Luc Laeven

International Monetary Fund

Using credit-registry data for Spain and Peru, we document that four main types of commercial credit—asset-based loans, cash flow loans, trade finance and leasing—are easily identifiable and represent the bulk of corporate credit. We show that credit growth dynamics and bank lending channels vary across these loan types. The effects of monetary pol...

We study the effects of technological change on financial intermediation, distinguishing between innovations in information (data collection and processing) and communication (relationships and distribution). Both follow historical trends towards an increased use of hard information and less in-person interaction, which are accelerating rapidly. We...

We show strong complementarities between monetary and macroprudential policies in influencing credit. We exploit credit register data – crucially from multiple (European) countries and for both corporate and household credit – in conjunction with monetary policy surprises and indicators of macroprudential policy actions. Expansive monetary policy b...

We study the effects of technological change on financial intermediation, distinguishing between innovations in information (data collection and processing) and communication (relationships and distribution). Both follow historic trends towards an increased use of hard information and less in-person interaction, which are accelerating rapidly. We p...

This paper updates and expands the database on systemic banking crises presented in Laeven and Valencia (IMF Econ Rev 61(2):225–270, 2013a). The database draws on 151 systemic banking crisis episodes around the globe during 1970–2017 to include information on crisis dates, policy responses to resolve banking crises, and their fiscal and output cost...

Loan loss provisions in the euro area are negatively related to GDP growth, i.e., they are procyclical. Loan loss provisions tend to be more procyclical at larger and better capitalized banks. The procyclicality of loan loss provisions can explain about two-thirds of the variation in bank capitalization over the business cycle. We estimate that pro...

This paper is the first to show that financial institutions may be effectively undercapitalized as a result of incomplete consolidation of minority ownership. Using two approaches – consolidating the minority-owned affiliates with the parent or deducting equity investments in minority ownership from the parent's capital – we find that the effective...

We offer new evidence on the real effects of credit shocks in the presence of employment protection regulations by exploiting a unique provision in Spanish labor laws: dismissal rules are less stringent for Spanish firms with fewer than 50 employees, lowering the cost of hiring new workers. Using a new dataset, we find that during the financial cri...

We exploit regional variations in house price fluctuations in the United States during the early to mid-2000s to study the impact of the housing boom on young Americans' choices related to home ownership, household formation, and fertility. We also introduce a novel instrument for changes in house prices based on the predetermined industrial struct...

We present evidence of a risk-taking channel of monetary policy for the U.S. banking system. We use confidential data on banks’ internal ratings on loans to businesses over the period 1997 to 2011 from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Terms of Business Lending. We find that ex ante risk-taking by banks (measured by the risk rating of new loans) is n...

We exploit regional variations in U.S. house price fluctuations during the boom-bust cycle of the 2000s to study the impact of the housing cycle on young Americans' choices related to education and employment. We find that in MSAs which experienced large increases in house prices between 2001 and 2006, young adults were substantially more likely to...

This paper explores several questions about credit booms and busts: When do credit booms occur? When do they end up in busts, and when do they not? What are the implications for different policies if curbing credit growth and/or mitigating the associated risks is an objective? We find that credit booms are often associated with financial reform and...

We develop a new identification strategy to evaluate the impact of the geographic expansion of a bank holding company (BHC) across US metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) on BHC risk. For the average BHC, the instrumental variable results suggest that geographic expansion materially reduces risk. Geographic diversification does not affect loan qua...

We find that capital in the range of 15–23 percent of risk-weighted assets would have been sufficient to absorb losses in the vast majority of historic banking crises in advanced economies. Further capital increases would have had only marginal effects on preventing additional crises. Appropriate capital requirements may be somewhat below this rang...

This paper studies the significant variation in the cross-section of standalone and systemic risk of large banks during the recent financial crisis to identify bank specific factors that determine risk. We find that systemic risk grows with bank size and is inversely related to bank capital, and this effect exists above and beyond the effect of ban...

Homestead exemptions to personal bankruptcy allow households to retain their home equity up to a limit determined at the state level. Households that may experience bankruptcy thus have an incentive to bias their portfolios towards home equity. Using US household data for the period 1996 to 2006, we find that household demand for real estate is rel...

