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Revisiting Earnings Quality and Bank Efficiency among East African Developing Economies: Do Systemic Banking and Financial Crises Matter?
Abstract
Purpose: In this paper, we investigate whether the systemic local banking crises (LBCs) and global financial crisis (GFC) impact the association between bank profit efficiency and earnings quality in developing economies.
Methodology: Using panel data spanning 29 years over the period 1991-2019 for 169 banks drawn from five East African countries, we perform difference-in-difference multivariate analyses using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) system estimator on a sample consisting of 2,261 bank-year observations.
Findings: Our results, which are robust for endogeneity and other checks, show that banks with higher profit efficiency consistently report higher quality earnings. We further establish that whereas systemic LBCs contribute negatively to bank earnings quality, the GFC tends to have a positive impact. These results are upheld when the joint impacts of both systemic LBCs, GFC and profit efficiency on earnings quality are considered. The positive influence of profit efficiency and GFC on earnings quality is pronounced under income-decreasing earnings management. The impacts of profit efficiency, LBCs and GFC on earnings quality are non-monotonic and vary across the sampled countries.
Practical implications: The results provide useful insights to bank regulatory and supervisory agencies on the need to exercise increased risk-based scrutiny over bank loan loss provisioning and minimum loan loss reserve requirements. From an audit perspective, auditors need to be cautious and apply an enhanced risk-based audit especially when auditing banks during and after a financial, banking, or systemic crisis. Credit rating agencies need to pay closer attention to the LLPs of distressed banks. Finally, bank investors and customers should be cautious when using bank financial statements since bank managers of poorly performing banks might engage in aggressive earnings.
Limitations: The study’s findings are based on banks in five developing countries within a regional economic bloc. Additional studies could focus on other economic blocs for enhanced generalisability of the findings. In addition, some of the variables examined are studied at bank-level, while other variables are at country-level. Finally, the study establishes an association between the variables of interest, and this does not necessarily imply causation.
Originality: The study is perhaps the first to examine the joint effects of systemic LBCs on the association between bank profit efficiency and the quality of earnings in a larger dataset of banks in a developing regional economic bloc. We also employ the GMM system estimator in our modelling, which helps address some weaknesses in prior studies.
Key words: Systemic local banking crisis, global financial crisis, profit efficiency, earnings quality, loan loss provision, GMM
... Under this monetary union treaty, the EAC established protocols to supervise banks among other things (Dridi & Nguyen, 2018). Liberalization of finance led to growth of banking sector in East Africa (Mathuva & Nyangu, 2021a). Monetary affairs committee in EAC developed protocols to enhance harmonization of legal, supervisory and practices of central banks in East Africa (European Investment Bank European Investment Bank, 2016). ...
... Kenya has 42 licensed commercial banks of which 13 are foreign. Banking sector in Kenya is dominated by Tier 1 banks that control 75% of the entire sector (Mathuva & Nyangu, 2021a). Kenyan banking sector experienced the worst banking crisis between 1984 and 1999 where 24 banks collapsed. ...
... Between 2014 and 2016, three commercial banks collapsed. The failures of these banks were mainly nonperforming loans, weaknesses in corporate governance and unregulated advances of loans, which were fraudulent (Mathuva & Nyangu, 2021a). ...
The aim of the study was to determine extent of earning manipulations and possible fraudulent activities in banking sector. The study involved banks in East Africa where the financial statements of 34 banks in Kenya, 30 banks in Tanzania and 20 banks in Uganda were analysed. The study used Beneish model to classify banks as manipulators and non-manipulators. Later, probit regression model was applied based on the results of Beneish model to reclassify the banks as fraudulent or otherwise. The study revealed that 79.4% of Kenyan, 83.3% of Tanzanian and 70% of Ugandan banks could be non-manipulators. Further analysis showed that 79.4%, 76.7% and 80% of Kenyan, Tanzanian and Ugandan banks, respectively, were possibly not engaged in fraudulent activities. The study concluded that some banks could have been involved in earning management and fraud. The study contributes earning management literature by providing evidence that earning management is rife in banking sectors in less-developed countries though banks have strict regulations. The study further contributes to mechanisms of reclassification of institutions as either fraudulent or otherwise. The study recommends that financial statements prepared must be given professional autonomy. Further, it was recommended that the auditors should emphasise computations of ratios by financial statement prepared in order to give a clear, true and fair view of financial position of organizations. The study findings can be used by the management, regulators and government bodies in less developed and developing countries to develop policies that would seal the loopholes that fraudsters use.
Purpose
This paper aims to examine whether African banks audited by a Big 4 auditor use loan loss provisions (LLPs) for earnings management purposes before, during and after the global financial crisis. It focuses on income smoothing as a type of earnings management.
Design/methodology/approach
The study analyzed banks in 21 African countries from 2002 to 2014. The estimation techniques used are the fixed effect regression technique, descriptive statistic and Pearson correlation statistic. The model used in the study expresses LLPs as a function of its discretionary and non-discretionary determinants.
