IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bracre/v49y2017i2p181-193.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial crisis and international supervision: New evidence on the discretionary use of loan loss provisions at Euro Area commercial banks

Author

Listed:
  • Curcio, Domenico
  • De Simone, Antonio
  • Gallo, Angela

Abstract

We examine the discretionary use of loan loss provisions during the recent financial crisis, when Euro Area banks experienced not only a negative effect on the quality of their loans and a reduction in their profitability, but were also subject to a new form of stricter supervision, namely the EBA 2010 and 2011 stress test exercises. Overall, we find support for the only income smoothing hypothesis and we do not observe any difference in listed banks’ behavior when compared to unlisted banks. Banks subject to EBA stress tests had higher incentives to smooth income only for the 2011 EBA exercise, when a larger and more detailed set of information was released. This may suggest an unwilled side effect that accounting setters and banking regulators and supervisors should account for.

Suggested Citation

  • Curcio, Domenico & De Simone, Antonio & Gallo, Angela, 2017. "Financial crisis and international supervision: New evidence on the discretionary use of loan loss provisions at Euro Area commercial banks," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 181-193.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bracre:v:49:y:2017:i:2:p:181-193
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2016.09.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089083891630035X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bar.2016.09.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Perez & Vicente Salas-Fumas & Jesus Saurina, 2008. "Earnings and Capital Management in Alternative Loan Loss Provision Regulatory Regimes," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 423-445.
    2. Asokan Anandarajan & Iftekhar Hasan & Cornelia McCarthy, 2007. "Use of loan loss provisions for capital, earnings management and signalling by Australian banks," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 47(3), pages 357-379, September.
    3. Laeven, Luc & Majnoni, Giovanni, 2003. "Loan loss provisioning and economic slowdowns: too much, too late?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 178-197, April.
    4. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    5. David Roodman, 2009. "How to do xtabond2: An introduction to difference and system GMM in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 9(1), pages 86-136, March.
    6. Liu, Cc & Ryan, Sg, 1995. "The Effect Of Bank Loan Portfolio Composition On The Market Reaction To And Anticipation Of Loan Loss Provisions," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(1), pages 77-94.
    7. Hasan, Iftekhar & Lozano-Vivas, Ana, 2002. "Organizational Form and Expense Preference: Spanish Experience," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 135-150, April.
    8. Bouvatier, Vincent & Lepetit, Laetitia, 2008. "Banks' procyclical behavior: Does provisioning matter?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 513-526, December.
    9. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    10. Fonseca, Ana Rosa & González, Francisco, 2008. "Cross-country determinants of bank income smoothing by managing loan-loss provisions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 217-228, February.
    11. Bikker, J.A. & Metzemakers, P.A.J., 2005. "Bank provisioning behaviour and procyclicality," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 141-157, April.
    12. Stergios Leventis & Panagiotis Dimitropoulos & Asokan Anandarajan, 2011. "Loan Loss Provisions, Earnings Management and Capital Management under IFRS: The Case of EU Commercial Banks," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 40(1), pages 103-122, October.
    13. Kim, Wi Saeng & Sorensen, Eric H., 1986. "Evidence on the Impact of the Agency Costs of Debt on Corporate Debt Policy," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(2), pages 131-144, June.
    14. Beatty, A & Chamberlain, Sl & Magliolo, J, 1995. "Managing Financial Reports Of Commercial-Banks - The Influence Of Taxes, Regulatory Capital, And Earnings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 231-261.
    15. Collins, Jh & Shackelford, Da & Wahlen, Jm, 1995. "Bank Differences In The Coordination Of Regulatory Capital, Earnings, And Taxes," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 263-291.
    16. Frank Packer & Haibin Zhu, 2012. "Loan loss provisioning practices of Asian banks," BIS Working Papers 375, Bank for International Settlements.
    17. Petrella, Giovanni & Resti, Andrea, 2013. "Supervisors as information producers: Do stress tests reduce bank opaqueness?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5406-5420.
    18. Shrieves, Ronald E. & Dahl, Drew, 2003. "Discretionary accounting and the behavior of Japanese banks under financial duress," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(7), pages 1219-1243, July.
    19. Ahmed, Anwer S. & Takeda, Carolyn & Thomas, Shawn, 1999. "Bank loan loss provisions: a reexamination of capital management, earnings management and signaling effects," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 1-25, November.
    20. El Sood, Heba Abou, 2012. "Loan loss provisioning and income smoothing in US banks pre and post the financial crisis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 64-72.
    21. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    22. Beaver, William H. & Engel, Ellen E., 1996. "Discretionary behavior with respect to allowances for loan losses and the behavior of security prices," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1-3), pages 177-206, October.
    23. Windmeijer, Frank, 2005. "A finite sample correction for the variance of linear efficient two-step GMM estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 25-51, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Simper, Richard & Dadoukis, Aristeidis & Bryce, Cormac, 2019. "European bank loan loss provisioning and technological innovative progress," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 119-130.
    2. Pandey, Ashish & Tripathi, Abhinava & Guhathakurta, Kousik, 2022. "The impact of banking regulations and accounting standards on estimating discretionary loan loss provisions," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    3. Tito Tomas Siueia & Jianling Wang, 2017. "Loan Loss Provisions, Income Smooth, Signaling, Capital Management and Pro-Cyclicality: Empirical Evidence from Mozambique¡¯s Commercial Banks," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 9(11), pages 48-63, November.
    4. Yosra Mnif & Imen Slimi, 2023. "Former auditors on the audit committee and earnings management: Evidence from African banks," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(2), pages 2383-2420, June.
    5. Skała, Dorota, 2021. "Loan loss provisions and income smoothing – Do shareholders matter?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    6. Peterson, Ozili K. & Arun, Thankom G., 2018. "Income smoothing among European systemic and non-systemic banks," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 539-558.
    7. Marshall, Andrew & McCann, Laura & McColgan, Patrick, 2019. "The market reaction to debt announcements: UK evidence surrounding the global financial crisis," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 92-109.
    8. Meier, Samira & Rodriguez Gonzalez, Miguel & Kunze, Frederik, 2021. "The global financial crisis, the EMU sovereign debt crisis and international financial regulation: lessons from a systematic literature review," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    9. Di Fabio, Costanza & Ramassa, Paola & Quagli, Alberto, 2021. "Income smoothing in European banks: The contrasting effects of monitoring mechanisms," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    10. Albulena Shala & Valentin Toçi & Skender Ahmeti, 2020. "Income smoothing through loan loss provisions in south and Eastern European banks," Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci/Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business, vol. 38(2), pages 429-452.

