Research articles for the 2020-07-11
Are Bank Risk Disclosures Informative? Evidence From Debt Markets
SSRN
This study examines whether financial reporting with a specific focus on risk disclosures have a predictive (informative) effect on banks’ credit ratings (BCRs) and, consequently, ascertains whether governance structures can moderate such an association. Using one of the largest bank-level datasets collected from 12 Middle East and North African (MENA) countries over the 2006-2013 period to-date, our findings are as follows. First, we find that risk disclosures have a predictive effect on BCRs. Second, we find that the relationship between risk disclosures and BCRs is contingent on the quality of governance structures. Specifically, we find that the informativeness of risk disclosures on BCRs is higher in banks with larger board size, greater independence, higher government ownership, and better Shariah supervisory board, but lower in banks with greater block ownership, higher foreign ownership and the presence of CEO duality. The central tenor of our findings remains unchanged after controlling for a number of firm- and country-level factors, alternative risk disclosure measures, firm- and national-level governance proxies, different types of banks, and potential endogeneities. The findings have important implications for investors, especially bondholders, standard-setters, regulators, and central governments.
SSRN
This study examines whether financial reporting with a specific focus on risk disclosures have a predictive (informative) effect on banks’ credit ratings (BCRs) and, consequently, ascertains whether governance structures can moderate such an association. Using one of the largest bank-level datasets collected from 12 Middle East and North African (MENA) countries over the 2006-2013 period to-date, our findings are as follows. First, we find that risk disclosures have a predictive effect on BCRs. Second, we find that the relationship between risk disclosures and BCRs is contingent on the quality of governance structures. Specifically, we find that the informativeness of risk disclosures on BCRs is higher in banks with larger board size, greater independence, higher government ownership, and better Shariah supervisory board, but lower in banks with greater block ownership, higher foreign ownership and the presence of CEO duality. The central tenor of our findings remains unchanged after controlling for a number of firm- and country-level factors, alternative risk disclosure measures, firm- and national-level governance proxies, different types of banks, and potential endogeneities. The findings have important implications for investors, especially bondholders, standard-setters, regulators, and central governments.
Do Mutual Funds Flows Lead to Fire-sales and Pose Systemic Risk?
SSRN
Assessing systemic risk of mutual funds as a result of liquidity transformation is difficult because the frequency of flow and holdings data available is too low to properly isolate the price impact of redemption-driven sales of portfolio assets. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) offer the advantage of daily observations of redemptions as well as the exact assets which might be sold in the underlying market. Exploiting this advantage, we show for extreme redemptions from individual corporate bond ETFs during normal times and stressed markets as well as for the largest aggregate redemptions from all corporate bond ETFs that the concern of systemic risk is not supported by the data. For the most extreme daily redemptions between 2009 and 2017, we find that for many bonds received in-kind for ETF shares, customer sell volumes in excess of average past daily customer sell volumes are either negative or large multiples of the maximum potential redemption implied sale of bonds. Further, we show that among the bonds with positive excess customer sell volumes, the extreme redemption implied sale of bonds relative to the standard deviations of past daily customer sell volumes was large for only very few of them. Corroborating the results, using regression analyses we find no evidence that extreme redemption implied sales of bonds led to abnormal negative price impacts in the underlying bond market. These findings imply that extreme redemption implied asset sales in the corporate bond market have not triggered wide-spread fire sales.
SSRN
Assessing systemic risk of mutual funds as a result of liquidity transformation is difficult because the frequency of flow and holdings data available is too low to properly isolate the price impact of redemption-driven sales of portfolio assets. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) offer the advantage of daily observations of redemptions as well as the exact assets which might be sold in the underlying market. Exploiting this advantage, we show for extreme redemptions from individual corporate bond ETFs during normal times and stressed markets as well as for the largest aggregate redemptions from all corporate bond ETFs that the concern of systemic risk is not supported by the data. For the most extreme daily redemptions between 2009 and 2017, we find that for many bonds received in-kind for ETF shares, customer sell volumes in excess of average past daily customer sell volumes are either negative or large multiples of the maximum potential redemption implied sale of bonds. Further, we show that among the bonds with positive excess customer sell volumes, the extreme redemption implied sale of bonds relative to the standard deviations of past daily customer sell volumes was large for only very few of them. Corroborating the results, using regression analyses we find no evidence that extreme redemption implied sales of bonds led to abnormal negative price impacts in the underlying bond market. These findings imply that extreme redemption implied asset sales in the corporate bond market have not triggered wide-spread fire sales.