Findings
African banks audited by Big 4 auditors use LLPs to smooth income and the incentive to smooth income is greater during an economic downturn or recession. Also, African banks audited by a Big 4 auditor use income smoothing to lower high earnings during the financial crisis and in the pre-financial crisis period but not in the post-financial crisis period.
Originality/value
The literature shows that the presence of Big 4 auditors improves earnings quality. The direct impact of Big 4 auditors on earnings management in African banks has received little attention in the literature, and the impact of audit quality on bank earnings smoothing particularly in Africa is yet to be known.
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to determine the relationship between bank efficiency in terms of corporate governance guidelines and the extent of practice of earnings management (EM).
Design/methodology/approach
Archival data of listed private commercial banks of Dhaka Stock Exchange over the period of 2007–2016 relating to corporate governance and earnings management are collected and analyzed using parametric and non-parametric methods (efficiency analysis) and applying panel regression analysis.
Findings
The same distribution pattern and have low degree of the correlation (0.248) among them. It is found that private commercial banks of Bangladesh, on average, display efficiency level of 80.84%. The average value of discretionary loan loss provision (i.e. measure of earnings management) is 0.4249 and this indicates the presence of earnings management. The relation between earnings management and efficiency score in both cases of two-step system generalized methods of moments (GMMs) and difference GMM are found to be negative. The negative coefficients (−0.7969 and −0.57) indicate that as the efficiency increases, the practice of earnings management by the private commercial bank reduces. By estimating efficiency based on corporate governance guidelines and detecting the existence of EM, the major contribution of the study is establishing the relationship between bank efficiency based on compliance with corporate governance guidelines and managerial practice of earnings management in Bangladesh. Empirical results of the study have also established the fact that the more efficient the management of the banks are, the less likely it will practice earnings management under the compliance of corporate governance guidelines in Bangladesh.
Research limitations/implications
This research study has some limitations. Only conventional banks are considered for the study, with the exception of Islamic banks. Comparison between conventional banks and Islamic banks could have been done.
Practical implications
Based on the literature study, the effectiveness of corporate governance aligns with decreasing agency conflict, protection of shareholders' interests and restrain management from self-serving activities (i.e. practice of earnings management). The empirical results of the study established these facts. Regulators should give more emphasis on effective implementation of good governance.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this may be the first to empirically determine the relationship between efficiency estimation based on corporate governance and earnings management in case of listed commercial banks of Bangladesh.
Purpose
The size of non-performing loans (NPLs) plays a key role in the stability of the banking sector of a country. The factors that explain the NPLs contain very important information for banks. Studies in this regard with respect to developing states such as Pakistan have received little attention. This study aimed to scrutinize the determinants of NPLs observing a case of the banking sector in Pakistan over the period from 2005 to 2017.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample consists of the banking sector (i.e., commercial banks) listed in Pakistan Stock Exchange over the period of 2005–2017. The banking factors, including profitability, operating efficiency, capital adequacy and income diversification, were evaluated. The estimations were done by regression modeling using random and fixed effects through STATA software.
Findings
Results show that the operating efficiency and profitability indicators have a negative association with NPLs but were statistically significant, while capital adequacy and income diversification have a negative association with NPLs but were statistically insignificant.
Research limitations/implications
The present study has considered limited banking indicators as determinants of NPLs and was limited to a specific time period from 2005 to 2017.
Originality/value
The study is an attempt to investigate various banking factors that affect the NPLs with respect to developing economies such as Pakistan.
We investigate the role of loan loss provisions in analysts’ decision to follow banks. We find that abnormal loan loss provisions (ALLP), regardless of whether it is income-increasing or income-decreasing, reduce analyst coverage. We interpret this effect with the finding that the greater magnitude of ALLPs decreases the accuracy and increases the dispersion of analysts’ forecasts. In addition, the volatility in ALLPs leads to the decrease in analyst coverage as well. We also find a pecking order for lead analysts’ decisions in a noisy information environment. Lead analysts prefer to follow financial institutions with more accurate loan loss provisions first, then with more positive (incoming-decreasing) ALLPs, and are less likely to follow those with negative (income-increasing) ALLPs. Our findings are robust to endogeneity concerns and indicate that lead analysts are deterred from more aggressive bank earnings management.
The analysis of efficiency and productivity in banking has received a great deal of attention for almost three decades now. However, most of the existing literature to date has not explicitly accounted for risk when measuring efficiency. We propose an analysis of profit efficiency taking into account how the inclusion of a variety of bank risk measures might bias efficiency scores. Our measures of risk are partly inspired by the literature on earnings management and earnings quality, considering that loan loss provisions, as a generally accepted proxy for risk, can be adjusted to manage earnings and regulatory capital. We also consider some variants of traditional models of profit efficiency where different regimes are stipulated so that financial institutions can be evaluated in different dimensions—i.e. prices, quantities, or prices and quantities simultaneously. We perform this analysis on the Spanish banking industry, whose institutions are deeply affected by the current international financial crisis, and where re-regulation is taking place. Our results can be explored in multiple dimensions but, in general, they indicate that the impact of earnings management on profit efficiency is of less magnitude than what might, a priori, be expected, and that the performance of savings banks has been generally worse than that of commercial banks. However, savings banks are adapting to the new regulatory scenario and rapidly catching up with commercial banks, especially in some dimensions of performance.
