Doubts about the accuracy with which outside investors can assess a banking firm’s value motivate many government interventions in the banking market. The recent financial crisis has reinforced concerns about the possibility that banks are unusually opaque. Yet the empirical evidence, thus...

This paper estimates the amount of tightening in bank commercial and industrial (C&I) loan rates during the financial crisis. After controlling for loan characteristics and bank fixed effects, as of 2010:Q1, the average C&I loan spread was 66 basis points or 23 percent above normal. From about...

After controlling for loan quality, liquidity, capitalization, and output mix, per unit bank operating costs are found to vary significantly across Asian countries and over time. Further analysis reveals that the country rankings of per unit labor and physical capital costs are highly...

Under the strong-form of market discipline, publicly traded banks that have constantly available public market signals from their stock (and bond) prices would take less risk than non-publicly traded banks because counterparties, borrowers, and regulators could react to adverse public market...

This paper examines the effects of deposit rate deregulation in Hong Kong on the market value of banks. The release of the Consumer Council's Report in 1994 recommending interest rate deregulation is found to produce negative abnormal returns, while the announcement in 1995 terminating the...

Private placement bonds have unique financial contracting in controlling borrower-lender agency conflicts due to direct monitoring and the relative ease of future renegotiation. Our data show that private placements are more likely to have restrictive covenants and are more likely to be issued...