Financial Intermediary Capital

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2008

We study whether borrowers optimally conserve debt capacity to take advantage of investment opportunities due to temporarily low asset prices, when financing is subject to collateral constraints due to limited enforcement. We find that borrowers may exhaust their debt capacity and thus may be unable to take advantage of such opportunities, even if they can arrange for loan commitments or contingent financing. The cost of conserving debt capacity is the opportunity cost of foregone investment. This opportunity cost is higher for borrowers with higher productivity and borrowers who are less well capitalized, and such borrowers are hence more likely to exhaust their debt capacity. Borrowers who exhaust their debt capacity may be forced to contract when cash flows are low, and hence capital may be less productively deployed then. Higher collateralizability may make the contraction more severe. We consider the role of financial intermediaries which are better able to collateralize claims, that is, are "securitization specialists," and study the dynamics of intermediary capital and spreads between intermediated and direct finance. When intermediary capital is scarce and spreads are high, borrowers who exhaust their debt capacity may be forced to contract by even more.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2003

We consider a simple overlapping generations economy where the behavior of intermediaries, in a market characterized by asymmetric information and moral hazard, may give rise to cyclical equilibria. When capital increases output and savings also increase, and therefore more capital will be available in the following period. At the same time, however, interest rates also decrease and this induces intermediaries to reduce the amount of resources devoted to monitoring. A larger number of firms will select low quality projects and, because of this, less capital will be produced in the following period. For some parameter values this second effect may prevail over the first one and the stock of capital in period t+1 may actually be lower than the stock of capital in period t. The model provides a rigorous interpretation of the view associated with Hyman Minsky [14], Charles Kindleberger[12], and Henry Kaufman[11], according to which expansions come to an inevitable end because of excessive or ill-considered lending that took place during the boom.

This paper analyzes a class of competitive economies with production, incomplete financial markets, and agency frictions. Firms take their production, financing, and contractual decisions so as to maximize their value under rational conjectures. We show that competitive equilibria exist and that shareholders always unanimously support firms' choices. In addition, equilibrium allocations have well-defined welfare properties: they are constrained efficient when information is symmetric, or when agency frictions satisfy certain specific conditions. Furthermore, equilibria may display specialization on the part of identical firms and, when equilibria are constrained inefficient, may exhibit excessive aggregate risk. Financial decisions of the corporate sector are determined at equilibrium and depend not only on the nature of financial frictions but also on the consumers' demand for risk. Financial intermediation and short sales are naturally accounted for at equilibrium.

Research in Economics, 2005

We study the competitive equilibria of a simple economy with moral hazard and intermediation costs. Entrepreneurs can simultaneously get credit from two types of competing institutions: 'financial intermediaries' and 'local lenders'. The former are competitive firms issuing deposits and having a comparative advantage in diversifying credit risks. The latter are individuals with a comparative advantage in credit arrangements with a 'nearby' entrepreneur. Because of intermediation costs, local lenders are willing to diversify their portfolio by offering some direct lending to nearby entrepreneurs. We show that, in some cases, a fall in intermediation costs, by inducing local lenders to choose a safer portfolio, reduces entrepreneurs' effort and increases the probability of default. In these cases, taxing intermediaries may be welfare-improving.

Cepr Discussion Papers, 2001

We study the competitive equilibria of a simple economy with moral hazard and intermediation costs. Entrepreneurs can simultaneously get credit from two types of competing institutions: 'financial intermediaries' and 'local lenders'. The former are competitive firms issuing deposits and having a comparative advantage in diversifying credit risks. The latter are individuals with a comparative advantage in credit arrangements with a 'nearby' entrepreneur. Because of intermediation costs, local lenders are willing to diversify their portfolio by offering some direct lending to nearby entrepreneurs. We show that, in some cases, a fall in intermediation costs, by inducing local lenders to choose a safer portfolio, reduces entrepreneurs' effort and increases the probability of default. In these cases, taxing intermediaries may be welfare-improving.

The Economic Journal, 2007

This article proposes a theory of financial intermediation based on intermediariesÕ role in the reallocation of assets of distressed firms. The article suggests that intermediaries aggregate information on firms in credit relationships and use this information to facilitate asset reallocation across firms. However, this role of intermediaries hinges on debt contracts that grant lenders the right to foreclose assets of distressed borrowers and, hence, exclude the most productive asset users from the resale market. We characterise conditions under which intermediaries arise and under which their role in the credit market enhances their role as markets for firm assets.

Journal of Banking & Finance, 1998

We study a dynamic economy endowed with a sequence of overlapping generations of consumers and production processes, and where productive assets are illiquid and consumption preferences are subject to uninsurable demand for liquidity. We characterize the steady states that can be achieved with alternative ®nancial systems. We show that in®nitely lived ®nancial intermediaries oering a liability with age-dependent restrictions may implement a social optimum with full insurance. If, instead, they oer anonymous, unrestricted contracts, then only second-best consumption allocations with partial insurance obtain. We also examine the consumption allocations available when agents can trade shares in competitive stock markets. While allowing for trade across generations may or may not improve upon generational autarky, we show that this competitive equilibrium is not a social optimum, and is dominated by a system of in-®nitely lived, unrestricted intermediaries. Ó 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

2002

The savings/investment process in capitalist economies is organized around financial intermediation, making them a central institution of economic growth. Financial intermediaries are firms that borrow from consumer/savers and lend to companies that need resources for investment. In contrast, in capital markets investors contract directly with firms, creating marketable securities. The prices of these securities are observable, while financial intermediaries are opaque. Why do financial intermediaries exist? What are their roles? Are they inherently unstable? Must the government regulate them? Why is financial intermediation so pervasive? How is it changing? In this paper we survey the last fifteen years' of theoretical and empirical research on financial intermediation. We focus on the role of bank-like intermediaries in the savings-investment process. We also investigate the literature on bank instability and the role of the government.

Macroeconomic Dynamics, 2000

This paper investigates the quantitative implications of two business cycle models in which aggregate fluctuations arise in response to variations in the process of financial intermediation. In the first, fundamental shocks in the capital accumulation process lead to fluctuations in the real returns from intermediated investment. For this economy, we find that the correlations produced are not consistent with observations of the U.S. economy. In particular, consumption is not smoother than output, investment is negatively correlated with output, variations in the capital stock are quite large and interest rates are procycical. In an economy with both intermediation and total factor productivity shocks, the correlations we produce are closer to those observed in the U.S. economy only when the intermediation shock is relatively unimportant.

2002

Abstract The paper studies loan activity in a context where banks have to follow Basle Accord type rules and need to find financing with the households. Loan activity typically decreases when investment returns of entrepreneurs decline, and we study which type of policy could revigorate an economy in bad shape.