This eBook collects some of the best Vox columns on financial regulations, starting with the fundamentals of financial regulations, moving on to bank capital and the Basel regulations, and finishing with the wider considerations of the regulatory agenda and the political dimension. Collecting columns from over the past six years, this eBook maps th...

Do low interest rate environments lead to greater bank risk-taking? We show that, when banks can adjust their capital structures, reductions in real interest rates lead to greater leverage and higher risk for any downward sloping loan demand function. However, if the capital structure is fixed, the effect depends on the degree of leverage: followin...

This paper examines the impact of thin capitalization rules that limit the tax deductibility of interest on the capital structure of the foreign affiliates of US multinationals. We construct a new data set on thin capitalization rules in 54 countries for the period 1982-2004. Using confidential data on the internal and total leverage of foreign aff...

Large banks are riskier, and create more systemic risk, when they have lower capital and less-stable funding. Large banks create more systemic risk (but are not individually riskier) when they engage more in market-based activities or are more organizationally complex. Traditional bank regulation, which focuses on individual bank risk, may be insuf...

This paper studies the significant variation in the cross-section of standalone and systemic risk of large banks during the recent financial crisis to identify bank specific factors that determine risk. We find that systemic risk grows with bank size and is inversely related to bank capital, and this effect exists above and beyond the effect of ban...

We develop a new identification strategy to evaluate the impact of the geographic expansion of bank holding company (BHC) assets across U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) on BHC risk. We find that the geographic expansion of bank assets reduces risk. Moreover, geographic expansion reduces risk more when BHCs expand into economically dissimi...

The global financial crisis is rooted in a combination of factors common to previous financial crises and some new factors. The four features in common with other crises are: 1) asset price increases that turned out to be unsustainable; 2) credit booms that led to excessive debt burdens; 3) build-up of marginal loans and systemic risk; and 4) the f...

We update the widely used banking crises database by Laeven and Valencia (2008, 2010) with new information on recent and ongoing crises, including updated information on policy responses and outcomes (i.e. fiscal costs, output losses, and increases in public debt). We also update our dating of sovereign debt and currency crises. The database includ...

This paper assesses the impact of the geographic diversification of bank holding company (BHC) assets across the United States on their market valuations. Using two new identification strategies based on the dynamic process of interstate bank deregulation, we find that exogenous increases in geographic diversity reduced BHC valuations. We also find...

When markets’ volatility surges, financial integration drops. This may reflect an increase in international barriers, wealth effects, or rather an increase in the preference for geographically close investments. Since such preference for local stocks also applies to portfolios of domestic stocks, we exploit the domestic portfolios of US mutual fund...

We assess the importance of supply-side credit market frictions by studying the impact of bank recapitalization on firm growth in 50 countries during the recent crisis. Our identification strategy exploits the crisis as a shock to credit supply and combines an exogenous measure of firms' dependence on external financing with policy interventions ai...

The global financial crisis of 2007-09 has led to an intensive research program analyzing a wide range of issues related to financial crises. This paper presents a summary of a forthcoming book, Financial Crises: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Responses, that includes 19 contributions examining these issues and distilling policy lessons. The book...

We present evidence of a risk-taking channel of monetary policy for the U.S. banking system. We use confidential data on the internal ratings of U.S. banks on loans to businesses over the period 1997 to 2011 from the Federal Reserve’s survey of terms of business lending. We find that ex-ante risk taking by banks (as measured by the risk rating of t...

This article presents a taxonomy of financial restructuring strategies that have been used by national policy makers to manage financial crises in the past. The goals of financial restructuring are to preserve or, if necessary, restore the debtor‐creditor relationships on which the economy depends for efficient allocation of capital, and to do so a...

This paper shows that banks overstate the value of distressed assets and their regulatory capital during the US mortgage crisis. Real estate-related assets are overvalued in banks' balance sheets, especially those of bigger banks, compared to the market value of these assets. Banks with large exposure to mortgage-backed securities also provision le...

