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In this paper, we examine how a trade conflict's impact on the real economy can be amplified by financial intermediaries. After the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, China in practice banned imports of Norwegian salmon. The ban was an unexpected trade shock to the Norwegian salmon industry. Using bank balance sheet and credit register data, we trace how this trade shock affected the lending behavior of banks highly exposed to the salmon industry when the shock occurred. We find that, in the years following the trade shock, highly exposed banks cut back lending to non-salmon firms and households by 3-6 percent more than other banks. Furthermore, we find that the reduction in lending was not driven by the erosion of bank capital, but rather by the shift in expectations about the performance of loans to salmon producers, which drove highly exposed banks to increase their loan loss provisions and reduce risk-taking.

This paper presents a novel method to estimate the depreciation rate of durable goods using a combination of identified marginal and average spending shares. We apply our method to Chinese spending responses to disposable income changes induced by monetary policy in 2008-2009. The marginal spending response is 0.40. Durable goods make up about 45% of this marginal spending response. By combining this marginal spending share on durables with an average spending share of 14%, we estimate the annual depreciation rate of durables in China to be 0.16.

"Does the transmission of monetary policy change when interest rates are low? If so, how? We shed light on these questions by analyzing the cross-border transmission of monetary policy through bank credit channels. Specifically, we ask the following question: how do low and negative policy interest rates in core world economies affect bank lending in four small open economies���specifically, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic and Norway? We find that when interest rates are high, tightening of monetary policy in core economies can reduce credit supply in small open economies. In contrast, when interest rates in core economies are low, further expansionary monetary policy increases lending in small open economies, consistent with an international bank lending channel. These results suggest that central banks in small open economies should consider the interest rates of core world economies, especially when those rates shift toward and away from the low end of the distribution.", "Est-ce que la transmission de la politique mon��taire change quand les taux d���int��r��t sont bas? Si c���est le cas, comment change-t-elle? Nous faisons la lumi��re sur ces questions en analysant la transmission transfrontali��re de la politique mon��taire par les canaux du cr��dit bancaire. Plus pr��cis��ment, nous nous posons la question suivante : quelle est l���incidence des taux directeurs bas et n��gatifs affich��s dans de grandes ��conomies mondiales sur les pr��ts bancaires consentis dans quatre petites ��conomies ouvertes, soit le Canada, le Chili, la R��publique tch��que et la Norv��ge? Nous constatons que quand les taux d���int��r��t sont ��lev��s, le resserrement de la politique mon��taire dans les grandes ��conomies peut r��duire l���offre de cr��dit dans les petites ��conomies ouvertes. �� l���inverse, lorsque les taux d���int��r��t sont bas dans les grandes ��conomies, une politique mon��taire encore plus expansionniste accro��t l���offre de cr��dit dans les petites ��conomies ouvertes, ce qui concorde avec un canal du cr��dit bancaire international. Ces r��sultats donnent �� penser que les banques centrales des petites ��conomies ouvertes devraient prendre en consid��ration les taux d���int��r��t des grandes ��conomies mondiales, surtout quand ces taux se rapprochent et s�����loignent de la limite inf��rieure de la distribution."

We explore the impact of low and negative monetary policy rates in core world economies on bank lending in four small open economies – Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic and Norway – using confidential bank-level data. Our results show that the impact on lending in these small open economies depends on the interest rate level in the core. When interest rates are high, monetary policy cuts in core economies can reduce credit supply in small open economies. In contrast, when interest rates in core economies are low, further expansionary monetary policy increases lending in small open economies, consistent with an international bank lending channel. These results have important policy implications, suggesting that central banks in small open economies should watch for the impact of potential regime switches in core economies’ monetary policy when rates shift to and from the very low end of the distribution.

This paper investigates how government-led banking liberalization affects credit allocation by banks using as a quasi-natural experiment the establishment of city commercial banks (CCBs) in China. Based on more than three million corporate financial statements spanning over 16 years, we find that the establishment of CCBs led to a 6-14 % drop in debt funding for private firms, as well as a 1-2 % rise in their funding costs. At the same time, private infrastructure firms enjoyed a nearly 6 % increase in debt funding and more than 100-basis-point drop in interest costs despite their inferior credit quality. The debt financing of private firm appears most severely affected in municipalities where officials face high promotional pressures or fiscal constraints.

To shed light on the interaction between macroprudential and monetary policies, we study the inward transmission of foreign monetary policy in conjunction with domestic macroprudential and monetary policies in Norway and Sweden. Using detailed bank-level data we show how Norwegian and Swedish banks' lending reacts to monetary policy surprises arising abroad, controlling for the domestic macroprudential stance and the interaction between monetary and macroprudential policies. In both countries, the domestic macroprudential policy helps mitigate the effects arising after foreign monetary surprises.

