IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbb/reswpp/200405-10.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Regulating Financial Conglomerates

Author

Listed:
  • Xavier Freixas

    (Universitat Pompeu Fabra
    CEPR)

  • Gyongyi Loranth

    (London Business School)

  • Alan D. Morrison

    (University of Oxford, Saïd Business School)

  • Hyun Song Shin

    (London School of Economics
    CEPR)

Abstract

We analyse a model of financial intermediation in which intermediaries are subject to moral hazard and they do not invest socially optimally, because they ignore the systemic costs of failure and, in the case of banks, because they fail to account for risks which are assumed by the deposit insurance fund. Capital adequacy requirements are designed to minimise the social costs of these effects. We show that banks should always have higher regulatory capital requirements than insurance companies. Contrary to received wisdom, when banks and insurance companies combine to form financial conglomerates we show that it is socially optimal to separate their balance sheets. Moreover, the practice of "regulatory arbitrage", or of transfering assets from one balance sheet to another, is welfare increasing.

Suggested Citation

  • Xavier Freixas & Gyongyi Loranth & Alan D. Morrison & Hyun Song Shin, 2004. "Regulating Financial Conglomerates," Working Paper Research 54, National Bank of Belgium.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbb:reswpp:200405-10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nbb.be/doc/ts/publications/wp/wp54en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gyongyi Loranth & Alan Morrison, 2003. "Multinational Bank Capital Regulation with Deposit Insurance and Diversification Effects," OFRC Working Papers Series 2003fe11, Oxford Financial Research Centre.
    2. Merton, Robert C., 1977. "An analytic derivation of the cost of deposit insurance and loan guarantees An application of modern option pricing theory," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 3-11, June.
    3. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    4. Bolton, Patrick & Scharfstein, David S, 1996. "Optimal Debt Structure and the Number of Creditors," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 1-25, February.
    5. Froot, Kenneth A & Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1993. "Risk Management: Coordinating Corporate Investment and Financing Policies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1629-1658, December.
    6. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Morrison, Alan & Lóránth, Gyöngyi, 2003. "Multinational Bank Regulation with Deposit Insurance and Diversification Effects," CEPR Discussion Papers 4148, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Boot, Arnoud W A & Greenbaum, Stuart I & Thakor, Anjan V, 1993. "Reputation and Discretion in Financial Contracting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1165-1183, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ginés Hernández-Cánovas & Pedro Martínez-Solano, 2007. "Effect of the Number of Banking Relationships on Credit Availability: Evidence from Panel Data of Spanish Small Firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 37-53, January.
    2. Freixas, Xavier & Loranth, Gyongyi & Morrison, Alan D., 2007. "Regulating financial conglomerates," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 479-514, October.
    3. Daniel Tut, 2022. "Debt dynamic, debt dispersion and corporate governance," International Journal of Managerial Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 19(4), pages 744-771, July.
    4. Fenghua Song & Anjan V. Thakor, 2023. "Market Freeze and Bank Capital Structure Heterogeneity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(3), pages 1856-1876, March.
    5. Stein, Jeremy C., 2003. "Agency, information and corporate investment," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 111-165, Elsevier.
    6. Gyöngyi Lóránth & Alan D. Morrison, 2007. "Deposit Insurance, Capital Regulations, and Financial Contagion in Multinational Banks," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(5‐6), pages 917-949, June.
    7. Jukka Isohätälä & Alistair Milne & Donald Robertson, 2020. "The Net Worth Trap: Investment and Output Dynamics in the Presence of Financing Constraints," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-32, August.
    8. Alessandra Iannamorelli & Stefano Nobili & Antonio Scalia & Luana Zaccaria, 2024. "Asymmetric Information and Corporate Lending: Evidence from SME Bond Markets," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 28(1), pages 163-201.
    9. Drobetz, Wolfgang & Pensa, Pascal & Wöhle, Claudia B., 2004. "Kapitalstrukturtheorie in Theorie und Praxis: Ergebnisse einer Fragebogenuntersuchung," Working papers 2004/09, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    10. Shekhar Aiyar & Charles W. Calomiris & Tomasz Wieladek, 2015. "How to Strengthen the Regulation of Bank Capital: Theory, Evidence, and A Proposal," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 27(1), pages 27-36, March.
    11. Jarko Fidrmuc & Philipp Schreiber & Martin Siddiqui, 2018. "Intangible Assets and the Determinants of a Single Bank Relation of German SMEs," European Journal of Business Science and Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Faculty of Business and Economics, vol. 4(1), pages 5-30.
    12. Rajeswari Sengupta, 2014. "Firm dollar debt and central bank dollar reserves: Empirical evidence from Latin America," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2014-013, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    13. Enkhtaivan, Bolortuya & Davaadorj, Zagdbazar, 2021. "Do they recall their past? CEOs’ liquidity policies across firms as they switch jobs," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    14. Gaurav Gupta & Jitendra Mahakud, 2019. "Alternative measure of financial development and investment-cash flow sensitivity: evidence from an emerging economy," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 5(1), pages 1-28, December.
    15. Anil K. Kashyap & Raghuram G. Rajan & Jeremy C. Stein, 2008. "Rethinking capital regulation," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 431-471.
    16. Charles Calomiris & Joseph Mason, 2004. "Credit Card Securitization and Regulatory Arbitrage," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 26(1), pages 5-27, August.
    17. Di Giuli, Alberta & Laux, Paul A., 2022. "The effect of media-linked directors on financing and external governance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 103-131.
    18. Sofiane Aboura & Emmanuel Lépinette, 2015. "Do banks satisfy the Modigliani-Miller theorem?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(2), pages 924-935.
    19. Oliver Russ & Günther Gebhardt, 2005. "Erklärungsfaktoren für den Einsatz von Währungsderivaten bei deutschen Unternehmen — eine empirische Logit-Analyse," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 57(7), pages 565-594, November.
    20. Cumming, Douglas J. & Javakhadze, David & Rajkovic, Tijana, 2024. "Unlocking Dividends: The impact of managerial social capital on international corporate payouts," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbb:reswpp:200405-10. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bnbgvbe.html .

    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.