This study evaluated the nexus between cost efficiency and non-performing loans (NPLs) in the Zimbabwean banking sector for the period 2009–2014. The study was motivated by the increase in NPLs in the banking sector while banks have been accused of profiteering through excessive bank charges and interest rates. The study contributes to the literature on the relationship between efficiency and NPLs, which is a controversial area. The study established that the average cost efficiency was 81%. It increased from 70% to 88% between 2009 and 2014. It declined in 2012 and 2013 because of slowdown in economic activity. The study established that cost efficiency negatively Granger-causes NPLs, supporting the bad management hypothesis implying that the low level of efficiency was a result of poor credit management which led to a deterioration in the quality of banks’ loan books. Although poor credit policies might look lucrative in the short run, they have detrimental effects on the quality of the loan books of banks in the long run. The policy recommendation drawn from the results is that credit managers should adhere to the international best practice in managing credit.
We review the recent academic and policy literature on bank loan loss provisioning. Among other things, we observe that there exist some interaction between LLPs and existing prudential, accounting, institutional, cultural, religious, tax and fiscal frameworks which differ across countries; and we find that managerial discretion in provisioning is strongly linked to income smoothing, capital management, signalling, tax management and other objectives. We also address several issues including the ethical dimensions of income smoothing, factors influencing income smoothing, methodological issues in LLP modelling and the dynamic loan loss provisioning experiment; which opens up several avenues for further research such as: finding a balance between sufficient LLPs which regulators want versus transparent LLPs which standard setters want; the sensitivity of abnormal LLPs to changes in equity; the persistence of abnormal LLPs following CEO exit; country-specific interventions that induce LLP procyclicality in emerging countries; the impact of Basel III on banks' provisioning discretion; LLP behaviour among systemic and non-systemic financial institutions; etc. We conclude that regulators need to pay attention to how much discretion lending institutions should have in determining reported provision estimates, and this has been a long standing issue.
This paper studies the impact of global financial crisis focusing on State Owned Commercial Banks (SCBs) and Private Commercial Banks (PCBs) ownership and others bank specific and macroeconomics factors influencing profit efficiency level of the Bangladesh banking sector. The Slack-Based Data Envelopment Analysis (SBM-DEA) method employed to compute the profit efficiency of 31 commercial banks operating in the Bangladesh over the years 2004–2011. Furthermore, the multivariate panel regression analysis framework based on the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Generalized Least Square (GLS) methods comprising the Fixed Effect (FE) and Random Effect (RE) models adopted to examine the determinants of banks profit efficiency. Results indicate the levels of profit efficiency on SCBs and PCBs are increasing by 3.7% and 5.8% during financial crisis years. However, over the period of post financial crisis years exhibited, profit efficiency levels on SCBs and PCBs are decreasing by 38.7% and 9.9%. Although profit efficiency levels on both ownership of banks show declining over the post financial crisis years, the PCBs still higher than SCBs (67.8%>60.1%) but insignificantly different. Furthermore, the findings reveals that the relationship of size of bank, liquidity, economic growth and market concentration are significantly negative with profit efficiency of SCBs but positive to PCBs. Meanwhile, the factors of capitalization, credit risk and inflation are significant with the positive and negative sign only to the profit efficiency of the SCBs over the period of post global financial crisis.
This article uses the frontier technique to highlight the differences in the impact of the global financial crisis on the efficiency of 783 commercial banks from the EU during the period 2004–2010. We emphasise the distinctions between large and small banks, publicly traded and privately held banks, as well as the statuses of banks’ country of origin, especially for the year in which they joined the EU and held eurozone membership. Our results show that the crisis has a significant and positive impact on both the cost and profit inefficiencies of the commercial banks from the EU, and that this impact is higher on eurozone banks. In terms of cost efficiency, the most affected by the crisis are the large publicly traded banks, operating in old members of the EU. With regard to the profit inefficiency, the global financial crisis seems to have had a lower impact on the large public banks.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine whether the way African banks use loan loss provisions (LLP) to smooth earnings is influenced by capital market motivations and the type of auditor, after controlling for non-discretionary determinants of provisions and fluctuations in the business cycle.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the income smoothing hypothesis, the model was estimated using panel least square with White’s robust standard error correction, as well as, with and without period fixed effect.
Findings
The findings support the income smoothing hypothesis and indicate that African banks use LLP to smooth earnings; listed African banks use LLP to smooth earnings to a greater extent compared to non-listed African banks, possibly, for capital market reasons; income smoothing via LLP is not reduced among African banks with Big 4 auditors; and after controlling for macroeconomic fluctuation, there is evidence that bank provisioning is procyclical with fluctuations in the business cycle.
