Credit risk

About: Credit risk is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 18595 publications have been published within this topic receiving 382866 citations.

Do Firms Want to Borrow More? Testing Credit Constraints Using a Directed Lending Program

Abstract: This paper uses variation in access to a targeted lending program to estimate whether firms are credit constrained. The basic idea is that while both constrained and unconstrained firms may be willing to absorb all the directed credit that they can get (because it may be cheaper than other sources of credit), constrained firms will use it to expand production, while unconstrained firms will primarily use it as a substitute for other borrowing. We apply these observations to firms in India that became eligible for directed credit as a result of a policy change in 1998, and lost eligibility as a result of the reversal of this reform in 2000. Using firms that were already getting this kind of credit before 1998, and retained eligibility in 2000 to control for time trends, we show that there is no evidence that directed credit is being used as a substitute for other forms of credit. Instead the credit was used to finance more production-there was a large acceleration in the rate of growth of sales and profits for these firms. We conclude that many of the firms must have been severely credit constrained, and that the marginal rate of return to capital was very high for these firms.

The Limits of Model-Based Regulation

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate how the introduction of complex, model-based capital regulation affected credit risk of financial institutions Model-based regulation was meant to enhance the stability of the financial sector by making capital charges more sensitive to risk Exploiting the staggered introduction of the model-based approach in Germany and the richness of our loan-level data set, we show that (1) internal risk estimates employed for regulatory purposes systematically underpredict actual default rates by 05 to 1 percentage points; (2) both default rates and loss rates are higher for loans that were originated under the model-based approach, while corresponding risk-weights are significantly lower; and (3) interest rates are higher for loans originated under the model-based approach, suggesting that banks were aware of the higher risk associated with these loans and priced them accordingly Further, we document that large banks benefited from the reform as they experienced a reduction in capital charges and consequently expanded their lending at the expense of smaller banks that did not introduce the model-based approach Counter to the stated objectives, the introduction of complex regulation adversely affected the credit risk of financial institutions Overall, our results highlight the pitfalls of complex regulation and suggest that simpler rules may increase the efficacy of financial regulation

Credit Risk Drivers: Evaluating the Contribution of Firm Level Information and of Macroeconomic Dynamics

Abstract: Understanding why some firms default, while others do not, is an important issue for the assessment of financial stability. In this domain, it may be interesting to understand if credit risk is driven mostly by idiosyncratic firm characteristics or by systematic factors, which simultaneously affect all firms. In order to empirically examine the determinants of loan default, we begin by exploring the links between credit risk and macroeconomic developments at an aggregate level. The results obtained seem to confirm the hypothesis that in periods of economic growth, which are sometimes accompanied by strong credit growth, there may be some tendency towards excessive risk-taking, even though the imbalances created in such periods only become apparent when economic growth slows down. After examining the determinants of credit risk at an aggregate level, we focus our attention on an extensive dataset with detailed financial information for more than 30.000 firms. The results obtained suggest that default probabilities are influenced by several firm-specific characteristics, such as their financial structure, profitability and liquidity, as well as by their recent sales performance or their investment policy. When time-effect controls or macroeconomic variables are taken into account together with the firms' characteristics, the results seem to improve substantially. Hence, though the firms' financial and operational situation has a central role in explaining default probabilities at the micro level, overall macroeconomic conditions are also very important when assessing default probabilities over time.