IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fednsr/95.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bond market discipline of banks: is the market tough enough?

Author

Abstract

As the banking business grows more complex, government supervisors of banks seem increasingly willing to share the role of policing bank risk with private investors, especially bondholders. This paper investigates the disciplinary role of markets using bond spreads, ratings, and bank portfolio data on over 4,100 new bonds issued between 1993 and 1998, including almost 600 bond issues by banks and bank holding companies. We find that the bond spread/rating relationship is the same for the bank issues as for nonbank issues, especially among the investment grade issues. This suggests that the bond market prices public measures of bank risk efficiently. Investors also look beyond the ratings, as spreads on the bank issues depend on the underlying portfolio of assets and loans. Banks contemplating a shift into riskier activities like trading, for example, can expect to pay higher spreads as a result. That is market discipline. The market, however, appears relatively soft on bigger banks and less transparent banks, pointing to possible slippage in the disciplinary mechanism for banks either considered too big to fail or too hard to understand by the bond market.

Suggested Citation

  • Donald P. Morgan & Kevin J. Stiroh, 1999. "Bond market discipline of banks: is the market tough enough?," Staff Reports 95, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:95
    Note: For a published version of this report, see Donald Morgan and Kevin J. Stiroh, "Bond Market Discipline of Banks: The Asset Test," Journal of Financial Services Research 20, no. 2-3 (October 2001): 195-208.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr95.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr95.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gorton, Gary & Santomero, Anthony M, 1990. "Market Discipline and Bank Subordinated Debt," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 22(1), pages 119-128, February.
    2. Flannery, Mark J & Sorescu, Sorin M, 1996. "Evidence of Bank Market Discipline in Subordinated Debenture Yields: 1983-1991," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1347-1377, September.
    3. Flannery, Mark J. & Kwan, Simon H. & Nimalendran, M., 2004. "Market evidence on the opaqueness of banking firms' assets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 419-460, March.
    4. Kenneth Spong, 2000. "Banking regulation : its purposes, implementation, and effects," Monograph, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, number 2000bria.
    5. Stewart C. Myers & Raghuram G. Rajan, 1998. "The Paradox of Liquidity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 733-771.
    6. Richard Cantor & Frank Packer, 1994. "The credit rating industry," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 19(Sum), pages 1-26.
    7. George G. Kaufman, 1999. "Banking and currency crises and systemic risk: a taxonomy and review," Working Paper Series WP-99-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    8. George G. Kaufman, 1990. "Are Some Banks Too Large To Fail? Myth And Reality," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 8(4), pages 1-14, October.
    9. Donald P. Morgan & Ian Toll, 1997. "Bad debt rising," Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 3(Mar).
    10. Black, Fischer & Cox, John C, 1976. "Valuing Corporate Securities: Some Effects of Bond Indenture Provisions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(2), pages 351-367, May.
    11. O'Hara, Maureen & Shaw, Wayne, 1990. "Deposit Insurance and Wealth Effects: The Value of Being "Too Big to Fail."," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(5), pages 1587-1600, December.
    12. Flannery, Mark J, 1998. "Using Market Information in Prudential Bank Supervision: A Review of the U.S. Empirical Evidence," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 30(3), pages 273-305, August.
    13. Billett, Matthew T. & Garfinkel, Jon A. & O'Neal, Edward S., 1998. "The cost of market versus regulatory discipline in banking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 333-358, June.
    14. S. Nagarajan & C. W. Sealey, 1997. "Market discipline, moral hazard and bank regulation," Proceedings 548, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    15. Avery, Robert B & Belton, Terrence M & Goldberg, Michael A, 1988. "Market Discipline in Regulating Bank Risk: New Evidence from the Capital Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 20(4), pages 597-610, November.
    16. Donald P. Morgan, 2002. "Rating Banks: Risk and Uncertainty in an Opaque Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 874-888, September.
    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. Hartarska, Valentina M., 2006. "Rating in Microfinance: Cross-Country Evidence," 2006 Annual Meeting, August 12-18, 2006, Queensland, Australia 25506, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Adam B. Ashcraft & Hoyt Bleakley, 2006. "On the market discipline of informationally opaque firms: evidence from bank borrowers in the federal funds market," Staff Reports 257, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    3. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2011_020 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Gropp, Reint & Vesala, Jukka & Vulpes, Giuseppe, 2006. "Equity and Bond Market Signals as Leading Indicators of Bank Fragility," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(2), pages 399-428, March.
    5. Korte, Josef, 2015. "Catharsis—The real effects of bank insolvency and resolution," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 213-231.
    6. Caprio, Gerard & Honohan, Patrick, 2004. "Can the unsophisticated market provide discipline?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3364, The World Bank.
    7. Sironi, Andrea, 2003. "Testing for Market Discipline in the European Banking Industry: Evidence from Subordinated Debt Issues," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 35(3), pages 443-472, June.
    8. Kane, Edward J., 2001. "Dynamic inconsistency of capital forbearance: Long-run vs. short-run effects of too-big-to-fail policymaking," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 281-299, August.
    9. Greg Caldwell, 2005. "Subordinated Debt and Market Discipline in Canada," Staff Working Papers 05-40, Bank of Canada.
    10. Lang, William W. & Robertson, Douglas D., 2002. "Analysis of proposals for a minimum subordinated debt requirement1," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 115-136.
    11. Robert R. Bliss, 2001. "Market discipline and subordinated debt: a review of some salient issues," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 25(Q I), pages 24-45.
    12. Agnese, Paolo & Giacomini, Emanuela, 2023. "Bank's funding costs: Do ESG factors really matter?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    13. Donald P. Morgan, 2000. "Rating risks: risk and uncertainty in an opaque industry," Staff Reports 105, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    14. Herring, Richard J., 2004. "The subordinated debt alternative to Basel II," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 137-155, December.
    15. Daniel M. Covitz & Diana Hancock & Myron L. Kwast, 2004. "Market discipline in banking reconsidered: the roles of funding manager decisions and deposit insurance reform," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-53, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    16. Elyas Elyasiani & Jason Keegan, 2017. "Market Discipline in the Secondary Bond Market: The Case of Systemically Important Banks," Working Papers 17-5, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    17. Donald Morgan & Kevin Stiroh, 2001. "Market Discipline of Banks: The Asset Test," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 20(2), pages 195-208, October.
    18. Yehning Chen & Iftekhar Hasan, 2011. "Subordinated Debt, Market Discipline, and Bank Risk," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(6), pages 1043-1072, September.
    19. Chen, Yehning & Hasan, Iftekhar, 2011. "Subordinated debt, market discipline, and bank risk," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 20/2011, Bank of Finland.
    20. Douglas D. Evanoff & Larry D. Wall, 2000. "Subordinated debt and bank capital reform," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2000-24, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    21. Ashcraft, Adam B., 2008. "Does the market discipline banks? New evidence from regulatory capital mix," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 543-561, October.
    22. Cécile Casteuble & Emmanuelle Nys & Philippe Rous, 2013. "Bank Risk - Return Efficiency and Bond Spread: Is There Evidence of Market Discipline in Europe," Working Papers hal-00916717, HAL.
    23. Giuliano Iannotta, 2011. "Market discipline in the banking industry: evidence from spread dispersion," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(2), pages 111-131.