This paper examines the relationship between central bank funding and credit risk-taking. Employing comprehensive bank-firm-level data from the German credit registry during 2009:Q1-2014:Q4, we find that borrowing from the central bank is associated with rebalancing of bank portfolios towards ex-ante riskier firms. We further establish that this relationship is associated with the ECB's maturity extensions and that the risk-taking sensitivity of banks borrowing from the ECB is independent of idiosyncratic bank characteristics. Finally, we highlight that these shifts in bank lending might lead to an ex-post deterioration of bank balance sheets, but increase firm-level investment and employment.

We empirically analyze how bank lending reacts to monetary policy in the presence of global financial flows. Employing a unique and novel dataset of the funding modes and currency composition of the full population of Norwegian banks in structurally identified regressions, we show that the efficiency of the bank lending channel is affected when banks can shift to international funding and thus insulate their costs of funding from domestic monetary policy. We isolate the effect of global factors from domestic monetary policy by focusing on the deviation of exchange rates from the prediction of (uncovered and covered) interest rate parity. The Norwegian banking sector represents an ideal laboratory since the exogenous exchange rate dynamics allows for a convincing identification of the relation between lending and global factors.

We evaluate the abnormal returns of issuing and non-issuing banks around the announcement of Seasoned Equity Offerings (SEOs) and explore how the market reaction is influenced by aggregate systemic conditions and by the systemic risk contribution and exposure of banks. While we find evidence of negative abnormal returns for issuers, non-issuing banks benefit from positive abnormal returns around the SEO announcement. We show that these positive returns are not entirely explained by the competition channel, which has been well documented for non-financial firms. In contrast, we demonstrate that they also depend on a so far undocumented system-stabilizing channel. Furthermore, under certain circumstances, the system-stabilizing channel contributes to mitigating the negative reaction to SEO announcements for the issuing banks.

Our results uncover a so far undocumented ability of the interbank market to distinguish between banks of different quality in times of aggregate distress. We show empirical evidence that during the 2007 financial crisis the inability of some banks to roll over their interbank debt was not due to a failure of the interbank market per se but rather to bankspecific shocks affecting banks' capital, liquidity and credit quality as well as revised banklevel risk perceptions. Relationship banking is not capable of containing these frictions, as hard information seems to dominate soft information. In detail, we explore determinants of the formation and resilience of interbank lending relationships by analyzing an extensive dataset comprising over 1.9 million interbank relationships of more than 3,500 German banks between 2000 and 2012.

Financial crises are usually preceded by large current account deficits. However, the channel through which international capital flows affect financial stability is hardly identified, yet. In this paper, we study the impact of current account balances on bank risk-taking making use of the exogenous and huge variation in capital flows within the euro area between the years 2001 and 2012. We find that bank risk-taking is positively associated with current account deficits. We provide a series of tests showing that this is the case both because banks in countries with large external deficits substitute new investments in asset markets (e.g. sovereign debt) with loans that are typically riskier and because the average quality of bank loans deteriorates.

Debt overhang and moral hazard related to risk-shifting opportunities predict that low capitalized banks have a lower likelihood to issue equity. In contrast to this view, for an international sample of bank Seasoned Equity Offerings (SEOs), we show that the likelihood of issuing an SEO is generally higher in low capitalized banks. We provide a series of tests exploring the variation of capital regulation, systemic conditions and market discipline to understand the driving forces behind this result. We find that market mechanisms rather than capital regulation are the primary, key driver of the decision to issue by low capitalized banks.

The paper presents the first empirical study of the relation between bank loan volume volatility and bank retail and wholesale liabilities. We argue that since the volume of retail deposits is inflexible, banks facing volatile loan demand tend to fund loans with larger shares of wholesale rather than retail liabilities. We empirically confirm this argument using a unique dataset constructed from the weekly financial reports of 104 large U.S. commercial banks. The high frequency of the data allows us to employ dynamic identification schemes which mitigate reverse causality and selection concerns. Our results imply that the introduction of regulatory limits on wholesale liabilities will increase the exposure of banks to loan demand shocks. Such a regulation will also inhibit the ability of the banking sector to service more volatile loans. This may smooth the lending cycles, but it will also slow recoveries of lending volume after a substantial recession.

