Household borrowing in a foreign currency is a widespread phenomenon in Austria. Twelve percent of Austrian households report their housing loan to be denominated in either Swiss franc or Japanese yen for example. Yet, despite its importance, peculiar character, and immediate policy concerns, we...

We examine the firm- and country-level determinants of the currency denomination of small business loans. We first model the choice of loan currency in a framework which features a trade-off between lower cost of debt and the risk of firm-level distress costs, and also examines the impact of...

Household borrowing in a foreign currency is a widespread phenomenon in Austria. Twelve percent of Austrian households report their housing loan to be denominated in either Swiss franc or Japanese yen for example. Yet, despite its importance, peculiar character, and immediate policy concerns, we...

We examine the firm- and country-level determinants of the currency denomination of small business loans. We first model the choice of loan currency in a framework which features a trade-off between lower cost of debt and the risk of firm-level distress costs, and also examines the impact of...

We model the choice of loan currency in a framework which features a trade-off between lower cost of debt and the risk of firm-level distress costs. Under perfect information, if foreign currency funds come at a lower interest rate, all foreign currency earners as well as those local currency...

We provide evidence that a bank's subordinated debt yield spread is not, by itself, a sufficient measure of default risk. We use a model in which subordinated debt is held by investors with superior knowledge (informed investor). First, we show that in theory the yield spread on subordinated...

Based on real-time trade data from the Swiss franc overnight interbank repo market and SIX Interbank Clearing (SIC) – the Swiss real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system – we are able to gain valuable insights on the daytime value of money and its determinants: First, an implicit hourly...

This article studies the relationship between the degree of banking sector stability and the subsequent evolution of real output growth and inflation. Adopting a panel VAR methodology for a sample of 18 OECD countries, we find a positive link between banking sector stability and real output...

Building an unbalanced panel of United States (US) bank holding company (BHC) and commercial bank balance sheet data from 1986 to 2006, we examine the relationship between short-term capital buffer and portfolio risk adjustments. Our estimations indicate that the relationship over the sample...

This paper shows that transparency in banking can be harmful from a social planner’s point of view. According to our model, enhancing transparency above a certain level may lead to the inefficient liquidation of a bank. The reason lies in the nature of a standard deposit contract: its payoff...