    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. Francis, Bill & Hasan, Iftekhar & Liu, LiuLing & Wang, Haizhi, 2019. "Senior debt and market discipline: Evidence from bank-to-bank loans," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 170-182.
    2. Donald Morgan & Kevin Stiroh, 2001. "Market Discipline of Banks: The Asset Test," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 20(2), pages 195-208, October.
    3. Hett, Florian & Schmidt, Alexander, 2017. "Bank rescues and bailout expectations: The erosion of market discipline during the financial crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(3), pages 635-651.
    4. Heller, Yuval & Peleg Lazar, Sharon & Raviv, Alon, 2022. "Banks’ risk taking and creditors’ bargaining power," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    5. Donald P. Morgan & Kevin J. Stiroh, 2005. "Too big to fail after all these years," Staff Reports 220, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    6. Florian Hett & Alexander Schmidt, 2013. "Bank Bailouts and Market Discipline: How Bailout Expectations Changed During the Financial Crisis," Working Papers 1305, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, revised 01 Aug 2013.
    7. Jones, Jeffrey S. & Lee, Wayne Y. & Yeager, Timothy J., 2013. "Valuation and systemic risk consequences of bank opacity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 693-706.
    8. Balasubramnian, Bhanu & Cyree, Ken B., 2011. "Market discipline of banks: Why are yield spreads on bank-issued subordinated notes and debentures not sensitive to bank risks?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 21-35, January.
    9. Furfine, Craig H, 2001. "Banks as Monitors of Other Banks: Evidence from the Overnight Federal Funds Market," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(1), pages 33-57, January.
    10. Ashcraft, Adam B., 2008. "Does the market discipline banks? New evidence from regulatory capital mix," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 543-561, October.
    11. Jones, Jeffrey S. & Lee, Wayne Y. & Yeager, Timothy J., 2012. "Opaque banks, price discovery, and financial instability," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 383-408.
    12. Daniel M. Covitz & Diana Hancock & Myron L. Kwast, 2004. "A reconsideration of the risk sensitivity of U.S. banking organization subordinated debt spreads: a sample selection approach," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Sep, pages 73-92.
    13. Adam B. Ashcraft & Hoyt Bleakley, 2006. "On the market discipline of informationally opaque firms: evidence from bank borrowers in the federal funds market," Staff Reports 257, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    14. Martin Eling, 2012. "What Do We Know About Market Discipline in Insurance?," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 15(2), pages 185-223, September.
    15. Khoa TA Hoang & Robert Faff & Mamiza Haq, 2014. "Market discipline and bank risk taking," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 39(3), pages 327-350, August.
    16. anonymous, 1999. "Using subordinated debt as an instrument of market discipline," Staff Studies 172, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Adrian Pop, 2009. "Beyond the Third Pillar of Basel Two: Taking Bond Market Signals Seriously," Working Papers hal-00419241, HAL.
    18. María Soledad Martínez & Sergio Schmukler, 1999. "Do Depositors Punish Banks For "Bad" Behavior?: Examining Market Discipline In Argentina, Chile, And Mexico," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 48, Central Bank of Chile.
    19. Knaup, M. & Wagner, W.B., 2009. "A Market Based Measure of Credit Quality and Banks' Performance During the Subprime Crisis," Other publications TiSEM a6e8a0c8-00de-45b7-bb02-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    20. Manuela M. Dantas & Kenneth J. Merkley & Felipe B. G. Silva, 2023. "Government Guarantees and Banks' Income Smoothing," Papers 2303.03661, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bank supervision; Bonds; Risk management;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:fip:fednsr:95. 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: Gabriella Bucciarelli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbnyus.html .

    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.