Research limitations/implications
The findings have three implications. One, listed African banks smooth income because they are more visible to investors; investors do not view stock price fluctuations as a good signal. Securities market regulators in African countries should enforce strict disclosure rules that reduce earnings smoothing practices to improve the transparency of bank earnings in the region. Two, the presence of a Big 4 auditor did not improve the informativeness of LLP estimates among African banks. Three, the evidence for procyclical provisioning suggest the need for dynamic LLP system in Africa.
Originality/value
This paper is the first cross-country African study to investigate whether provisions-based income smoothing decreases with the presence of a Big 4 auditor. The findings indicate that this is not the case among African banks.
The paper investigates whether there is a significance difference between the practices of discretionary loan/finance loss provisions between Islamic and conventional banks. Same time, the paper tests whether the efficiency may influence the behaviour of discretionary loans/finance loss provisions, taken into consideration other micro and macro variables. The study utilizes panel data runs over 1996-2011 with unbalanced observations for 16 banks, of which 4 Islamic banks. In order to achieve research objectives, the two-stage approach is adopted to examine the factors that may influence the behaviour of discretionary loan/finance loss provisions with specific emphasize on the efficiency. Furthermore, efficiency scores are estimated using Data Envelopment Windows Analysis. The findings of the research show that Islamic banks employ the discretionary loans/finance loss provisions to manage their earnings. However, the magnitude of discretion of accruals is significantly lower than conventional banks with exception for foreign banks which have reported lower discretionary loans/finance loss provisions than Islamic banks. Moreover, the analysis showed that efficiency affects the overall discretionary loans/finance loss provision positively, although this impact is shaped differently for Islamic and conventional banks. (Fully accepted, in press)
The recent economic and financial crisis has had a tremendous impact on the banking system, raising key questions about liquidity risk. Its management is seen to be of paramount importance, receiving great attention from policymakers, researchers and practitioners, taking into consideration that a liquidity shortage at a single so called “too big to fail” financial institution can lead to systemic contagion and instability. In this context, the aim of the paper is to analyse a significant issue that needs to be tackled when promoting financial stability, more exactly the determinants of the liquidity risk of a sample of banks operating in a series of CEE countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania), reviewing at the same time the progresses made in certain key areas and the remaining challenges. We considered bank specific factors over the period 2004-2011 and examined them employing an OLS regression analysis. The results of our research highlighted the negative impact that the depreciation of the loans portfolio had on the overall liquidity of the analysed banks.
This paper investigates the relationship between loan-loss provisions (LLPs) and earnings management in the context of the capital adequacy of Euro Area (EA) banks versus non-EA credit institutions. This paper also examines whether LLPs signal managements’ expectations concerning future bank profits to investors. Additionally, this paper traces the role of bank regulations and creditor protection systems in explaining income smoothing. Evidence drawn from the 1996 to 2006 period indicates that LLPs do reflect changes in the expected quality of a bank's loan portfolio for both groups of banks, and that earnings management is an important determinant of LLPs for EA intermediaries, whereas non-EA credit institutions use LLPs to signal private information to outsiders. The paper also finds that higher protection of creditors’ rights significantly reduces the incentives to smooth earnings for EA banks. During the recent financial crisis, EA bank managers are much more concerned with their credit portfolio quality and do not use LLPs for discretionary purposes, whereas LLPs at non-EA banks are used to smooth income more than for the purposes of managing capital ratios or conveying private information about future performance to the market.
This study investigates the implications of earnings management on corporate loan pricing. Through two competing hypotheses (smoothing hypothesis and managerial opportunism hypothesis), we find that both accruals and real activities management are associated with higher loan spreads. Banks view earnings management as a value-destroying process that hampers a borrower's capacity to repay a loan. Therefore, banks demand a marginal increase in loan spread to compensate for future uncertainty and monitoring costs. Furthermore, we examine the cross-sectional effects of lender reputation and lending relationship. Reputable and relationship banks demand even larger spreads for earnings management, consistent with them identifying and viewing earnings management as a risk-increasing activity. Additional analyses on simultaneity, loan contracting fees, covenant restrictiveness, and propensity matching method show consistent results.
This paper examines the impact of audit quality on earnings management through loan loss provisions among both conventional and Islamic banks operating in MENA countries. Using the Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) and Random Effects, we found that Big-4, Co-audit, audit committee size, and audit committee independence restrain earnings management practices of Islamic bank managers. In contrast, audit committee mechanisms do not influence earnings management practices in conventional banks. We also found that the extent of earnings management is lower in Islamic banks operating in countries experiencing turmoil as compared to conventional banks. Using the T-test and the Wilcoxon Signed-ranks, we found that the audit quality in conventional banks is lower compared to Islamic banks. Our findings have implications for policymakers since it helps them to enhance the regulations regarding audit quality and accounting standards. It also provides helpful insights into the determinants of earnings management in both conventional and Islamic banks operating in MENA countries.