In this paper we relate a bank's choice between retail and wholesale liabilities to real economic uncertainty and the resulting volatility of bank loan volumes. We argue that since the volume of retail deposits is slow and costly to adjust to shocks in the volume of bank assets, banks facing more intense uncertainty and more volatile loan demand tend to employ more wholesale liabilities rather than retail deposits. We empirically confirm this argument using a unique dataset constructed from the weekly reports of the 122 largest U.S. commercial banks. The high frequency of the data allows us to employ dynamic identification schemes. Given the evidence presented in this paper we argue that regulatory measures targeting a cap on wholesale funding would limit funding uncertainty but will increase the exposure to asset-side shocks.

In this paper we relate a bank's choice between retail and wholesale liabilities to real economic uncertainty and the resulting volatility of bank loan volumes. We argue that since the volume of retail deposits is slow and costly to adjust to shocks in the volume of bank assets, banks facing more intense uncertainty and more volatile loan demand tend to employ more wholesale liabilities rather than retail deposits. We empirically confirm this argument using a unique dataset constructed from the weekly reports of the 122 largest U.S. commercial banks. The high frequency of the data allows us to employ dynamic identification schemes. Given the evidence presented in this paper we argue that regulatory measures targeting a cap on wholesale funding would limit funding uncertainty but will increase the exposure to asset-side shocks.

Central bank credit has expanded dramatically in some of the euro area member countries since the beginning of the financial crisis. This paper makes two contributions to understand this stylized fact. First, we discuss a simple model of monetary policy that includes (i) a credit channel and (ii) a common pool problem in a monetary union. We illustrate that the interaction of the two elements leads to an inflation bias that is independent of the standard time-inconsistency bias. Secondly, we present empirical evidence that is consistent with the view of fragmented monetary policy and changing policy objectives among the national cen-tral banks in the euro area. We show that after 2007, central bank credit has been highly correlated with unemployment, but not with inflation in the respective countries.

We use bank retail interest rates as price examples in a study of the determinants of price durations. The extraordinary richness of the data allows us to address some major open issues from the price rigidity literature, such as the functional form of the hazard of changing a price, the effect of firm and market characteristics on the duration of prices, and asymmetry in the speed of adjustments to positive and negative cost shocks. We find that the probability of a bank changing its retail rate initially (that is, in roughly the first six months of a spell) increases with time. The most important determinants of the duration of retail interest rates are the cumulated change in the money market interest rates and the policy rate since the last retail rate change. Among bank and market characteristics, the size of the bank, its market share in a given local market, and its geographical scope significantly modify retail rate durations. Retail rates adjust asymmetrically to positive and negative wholesale interest rate changes; the asymmetry of the adjustment is reinforced in part by the bank's market share. This suggests that monopolistic distortions play a vital role in explaining asymmetric price adjustments.

Despite extensive research interest in the last decade, the banking literature has not reached a consensus on the impact of bank mergers on deposit rates. In particular, results on the dynamics of deposit rates surrounding bank mergers vary substantially across studies. In this paper, we aim for a comprehensive empirical analysis of a bank merger's impact on deposit rate dynamics. We base the analysis on a unique dataset comprising deposit rates of 624 US banks with a monthly frequency for the time period 1997-2006. These data are matched with individual bank and local market characteristics and the complete list of bank mergers in the US. The data allow us to track the dynamics of bank mergers while controlling for the rigidity of the deposit rates and for a range of merger, bank and local market features. An innovation of our work is the introduction of an econometric approach of estimating the change of the deposit rates given their rigidity.

In this paper we investigate whether banks that borrow from other banks have lower risk levels. We concentrate on a large sample of Central and Eastern European banks which allows us to explore the impact of interbank lending when exposures are long-term and interbank borrowers are small banks. The results of the empirical analysis generally confirm the hypothesis that long-term interbank exposures result in lower risk of the borrowing banks.

By introducing a new measure of the banking systems' size, the paper challenges the existing consensus on severe underdevelopment of the CEE banking sectors. We argue that the existing studies on the size of CEE banking systems exaggerate the real degree of underdevelopment because common measures of the size of the banking system produce downward biased results when applied to transition economies. We compare various measures of the size of the CEE banking sectors with those of several 'old' European Union (EU) member countries which are used as benchmarks. The comparison indicates that indeed the banking sectors in the CEE countries lag behind the most developed financial systems in the EU, but are very close to the levels in the financially less developed EU countries.

By introducing a new measure of the banking systems' size, the paper challenges the existing consensus on severe underdevelopment of the CEE banking sectors. We argue that the existing studies on the size of CEE banking systems exaggerate the real degree of underdevelopment because common measures of the size of the banking system produce downward biased results when applied to transition economies. We compare various measures of the size of the CEE banking sectors with those of several 'old' European Union (EU) member countries which are used as benchmarks. The comparison indicates that indeed the banking sectors in the CEE countries lag behind the most developed financial systems in the EU, but are very close to the levels in the financially less developed EU countries.