In episodes of significant banking distress or perceived systemic risk to the financial system, policymakers have often opted for issuing blanket guarantees on bank liabilities to stop or avoid widespread bank runs. In theory, blanket guarantees can prevent bank runs if they are credible. However, guarantee could add substantial fiscal costs to ban...

We identify an otherwise e¢ cient market in which racial biases a¤ect market outcomes. In particular, we examine data on point spreads for NBA games over the 15 seasons from 1993-94 to 2007-08. We …nd evidence that a more black team tends to face a larger point spread and that these teams perform worse against the spread. These biased outcomes are...

This paper proposes a theoretically sound and easy-to-implement way to measure the systemic and stand-alone risk of financial institutions using publicly available accounting and stock market data. The measure models the credit enhancement taxpayers provide to individual banks as a put option on bank assets, a tradition that originated with Merton...

We show that the local bias in U.S. mutual fund portfolios varies significantly over time and is more pronounced at times of heightened market uncertainty, such as during financial crises. Similarly, the local bias is less pronounced in periods when market sentiment is strong. These results do not depend on past fund performance or fund inflows dur...

This paper assesses the impact of the geographic diversification of bank holding company (BHC) assets across the United States on their market valuations. Using two novel identification strategies based on the dynamic process of interstate bank deregulation, we find that exogenous increases in geographic diversity reduce BHC valuations. These findi...

This paper proposes a theoretically sound and easy-to-implement way to measure systemic risk of banks using publicly available accounting and stock market data. The measure models credit risk of banks as a put option on bank assets, a tradition that originated with Merton (1974). We extend his contribution by expressing the value of banking-sector...

This note explores the costs and benefits of different policy options to reduce the risks associated with credit booms, drawing upon several country experiences and the findings from econometric analysis.

This review surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on the causes and consequences of banking crises, and summarizes the lessons learned from policy interventions to resolve banking crises. Despite their different origins, banking crises display similar patterns. Their causes lie in unsustainable macroeconomic policies, market failures, re...

Credit Booms The Mortgage Market: Regional Analysis The Mortgage Market: Lender Analysis Possible Solutions About the Authors

This paper shows that banks exhibit a weaker (stronger) home bias in the extension of new loans when funding conditions in their home country improve (deteriorate). We refer to these changes in home bias as flight home and flight abroad effects, respectively, and show that they are unrelated to the better known flight to quality effect that arises...

This paper applies existing methods of pricing deposit insurance to a country that is considering the introduction of deposit insurance: Russia. Although the focus is on Russia, these pricing methods are widely applicable. Our methods show that the proposed level of deposit insurance coverage in Russia seems adequate considering its level of econom...

In the context of the global market for syndicated bank loans, we provide evidence that the collapse of international markets during financial crises can in part be explained by a flight home effect. We show that the home bias of lenders’ loan origination increases by approximately 20 percent if the bank’s country of origin experiences a banking cr...

We employ a novel data set on almost 30,000 trade credit contracts to describe the broad characteristics of the parties that contract together and the key terms of these contracts. Whereas prior work has typically used information on only one side of the buyer-seller transaction, we utilize information on both, allowing for the first analysis of bu...

Homestead exemptions to personal bankruptcy allow households to retain their home equity up to a limit determined at the state level. Households that may experience bankruptcy thus have an incentive to bias their portfolios towards home equity. Using US household data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation for the period 1996-2006, we...

This paper assesses the impact of the geographic diversification of bank holding company (BHC) assets across the United States on (1) their market valuations and (2) the generosity of their loans to bank executives. We find that exogenous increases in geographic diversity reduce BHC valuations and increase the frequency and size of insider loans. T...

We collect new data to assess the importance of supply-side credit market frictions by studying the impact of financial sector recapitalization packages on the growth performance of firms in a large cross-section of 50 countries during the recent crisis. We develop an identification strategy that uses the financial crisis as a shock to credit suppl...

This paper compares the policy choices in recent and past crises, explains why those choices varied, and assesses the current state of financial and operational restructuring and institutional reform. While acknowledging the unique and global nature of the recent crisis and varying country circumstances, analysis suggests that the diagnosis and rep...