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 costs. We provide new evidence that crises in high-income countries tend to last longer and be associated with higher output losses, lower fiscal costs, and more extensive use of bank guarantees and expansionary macro-policies than crises in low- and middle-income countries. We complement the banking crisis dates with sovereign debt and currency crises dates to find that sovereign debt and currency crises tend to coincide with or follow banking crises.
This paper addresses a little-examined intersection between the problem-loan literature and the bank-efficiency literature. We employ Granger causality techniques to test four hypotheses regarding the relationships among loan quality, cost efficiency, and bank capital. The data suggest that problem loans precede reductions in measured cost efficiency; that measured cost efficiency precedes reductions in problem loans; and that reductions in capital at thinly capitalized banks precede increases in problem loans. Hence, cost efficiency may be an important indicator of future problem loans and problem banks. Our results are ambiguous concerning whether or not researchers should control for problem loans in efficiency estimation.
Using a large sample of firms from nine European countries, this study examines the relationship between bank efficiency and the cost of credit for borrowing firms. We hypothesize that bank efficiency – the ability of banks to operate at lower costs – is associated with lower loan rates and thus lower cost of credit. Combining firm-level and bank-level data, we find support for this prediction. The effect of bank efficiency on the cost of credit varies with firm and bank size. Bank efficiency reduces the cost of credit for SMEs, but does not exert a significant influence for either micro companies or large firms. Furthermore, the effect is driven by large banks, where improvements in bank efficiency tend to be strongly associated with lower cost of credit. We also find that lower bank competition facilitates the transmission of greater bank efficiency to lower cost of credit. Overall, our results indicate that measures that increase bank efficiency can foster access to credit.
We examine the design of loan contract terms in the presence of borrower pre-issuance real earnings management (REM). Unlike other measures of earnings quality, REM is particularly difficult for outsiders to detect. However, lenders possess some private information which may allow them to correctly identify REM. Our empirical findings show that greater REM is associated with higher interest spreads, shorter maturities, a higher likelihood of imposing collateral requirements, and more intensive financial covenants, suggesting that lenders are likely to detect and penalise the borrower firm's REM activities. These findings are robust to a series of sensitivity tests. In an additional test, we examine the impact of REM on bond terms and document that greater REM is related to higher bond yield spreads and more intensive covenants, but does not affect the maturity term or the collateral requirement. The findings in this paper can alert firms about the increase in borrowing costs when they use REM to boost current-period earnings.
This study analyses technical and allocative efficiencies in Turkish banks from December 2002 to December 2017, under the assumption of constant returns to scale. We apply a modified version of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach introduced by Aparico et al. (2015), which employs a directional distance model to provide estimates of efficiency, with a focus on Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) as an undesirable output. In addition, we examine the determinants of efficiency by applying quantile regressions to panel data. The results obtained support the thesis that NPLs exert a negative impact in terms of technical efficiency, which confirms the “bad management” hypothesis in the banking sector. We also find that the level of efficiency of Turkish banks differs, depending on the ownership structure in place.
We study the effects of country-level accounting enforcement on earnings quality of banks and whether bank regulation substitutes or complements the effect of accounting enforcement on bank earnings quality. We also examine whether the influence of accounting enforcement on bank earnings quality changed after the global financial crisis. Using a sample of listed banks from 40 countries between 2001 and 2014, and abnormal loan loss provisions (ALLP) as our main proxy for earnings quality, we document a consistent and strong association between accounting enforcement and bank earnings quality. More specifically, an increase in accounting enforcement decreases the level of ALLP and decreases the propensity to manage earnings to avoid losses. Furthermore, we provide empirical evidence that bank regulation complements the effect of accounting enforcement on bank earnings quality. Finally, unlike in the pre-crisis period, we find a positive association between accounting enforcement and income-decreasing ALLP in the post-crisis period, which indicates that stronger accounting enforcement is associated with more conservative earnings and higher loan loss reserves. Overall, our results indicate that accounting enforcement reduces opportunistic earnings management.
This research examines how the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) affected banks’ supply of credit, not only in a direct way but also indirectly through changes in bank market power. We use a sample of 735 banks from 17 countries during the 2003–2012 period. We find that the direct negative impact of the GFC on banks’ supply of loans is counteracted by an indirect effect through the increased level of bank market power in the years after the onset of the crisis. This result is particularly relevant in countries with less stringent restrictions on bank activities and less supervisory power.
Using a sample of U.S. public and private banks, we examine the implications of banks’ funding strategies for banks’ earnings quality. We find that the ratio of core deposits to total liabilities (CDL), our proxy for bank reliance on retail deposits over wholesale funds, is negatively and significantly associated with the magnitude of earnings management through discretionary loan loss provisions (DLLP). This finding is consistent with the arguments that retail deposits are relatively more stable and information-insensitive, reflect a more conservative business model, and attract more intensive monitoring from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) than wholesale funds. We find that the inverse relationship between retail funding and earnings management holds for both income-increasing and income-decreasing DLLP. Besides, reliance on retail funding decreases the likelihood of meeting-or-beating earnings benchmark, and the extent of income smoothing through loan loss provisions (LLP). In an additional analysis, we find that banks with higher CDL are exposed to lower asset deterioration risk, proxied by large non-performing loans and loan charge-offs during the financial crisis period 2007–2009. Collectively, our results indicate that the banks’ funding strategy that relies more on retail deposits as opposed to wholesale funds increases banks’ earnings quality.
