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Are the Borrowing Costs of Large Financial Firms Unusual?

Author

Listed:
  • Javed Ahmed

    (Office of Financial Research
    Federal Reserve Board of Governors)

  • Christopher Anderson

    (Harvard University)

  • Rebecca Zarutskie

    (Federal Reserve Board of Governors)

Abstract

Expectations of government support for large financial firms are often based on their lower borrowing costs relative to smaller financial firms. However, large financial firms are not unique in this regard: larger firms enjoy lower borrowing costs in several industries. We show that size-related borrowing cost advantages are not unusually large in the financial industry, and spreads are actually more sensitive to borrower size in several nonfinancial industries. These size-related differences are not explained by differences in risk and are only partially explained by higher liquidity and recovery rates for larger borrowers. Our results suggest that estimates of implicit government guarantees for financial firms may overemphasize the relationship between size-related borrowing cost differentials and expected bailouts. Our analysis also suggests that in the period leading to the 2008-9 financial crisis, perceptions of reduced risk may have lowered borrowing costs for the financial industry as a whole.

Suggested Citation

  • Javed Ahmed & Christopher Anderson & Rebecca Zarutskie, 2015. "Are the Borrowing Costs of Large Financial Firms Unusual?," Working Papers 15-10, Office of Financial Research, US Department of the Treasury.
    • Handle: RePEc:ofr:wpaper:15-10
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    Cited by:

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    2. Zaghini, Andrea, 2017. "A tale of fragmentation: Corporate funding in the euro-area bond market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 59-68.
    3. Galina Hale & Tümer Kapan & Camelia Minoiu & Philip Strahan, 2020. "Shock Transmission Through Cross-Border Bank Lending: Credit and Real Effects," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(10), pages 4839-4882.
    4. Ryan Johnston, 2016. "Banking Policy Review: Did Dodd–Frank End ‘Too Big to Fail’?," Banking Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Q4, pages 16-20.
    5. Kim Ristolainen, 2016. "The relationship between distance-to-default and CDS spreads as measures of default risk for European banks," Journal of Banking and Financial Economics, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management, vol. 1(5), pages 121-143, June.
    6. Tölö, Eero & Jokivuolle, Esa & Viren, Matti, 2019. "Has banks' monitoring of other banks strengthened post-crisis? Evidence from the European overnight market," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 22/2019, Bank of Finland.
    7. Zaghini, Andrea, 2019. "The CSPP at work: Yield heterogeneity and the portfolio rebalancing channel," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 282-297.
    8. Tölö, Eero & Jokivuolle, Esa & Virén, Matti, 2015. "Are too-big-to-fail banks history in Europe? Evidence from overnight interbank loans," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 29/2015, Bank of Finland.
    9. Zaghini, Andrea, 2016. "Fragmentation and heterogeneity in the euro-area corporate bond market: Back to normal?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 51-61.
    10. Thomas Barnebeck Andersen & Peter Sandholt Jensen, 2022. "Too Big to Fail and Moral Hazard: Evidence from an Epoch of Unregulated Commercial Banking," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 70(4), pages 808-830, December.
    11. Riccardo Settimo, 2019. "Higher multilateral development bank lending, unchanged capital resources and triple-A rating. A possible trinity after all?," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 488, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    12. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2015_029 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Jill Cetina & Bert Loudis, 2015. "The Influence of Systemic Importance Indicators on Banks' Credit Default Swap Spreads," Working Papers 15-09, Office of Financial Research, US Department of the Treasury.
    14. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2019_022 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. repec:bof:bofrdp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201512151482 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Gimber, Andrew & Rajan, Aniruddha, 2019. "Bank funding costs and capital structure," Bank of England working papers 805, Bank of England.
    17. Biao Mi & Liang Han, 2020. "Banking market concentration and syndicated loan prices," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 1-28, January.
    18. Tölö, Eero & Jokivuolle, Esa & Virén, Matti, 2015. "Are too-big-to-fail banks history in Europe? Evidence from overnight interbank loans," Research Discussion Papers 29/2015, Bank of Finland.
    19. Gündüz, Yalin, 2020. "The market impact of systemic risk capital surcharges," Discussion Papers 09/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    20. Joseph P. Hughes & Loretta J. Mester, 2018. "The Performance of Financial Institutions: Modeling, Evidence, and Some Policy Implications," Departmental Working Papers 201805, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    21. Gary Gorton & Ellis W. Tallman, 2016. "Too Big to Fail before the Fed," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 528-532, May.
    22. Samuel Antill & Asani Sarkar, 2018. "Is size everything?," Staff Reports 864, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Too-big-to-fail; borrowing costs; large banks;
    All these keywords.

    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
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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