We provide a theoretical foundation for the claim that prolonged periods of easy monetary conditions increase bank risk taking. The net effect of a monetary policy change on bank monitoring (an inverse measure of risk taking) depends on the balance of three forces: interest rate pass-through, risk shifting, and leverage. When banks can adjust their...

This paper studies how U.S. monetary policy affects global stock prices. We find that global stock prices respond strongly to changes in U.S. interest rate policy, with stock prices increasing (decreasing) following unexpected monetary loosening (tightening). This impact is more pronounced for sectors that depend on external financing, and for coun...

This paper contributes to the debate by showing that the relationship between the monetary policy stance and bank risk taking is more complex than generally believed. Most of the debate so far has focused on how monetary policy easing can induce greater risk taking through a search for yield or its effects on leverage and asset prices, a view this...

The financial crisis of 2007--2008 is rooted in a number of factors, some common to previous financial crises, others new. Analysis of post-crisis macroeconomic and financial sector performance for 58 advanced countries and emerging markets shows a differential impact of old and new factors. Factors common to other crises, like asset price bubbles...

This paper shows that banks overstate the value of distressed assets and their regulatory capital during the U.S. mortgage crisis. Banks’ balance sheets overvalue real estate-related assets compared to the market value of these assets. Banks with large exposure to mortgage-backed securities also provision less for bad loans. Furthermore, distressed...

The ongoing global financial crisis is rooted in a combination of factors common to previous financial crises and some new factors. The crisis has brought to light a number of deficiencies in financial regulation and architecture, particularly in the treatment of systemically important financial institutions, the assessments of systemic risks and v...

This chapter, focuses on the adoption of an explicit deposit insurance scheme (EDIS), what factors influence safety net design, and if these same factors are able to affect risk-shifting controls as well. The chapter assumes that the crafting of a country’s financial safety net is an exercise in incomplete contracting where the counterparties are m...

This chapter focuses on how deposit insurers are involved in bank failure resolution, and how it is linked to bank risk. In this study, several indicators are considered. First are cross-country indicators of the responsibility of deposit insurers to intervene into banks. Second is the power that deposit insurers hold when deciding to either cancel...

How does the management and resolution of the current crisis compare with the response of the Nordic countries in the early 1990s, widely regarded as exemplary? We argue that, while intervention has been prompter, the measures taken so far remain less comprehensive and in-depth. In particular, the cleansing of balance sheets has proceeded more slow...

Sweden offers a unique natural experiment to analyze the effects of institutionalized saving on the ownership structure, corporate governance, and firm performance. The Swedish pension reform increased the stock market participation of pension funds, causing a significant reshuffling in the ownership of pension funds. We show that the effects of in...

We model technological and financial innovation as reflecting the decisions of profit maximizing agents and explore the implications for economic growth. We start with a Schumpeterian endogenous growth model where entrepreneurs earn monopoly profits by inventing better goods and financiers arise to screen entrepreneurs. A novel feature of the model...

This paper shows that banks use accounting discretion to overstate the value of distressed assets. Banks' balance sheets overvalue real estate-related assets compared to the market value of these assets, especially during the U.S. mortgage crisis. Share prices of banks with large exposure to mortgage-backed securities also react favorably to recent...

Sovereign wealth funds have emerged as an important investor of global equity, attracting growing attention. Despite frequently voiced concerns that sovereign wealth funds serve political objectives, little is known about their investment allocation. We collect new data on close to 30,000 equity investments by sovereign wealth funds and using both...

This paper presents evidence of banks using accounting discretion to overstate the value of distressed assets. In particular, we show that the stock market applies far greater discounts to a bank's real estate loans and mortgage-backed securities than are implicit in the book values of these assets, especially following the onset of the U.S. mortga...

Using a large international firm-level data set, we estimate separate effects of host and parent country taxation on the location decisions of multinational firms. Both types of taxation are estimated to have a negative impact on the location of new foreign subsidiaries. In fact, the impact of parent country taxation is estimated to be relatively l...