This paper shows that the revised loan loss provisioning based on the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) implies a reduction of Tier 1 capital. The paper finds in a counterfactual analysis that these changes are more severe (i) during economic downturns, (ii) for credit portfolios of low quality, (iii) for banks that do not tighten capital standards during downturns, and (iv) under a more lenient definition of significant increase in credit risk (SICR) under IFRS. The provisioning rules further increase the procyclicality of bank capital requirements. Adjustments of the SICR threshold or capital buffers are suggested as ways to mitigate a regulatory pressure that may emerges due to the reduction of regulatory capital.
Researchers have used various measures as indications of “earnings quality” including persistence, accruals, smoothness, timeliness, loss avoidance, investor responsiveness, and external indicators such as restatements and SEC enforcement releases. For each measure, we discuss causes of variation in the measure as well as consequences. We reach no single conclusion on what earnings quality is because “quality” is contingent on the decision context. We also point out that the “quality” of earnings is a function of the firm’s fundamental performance. The contribution of a firm’s fundamental performance to its earnings quality is suggested as one area for future work.
An important component of monetary policy transmission is the pass-through from financial market interest rates, directly influenced or targeted by central banks, to the rates that banks charge firms and households. Yet the available evidence on the strength and speed of the pass-through is mixed. We examine the pass-through mechanism using a unique data set of Czech loan and deposit products and focus on bank-level determinants of pricing policies, especially cost efficiency, which we estimate employing both stochastic frontier and data envelopment analysis. Our main results are threefold: First, the long-term pass-through was close to complete for most products before the financial crisis, but has weakened considerably afterward. Second, banks that provide high rates for deposits usually charge high loan markups. Third, cost-efficient banks tend to smooth loan rates for their clients.
This article presents a new database of systemic banking crises over the period 1970–2009. While there are many commonalities between recent and past crises, both in terms of underlying causes and policy responses, there are some important differences in terms of the scale and scope of interventions. Direct fiscal costs to support the financial sector were smaller this time as a consequence of swift policy action and significant indirect support from expansionary monetary and fiscal policy, the widespread use of guarantees on liabilities, and direct purchases of assets. While these policies have reduced the real impact of the current crisis, they have increased the burden of public debt and the size of government contingent liabilities, raising concerns about fiscal sustainability in some countries.
This article reviews the theory and historical evidence related to the prevalence of bank failure, panics, and contagion. It argues that banking system panics are neither random events nor inherent to the function of banks or the structure of bank balance sheets, but are caused by temporary confusion about the incidence of shocks within the banking system. Drawing on empirical evidence, it contends that deposit insurance and other policies intended to prevent instability have become the single greatest source of banking instability.
We investigate the effects of technological change, deregulation, and dynamic changes in competition on the performance of US banks. Our most striking result is that during 1991-1997, cost productivity worsened while profit productivity improved substantially, particularly for banks engaging in mergers. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that banks tried to maximize profits by raising revenues as well as reducing costs. Banks appeared to provide additional or higher quality services that raised costs but also raised revenues by more than the cost increases. The results suggest that methods that exclude revenues when assessing performance may be misleading.
This study investigates the impact of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 on earnings quality in publicly listed firms in advanced countries as per level of investor protection. The sample is categorized into three clusters. Cluster 1 is referred as outsider economies with strong outsider protection and legal enforcement and clusters 2 and 3 are referred as insider economies with better and weaker legal enforcement systems respectively. Using linear regression analysis, 137,091 firm-years observations are analyzed and the earnings quality is examined by using conservatism, value relevance, accruals quality, earnings persistence, earnings predictability, loss avoidance analysis and earnings smoothness. The results show that during the financial crisis, earnings quality is decreased. However, this deterioration on earnings quality appears to be more severe in clusters 2 and 3 which are characterized by medium and weak shareholder protection. Particularly, for all clusters, the study shows that in an attempt to cope with recession, managers have an incentive to choose more aggressive conservatism, lower the earnings predictability and book more accruals. Countries in clusters 2 and 3 report more relevant financial numbers and follow artificial smoothing during the financial crisis while the countries in cluster 1 are to some conflicting.
This study examines profit efficiency and its determinants in Indian commercial banks during the post-reform period by using a stochastic frontier approach (SFA), specified by Battese and Coelli (19958.