    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. Malgorzata Olszak & Patrycja Chodnicka-Jaworska & Iwona Kowalska & Filip Œwita³a, 2017. "The effect of capital ratio on lending: Do loan-loss provisioning practices matter?," Faculty of Management Working Paper Series 22017, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management.
    2. Doan, Anh-Tuan & Lin, Kun-Li & Doong, Shuh-Chyi, 2020. "State-controlled banks and income smoothing. Do politics matter?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    3. Aristei, David & Gallo, Manuela, 2019. "Loan loss provisioning by Italian banks: Managerial discretion, relationship banking, functional distance and bank risk," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 238-256.
    4. Simper, Richard & Dadoukis, Aristeidis & Bryce, Cormac, 2019. "European bank loan loss provisioning and technological innovative progress," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 119-130.
    5. Bouvatier, Vincent & Lepetit, Laetitia & Strobel, Frank, 2014. "Bank income smoothing, ownership concentration and the regulatory environment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 253-270.
    6. de Haan, Leo & van Oordt, Maarten R.C., 2018. "Timing of banks’ loan loss provisioning during the crisis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 293-303.
    7. Ashim Kumar Kar, 2017. "Income Smoothing, Capital Management and Provisioning Behaviour of Microfinance Institutions: A Study Using Global Panel Data," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 29(1), pages 108-126, January.
    8. Jari-Mikko Meriläinen, 2019. "Western European Stakeholder Banks’ Loan Loss Accounting," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 185-207, October.
    9. Soedarmono, Wahyoe & Pramono, Sigid Eko & Tarazi, Amine, 2017. "The procyclicality of loan loss provisions in Islamic banks," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 911-919.
    10. Vincent Bouvatier & Laetitia Lepetit, 2012. "Effects of Loan Loss Provisions on Growth in Bank Lending: Some International Comparisons," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 132, pages 91-116.
    11. Balboa, Marina & López-Espinosa, Germán & Rubia, Antonio, 2013. "Nonlinear dynamics in discretionary accruals: An analysis of bank loan-loss provisions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5186-5207.
    12. Hessou, Hélyoth T.S. & Lensink, Robert & Soumaré, Issouf & Tchakoute Tchuigoua, Hubert, 2021. "Provisioning over the business cycle: Some insights from the microfinance industry," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    13. Albulena Shala & Valentin Toçi & Skender Ahmeti, 2020. "Income smoothing through loan loss provisions in south and Eastern European banks," Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci/Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business, vol. 38(2), pages 429-452.
    14. Emrah Arbak, 2017. "Identifying the provisioning policies of Belgian banks," Working Paper Research 326, National Bank of Belgium.
    15. Olszak, Małgorzata & Pipień, Mateusz & Kowalska, Iwona & Roszkowska, Sylwia, 2014. "What drives heterogeneity of loan loss provisions’ procyclicality in the EU?," MPRA Paper 56834, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Ozili, Peterson K, 2017. "Bank Loan Loss Provisions, Investor Protection and the Macroeconomy," MPRA Paper 80147, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Małgorzata Olszak & Iwona Kowalska & Patrycja Chodnicka-Jaworska & Filip Świtała, 2020. "Do cyclicality of loan-loss provisions and income smoothing matter for the capital crunch – the case of commercial banks in Poland," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 51(4), pages 383-436.
    18. Bornemann, Sven & Pfingsten, Andreas & Kick, Thomas & Schertler, Andrea, 2014. "Earnings baths by bank CEOs during turnovers," Discussion Papers 05/2014, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    19. Bornemann, Sven & Kick, Thomas & Pfingsten, Andreas & Schertler, Andrea, 2015. "Earnings baths by CEOs during turnovers: empirical evidence from German savings banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 188-201.
    20. Magnis, Chris & Iatridis, George Emmanuel, 2017. "The relation between auditor reputation, earnings and capital management in the banking sector: An international investigation," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 338-357.

    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:eee:bracre:v:49:y:2017:i:2:p:181-193. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/the-british-accounting-review .

    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.