Sovereign wealth funds have emerged as an important investor of global equity, attracting growing attention. Despite concerns that sovereign wealth fund investments may serve political objectives and be in conflict with national interests, little is known about the investment objectives and performance of sovereign wealth funds. We collect new data...

This chapter explains how deposit insurance is capable of being either explicit or implicit. The former refers to coverage that is contractual obligations, while the latter refers to coverage that is conjectural. This study, then, add some new data points to the evidence and analysis in the chapter for the purpose of providing more guided decisions...

Drawing on an original cross-country dataset on deposit insurance systems, an assessment of the impact of deposit insurance on banking outcomes and the policy implications for developing countries. Explicit deposit insurance (DI) is widely held to be a crucial element of modern financial safety nets. For this reason, establishing a DI system is fre...

Drawing on an original cross-country dataset on deposit insurance systems, an assessment of the impact of deposit insurance on banking outcomes and the policy implications for developing countries. Explicit deposit insurance (DI) is widely held to be a crucial element of modern financial safety nets. For this reason, establishing a DI system is fre...

Drawing on an original cross-country dataset on deposit insurance systems, an assessment of the impact of deposit insurance on banking outcomes and the policy implications for developing countries. Explicit deposit insurance (DI) is widely held to be a crucial element of modern financial safety nets. For this reason, establishing a DI system is fre...

We model the opportunities and incentives generated by international tax differences for international profit shifting by multinationals. The model considers not only profit shifting arising from international tax differences between affiliates and parent companies, but also from tax differences between affiliates in different host countries. Our m...

This paper conducts the first empirical assessment of theories concerning risk taking by banks, their ownership structures, and national bank regulations. We focus on conflicts between bank managers and owners over risk, and we show that bank risk taking varies positively with the comparative power of shareholders within the corporate governance st...

We evaluate the impact of corporate governance on the valuation of firms in a large cross-section of countries. Unlike previous work, we differentiate between minimally accepted governance attributes that are satisfied by all firms in a given country and governance attributes that are adopted at the firm level. This approach allows us to differenti...

This paper constructs a composite index of corporate governance quality, documents its evolution during the 1994-2003 period in selected emerging and developed economies, and assesses its impact on growth and productivity of the economy and its corporate sector. Our investigation yields three main findings. First, corporate governance quality in mo...

This paper identifies factors that influence decisions about a country's financial safety net, using a comprehensive data set covering 180 countries during the 1960-2003 period. Our analysis focuses on how private interest-group pressures, outside influences, and political-institutional factors affect deposit-insurance adoption and design. Controll...

Using novel indicators of political connections constructed from campaign contribution data, we show that Brazilian firms that provided contributions to (elected) federal deputies experienced higher stock returns than firms that did not around the 1998 and 2002 elections. This suggests that contributions help shape policy on a firm-specific basis....

This paper links the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis to demand-side factors that contributed to the rapid expansion of the U.S. mortgage market. We show that denial rates were relatively lower in areas that experienced faster credit demand growth and that lenders in these high-growth areas attached less weight to applicants loan-to-income ratios. The...

Although research shows that financial development accelerates aggregate economic growth, economists have not resolved conflicting theoretical predictions and ongoing policy disputes about the cross-firm distributional effects of financial development. Using cross-industry, cross-country data, the results are consistent with the view that financial...

The bulk of corporate governance theory examines the agency problems that arise from two extreme ownership structures: 100% small shareholders or one large, controlling owner combined with small shareholders. In this paper, we question the empirical validity of this dichotomy. In fact, one-third of publicly listed firms in Europe have multiple larg...

How does the management and resolution of the current crisis compare with the response of the Nordic countries in the early 1990s, widely regarded as exemplary? We argue that, while intervention has been prompter, the measures taken so far remain less comprehensive and in-depth. In particular, the cleansing of balance sheets has proceeded more slow...

Sweden offers a unique natural experiment to analyze the microeconomic effects of institutionalized saving on ownership structure, corporate governance and performance of listed companies. First, the Swedish pension reform increased the participation of pension funds in the domestic stock market and caused a significant reshuffling in the ownership...