Battese , G. E. , &
Coelli , T. J. ( 1995 ). A model for technical inefficiency effects in stochastic frontier production function for panel data . Empirical Economics , 20 ( 2 ), 325 – 332 . [CrossRef]View all references). For the purpose of specifying the parameters in the SFA, translog functional form has been adopted. Assuming banking markets are not perfectly competitive, alternative profit function is estimated. Intermediation approach has been employed to define bank inputs and outputs. An unbalanced panel data of 103 commercial banks for the period 1996–2008 have been constructed for the empirical analysis. All the required data for the analysis were obtained from various publications of the Reserve Bank of India. The study found that profit efficiency of Indian commercial banks is increasing over the study period. However, on average, Indian banks could meet only three-fourths of their profit-generating potentialities relative to the best-practice bank, due to technical inefficiency, which is arising within the banks. Among the bank groups, it is revealed that the state-owned banks are relatively more efficient than their counterparts. The technical inefficiency effects model shows that bank-specific, market, and organizational characteristics play an important role in determining the profit efficiency of banks.
We examine the impact of the 2008–2009 financial crisis on the earnings management behavior of European-listed firms. We find that earnings management has significantly decreased in the crisis years. This trend is confirmed in most of the 16 countries under review. We also report a link between the level of earnings management and the economic growth rate and provide evidence suggesting that national characteristics and market forces affect the propensity of income smoothing but not accruals quality.
We survey research on banks’ financial accounting. After providing a brief background of the theoretical models and accounting and regulatory institutions underlying the bank accounting literature, we review three streams of empirical research. Specifically we review studies associating bank financial reporting with the valuation and risk assessments, associating bank financial reporting discretion with regulatory capital and earnings management, and examining banks’ economic decisions under differing accounting regimes. We discuss what we have already learned and about what else we would like to know. We also discuss methodological challenges associated with predicting the effects of alternative accounting and regulatory capital regimes.
Despite the wealth of research examining earnings quality and earnings management, we still have much to learn about the effects of macroeconomic factors on accounting discretion’s decisions; the recent financial crises may be one of such factors. Nevertheless, the extant literature is inconclusive about the direction of the relationship between earnings quality and economic downturn. In this study, we focus on the extent to which organizational survival may be an objective of earnings management. In this manner, we add to research considering earnings target as an objective of earnings manipulation. Furthermore, our results suggest that these objectives likely change as crisis becomes worse. Consequently, we argue that the relationship between financial crises and earnings management is non-monotonic. Earnings management decreases when the intensity of the crisis is low, while it increases when the crisis is acute.
Prior research shows that banks have strong incentives to use loan loss provisions to smooth income. Using a sample of 878 US bank holding companies over the period 2001–2009, I find strong evidence of income smoothing behavior. Additionally, bank holding companies accelerate loan loss provisions to smooth income when (1) banks hit the regulatory minimum target, (2) are in non-recessionary periods, and (3) are more profitable. I also find that bank internally set regulatory capital ratios are relatively more significant than regulatory‐set ratios to trigger income smoothing behaviour using loan loss provisions. Comparing the pre-crisis boom of 2002–2006 with the crisis period of 2007–2009, I find that banks use loan loss provisions more extensively during the crisis period to smooth income upward. Collectively, the results of this paper are relevant to current concerns of accounting standard setters and bank regulators on the current model of loan loss provisioning.
The current debate on the possible procyclicality of the new Basel Accord pays little attention to the procyclicality created by unsound loan loss provisioning. This article investigates how bank provisioning behaviour is related to the business cycle, using 8000 bank-year observations from 29 OECD countries over the past decade. Provisioning turns out to be substantially higher when GDP growth is lower, reflecting increased riskiness of the credit portfolio when the business cycle turns downwards, which also increases the risk of a credit crunch. This effect is mitigated somewhat as provisions rise in times when earnings are higher, suggesting income smoothing, and loan growth is higher, indicating increased riskiness.
We examine the relation between auditor reputation and earnings management in banks using a sample of banks from 29 countries. In particular, we examine the implications of two aspects of auditor reputation, auditor type and auditor industry specialization, for earnings management in banks. We find that both auditor type and auditor industry specialization moderate benchmark-beating (loss-avoidance and just-meeting-or-beating prior year’s earnings) behavior in banks. In addition, we find that once auditor type and auditor industry specialization are included in the same tests, only auditor industry specialization has a significant impact on constraining benchmark-beating behavior. In separate tests related to income-increasing abnormal loan loss provisions, we find that both auditor type and auditor expertise constrain income-increasing earnings management. Again, in joint tests, only auditor industry expertise has a significant impact on constraining income-increasing earnings management.
We show that a pattern of earnings management in bank financial statements has little bearing on downside risk during quiet periods, but seems to have a big impact during a financial crisis. More aggressive earnings managers prior to 2007 exhibit substantially higher risk once the financial crisis begins. This risk is evident in both the incidence of large weekly stock price “crashes” as well as in the pattern of full-year returns. Consistent with the literature on earnings management and crash risk in industrial firms, these results support the hypothesis that banks can use accounting discretion to hide relevant information for some time, but in a period of severe distress in which accounting choices can no longer obscure performance, information comes out in larger amounts, resulting in substantially worse stock market returns. We also show that these stock price crashes predict future deterioration in operating performance, which is of greater direct relevance to regulators, and thus may serve as an early warning signal of impending problems.
