average, we find a semi-elasticity of reported profits with respect to the top statutory tax rate of 1.3, while shifting costs are estimated to be 0.6% of the tax base. International profit shifting leads to a substantial redistribution of national corporate tax revenues. Many European nations appear to gain revenues from profit shifting by multinationals largely at the expense of Germany.
We show that the parent-subsidiary structure of multinational firms created by cross-border mergers and acquisitions is affected by the prospect of international double taxation. Specifically, the ...likelihood of parent firm location in a country following a cross-border takeover is reduced by high international double taxation of foreign-source income. At the same time, countries with high international double taxation attract smaller numbers of parent firms. A unilateral elimination of worldwide taxation by the United States is simulated to increase the proportion of parent firms locating in the United States following cross-border mergers and acquisitions from 53% to 58%.
This paper shows that banks overstate the value of distressed assets and their regulatory capital during the US mortgage crisis. Real estate-related assets are overvalued in banks' balance sheets, ...especially those of bigger banks, compared to the market value of these assets. Banks with large exposure to mortgage-backed securities also provision less for bad loans. Furthermore, distressed banks use discretion over the classification of mortgage-backed securities to inflate their books. Our results indicate that banks' balance sheets offer a distorted view of the financial health of the banks and provide suggestive evidence of regulatory forbearance and noncompliance with accounting rules.
This paper finds that lending by state banks is less procyclical than lending by private banks, especially in countries with good governance. Lending by state banks in high income countries is even ...countercyclical. On the liability side, state banks expand their total liabilities and, in particular, their non-deposit liabilities relatively little during booms. Public banks also report loan non-performance more evenly over the business cycle. Overall our results suggest that state banks can play a useful role in stabilizing credit over the business cycle as well as during periods of financial instability. However, the track record of state banks in credit allocation remains quite poor, questioning the wisdom of using state banks as a short term countercyclical tool.
This paper presents a model of a multinational firm's optimal debt policy that incorporates international taxation factors. The model yields the prediction that a multinational firm's indebtedness in ...a country depends on a weighted average of national tax rates and differences between national and foreign tax rates. These differences matter as multinationals have an incentive to shift debt to high-tax countries. The predictions of the model are tested using a novel firm-level dataset for European multinationals and their subsidiaries, combined with newly collected data on the international tax treatment of dividend and interest streams. Our empirical results show that a foreign subsidiary's capital structure reflects local corporate tax rates as well as tax rate differences vis-à-vis the parent firm and other foreign subsidiaries, although the overall economic effect of taxes on leverage appears to be small. Ignoring the international debt shifting arising from differences in national tax rates would understate the impact of national taxes on debt policies by about 25%.
Using a large international firm-level data set, we examine the separate effects of host and additional parent country taxation on the location decisions of multinational firms. Both types of ...taxation are estimated to have a negative impact on the location of new foreign subsidiaries. The impact of parent country taxation is estimated to be sizeable consistent with its international discriminatory nature. Our results show that international double taxation by the parent country – despite the general possibility of deferral of taxation until income repatriation – is instrumental in shaping the structure of multinational enterprise.
► Multinational firm location decisions respond to host and parent country taxes. ► Impact of parent country tax is sizeable despite general possibility of deferral. ► This reflects international discriminatory nature of parent country taxation.
Cross-country evidence presented in this paper suggests that explicit deposit insurance reduces required deposit interest rates, while at the same time it lowers market discipline on bank risk ...taking. Internationally, deposit insurance schemes vary widely in their coverage, funding, and management. This reflects that there are widely differing views on how deposit insurance should optimally be structured. To inform this debate, we use a newly constructed data set of deposit insurance design features to examine how different design features affect deposit interest rates and market discipline.
Using 7900 bank observations from 80 countries for the 1988–1995 period, this paper examines the extent and effect of foreign presence in domestic banking markets. We investigate how net interest ...margins, overhead, taxes paid, and profitability differ between foreign and domestic banks. We find that foreign banks have higher profits than domestic banks in developing countries, but the opposite is the case for developed countries. Estimation results suggest that an increased presence of foreign banks is associated with a reduction in profitability and margins for domestic banks.
Homestead exemptions to personal bankruptcy allow households to retain their home equity up to a limit determined at the state level. Households that may experience bankruptcy thus have an incentive ...to bias their portfolios toward home equity. Using US household data for the period 1996-2006, we find that household demand for real estate is relatively high if the marginal investment in home equity is covered by the exemption. The home equity bias is more pronounced for younger and less healthy households that face more financial uncertainty and therefore have a higher ex ante probability of bankruptcy. These results suggest that homestead exemptions have an important bearing on the portfolio allocations of US households and the extent to which they insure against bad shocks.
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