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A Q-Theory Of Banks

Author

Listed:
  • Juliane Begenau

    (Stanford GSB and NBER and CEPR)

  • Saki Bigio

    (UCLA, Visiting Scholar SF Fed & NBER)

  • Jeremy Majerovitz

    (MIT)

  • Matias Vieyra

    (Bank of Canada)

Abstract

We document five facts about banks: (1) market and book leverage diverged during the 2008 crisis, (2) Tobin's Q predicts future profitability, (3) neither book nor market leverage appears constrained, (4) banks maintain a market leverage target that is reached slowly, (5) pre-crisis, leverage was predominantly adjusted by liquidating assets. After the crisis, the adjustment shifted towards retaining earnings. We present a Q-theory where leverage notions differ because book accounting is slow to acknowledge loan losses. We estimate the model and show that it reproduces the facts. We examine counterfactuals: different accounting rules produce a novel policy tradeoff.

Suggested Citation

  • Juliane Begenau & Saki Bigio & Jeremy Majerovitz & Matias Vieyra, 2020. "A Q-Theory Of Banks," Working Papers 171, Peruvian Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:apc:wpaper:171
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    Cited by:

    1. Faria-e-Castro, Miguel & Paul, Pascal & Sánchez, Juan M., 2024. "Evergreening," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
      • Miguel Faria-e-Castro & Pascal Paul & Juan M. Sanchez, 2021. "Evergreening," Working Papers 2021-012, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised Aug 2023.
      • Miguel Faria-e-Castro & Pascal Paul & Juan M. Sanchez, 2022. "Evergreening," Working Paper Series 2022-14, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    2. Reiter, Michael & Zessner-Spitzenberg, Leopold, 2023. "Long-term bank lending and the transfer of aggregate risk," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    3. Kirstin Hubrich & Daniel F. Waggoner, 2022. "The transmission of financial shocks and leverage of financial institutions: An endogenous regime switching framework," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2022-034, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Bianca Barbaro & Patrizio Tirelli, 2023. "Forbearance vs foreclosure in a general equilibrium model," Working Papers 516, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Banks; Tobin's Q; Delayed Accounting; Adjustment Costs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G33 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Bankruptcy; Liquidation
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy

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