IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jfinqa/v52y2017i06p2677-2702_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Explains the Difference in Leverage between Banks and Nonbanks?

Author

Listed:
  • Berg, Tobias
  • Gider, Jasmin

Abstract

Banks have much more leverage than nonbanks. In this article, we use a joint sample of banks and nonbanks between 1965 and 2013 to analyze the determinants of this leverage difference. We find that a single factor, asset risk, is able to explain up to 90% of this difference. Banks’ assets consist of a diversified portfolio of nonbank debt. Therefore, banks have much lower asset risk than do nonbanks. Because asset risk is a major determinant of capital structure choice, this factor is able to explain a large fraction of the difference between bank and nonbank leverage.

Suggested Citation

  • Berg, Tobias & Gider, Jasmin, 2017. "What Explains the Difference in Leverage between Banks and Nonbanks?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(6), pages 2677-2702, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jfinqa:v:52:y:2017:i:06:p:2677-2702_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022109017000734/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lu, Yiming & Wang, Yu, 2023. "Bank liquidity hoarding and bank systemic risk: The moderating effect of economic policy uncertainty," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Garel, Alexandre & Petit-Romec, Arthur & Vennet, Rudi Vander, 2022. "Institutional Shareholders and Bank Capital," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    3. Pennacchi, George G. & Santos, João A.C., 2021. "Why do banks target ROE?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    4. Berger, Allen N. & Roman, Raluca A. & Sedunov, John, 2020. "Did TARP reduce or increase systemic risk? The effects of government aid on financial system stability," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    5. Bremus, Franziska & Schmidt, Kirsten & Tonzer, Lena, 2020. "Interactions between bank levies and corporate taxes: How is bank leverage affected?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 118.
    6. Koetter, Michael & Krause, Thomas & Sfrappini, Eleonora & Tonzer, Lena, 2022. "Completing the European Banking Union: Capital cost consequences for credit providers and corporate borrowers," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    7. Bremus, Franziska & Ludolph, Melina, 2021. "The nexus between loan portfolio size and volatility: Does bank capital regulation matter?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    8. Kuvshinov, Dmitry & Richter, Björn & Zimmermann, Kaspar, 2022. "The shifts and the shocks: bank risk, leverage, and the macroeconomy," Working Paper Series 2672, European Central Bank.
    9. Ben Hambly & Andreas Søjmark, 2019. "An SPDE model for systemic risk with endogenous contagion," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 535-594, July.
    10. Balachandran, Balasingham & Williams, Barry, 2018. "Effective governance, financial markets, financial institutions & crises," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 1-15.
    11. Franz Reiter & Dominika Langenmayr & Svea Holtmann, 2021. "Avoiding taxes: banks’ use of internal debt," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(3), pages 717-745, June.
    12. Sagara Dewasurendra & Pedro Judice & Qiji Zhu, 2019. "The Optimum Leverage Level of the Banking Sector," Risks, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-30, May.
    13. Lu, Yiming & Wang, Yu, 2023. "Macroprudential policies, national culture, and bank systemic risk: A cross-country comparison," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PA).
    14. Liangliang Jiang & Ross Levine & Chen Lin, 2023. "Does Competition Affect Bank Risk?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(5), pages 1043-1076, August.
    15. Saeidinezhad, Elham, 2019. "Corporate Debt: Where is the Danger?," MPRA Paper 98547, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Feng, Cong & Patel, Pankaj C. & Xiang, Kexin, 2020. "The well-trodden path: Complementing market and entrepreneurial orientation with a strategic emphasis to influence IPO survival in the United States," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 370-385.
    17. Mike Adams & Wei Jiang & Tianshu Ma, 2024. "CEO power, corporate risk management, and dividends: disentangling CEO managerial ability from entrenchment," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 683-717, February.
    18. Khalil Ullah Mohammad & Shin-Ichi Nishiyama, 2021. "Impact of Financial Sector Opacity on the Capital Structure Choice of Asian Banks," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 11(3), pages 219-235, March.
    19. Bremus, Franziska & Schmidt, Kirsten & Tonzer, Lena, 2018. "Interactions between regulatory and corporate taxes: How is bank leverage affected?," IWH Discussion Papers 16/2018, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    20. Duan, Yuejiao & Fan, Xiaoyun & Wang, Yu, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty and bank systemic risk: A cross-country analysis," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    21. George Pennacchi & Alexei Tchistyi, 2018. "Contingent Convertibles with Stock Price Triggers: The Case of Perpetuities," 2018 Meeting Papers 331, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jfinqa:v:52:y:2017:i:06:p:2677-2702_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jfq .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.