Four Ugandan banks, including three domestic banks, were closed between September 1998 and May 1999 because of imprudent banking practices. This paper uses a unique bank-firm matched data set to estimate the effect of losing a banking relationship on firm performance. Employing a fixed effects difference-in-differences estimation that controls for unobservable firm heterogeneity, I find that firms that lost a banking relationship declined by 10-15% relative to unaffected firms over the three years following the crisis. This result is robust to reverse causation; for a fairly well identified subset of firms, I find no evidence of firm decline causing banking failure. I investigate two potential explanations of this result: the information and looting views of relationship lending. I find evidence for both views for mutually exclusive sub- samples. Insider firms experience the sharpest decline in employment relative to all affected firms. The insider effect persists even after controlling for the level of outstanding debt to failed banks. I interpret this as evidence of the looting view. In the set of potential non-looting firms, I find that older affected firms have larger declines in employment relative to younger affected firms. In addition, affected firms that do not produce hard information have the largest declines in employment relative to other affected firms. Moreover, affected firms that produce hard information have the same growth rate as unaffected firms. Finally, affected firms are more likely to report being credit constrained in the post crisis period. I interpret this as evidence for the information view.
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 includes all systemic banking, currency, and sovereign debt crises during the period 1970-2011. The data show some striking differences in policy responses between advanced and emerging economies as well as many similarities between past and ongoing crises.
Doubts about the accuracy with which outside investors can assess a banking firm’s value motivate many government interventions in the banking market. The recent financial crisis has reinforced concerns about the possibility that banks are unusually opaque. Yet the empirical evidence, thus far, is mixed. This paper examines the trading characteristics of bank shares over the period from January 1990 through September 2009. We find that bank share trading exhibits sharply different features before vs. during the crisis. Until mid-2007, large (NYSE-traded) banking firms appear to be no more opaque than a set of control firms, and smaller (NASD-traded) banks are, at most, slightly more opaque. During the crisis, however, both large and small banking firms exhibit a sharp increase in opacity, consistent with the policy interventions implemented at the time. Although portfolio composition is significantly related to market microstructure variables, no specific asset category(s) stand out as particularly important in determining bank opacity.
Bank financial statements provide three separate disclosures of changing loan portfolio default risks: changes in non-performing loans, loan loss provisions and loan chargeoffs. The objectives of this study are to analyze the information in each of these loan loss disclosures about future cash flows and to examine how investors impound this information in bank stock prices. Accounting for loan loss provisions involves management discretion. Changes in non-performing loans and loan chargeoffs, as less discretionary measures of loan default risks, may enable investors to estimate management's use of discretion over reported loan loss provisions. If so, then an interesting question arises: what do discretionary provisions reveal? The results suggest that bank managers increase discretionary components of loan loss provisions when future cash flow prospects improve. Unexpected provisions are positively related to changes in cash flows through three years into the future. Also, bank stock returns indicate that investors interpret unexpected provisions as "good news" about future cash flows. Unexpected changes in non-performing loans and unexpected chargeoffs are important pieces of "bad news" about loan losses. These two disclosures are negatively related to future changes in cash flows and current period stock returns. Stock prices react positively to the release of unexpected provisions and negatively to the release of unexpected changes in non-performing loans and unexpected chargeoffs around earnings announcement dates and financial statement release dates. The observed reactions are not very robust, however. They are most pronounced when at least one of the unexpected loan loss disclosures is unusual. Changes in non-performing loans and chargeoffs are important pieces of information to use in interpreting the discretionary components of provisions. The relations between provisions and both returns and future cash flows are positive only when changes in non-performing loans and chargeoffs are included in the analysis. This study provides evidence on managers' use of discretion over financial reporting choices, and demonstrates a context in which the market infers valuation implications from discretionary reporting choices of managers. The results also provide a context in which the market's interpretation of a disclosure on the income statement is conditioned on related balance sheet and footnote disclosures.
Up to the early 1990s, Uganda’s financial structure was characterised by government controls and instability, leading to financial repression and lack of development in the sector. The sector was, as a consequence, dominated by
commercial banks, which are mainly concentrated in urban areas. Financial intermediation was restricted to the mobilisation of short-term savings and advancing credit to low-risk businesses with quick returns. In 1993, The Bank of Uganda Statute and The Financial Institutions Statute were passed by Parliament, requiring, among other things, commercial banks operating in Uganda to have a minimum paid up capital of Uganda shillings (Ushs) 500,000 (for the locally-owned banks) and Ushs 1bn (for the foreign-owned banks). The new capital requirements were made effective from the end of December, 1996. Between 1998 and 1999, however, four commercial banks (three of them locally owned), were closed because of insolvency originating from a number of causes. It is not clear whether the new capital requirements played a part in setting off or precipitating the crisis. The results of this study show that whereas there was impressive improvement for the banking system as a whole, it seems that these new guidelines had a different impact on foreignowned and locally-owned commercial banks. Performance of the foreign banks remained quite steady or even rapidly improved while the local banks suffered massive declines in their profitability and accumulated more non-performing loans.