IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iee/wpaper/wp0113.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Evergreening in the Euro Area: Facts and Explanation

Author

Listed:
  • Sven Steinkamp

    (Osnabrueck University)

  • Aaron Tornell

    (University of California, Los Angeles)

  • Frank Westermann

    (Osnabrueck University)

Abstract

Since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007/8, new lending in the Euro-Area has slowed sharply and the old loans experienced “evergreening,” i.e. bad loans have been rolled over rather than being liquidated. Even though ameliorating evergreening is key to promote lending for new investment projects and growth, no systematic evergreening measures exist. In this paper, we propose a new cross-country evergreening index and develop a model to explain why evergreening may reflect the incentives of regulators to forebear. Our evergreening index is based on a survey we designed, and was administered by the ifo institute to about 1,000 experts in over 80 countries. We bring the model to the data using a heteroscedastic probit model and find that evergreening is higher in: (i) Euro-Area countries than in the rest of the world; (ii) in countries facing bank distress; and (iii) is highest in countries which experience banking distress and are members of the Euro Area. These results are consistent with our theoretical model.

Suggested Citation

  • Sven Steinkamp & Aaron Tornell & Frank Westermann, 2018. "Evergreening in the Euro Area: Facts and Explanation," IEER Working Papers 113, Institute of Empirical Economic Research, Osnabrueck University.
    • Handle: RePEc:iee:wpaper:wp0113
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://web.fb9.uni-osnabrueck.de/repec/iee/wpaper/15314129_WP_113.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Viral V Acharya & Tim Eisert & Christian Eufinger & Christian Hirsch, 2019. "Whatever It Takes: The Real Effects of Unconventional Monetary Policy," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(9), pages 3366-3411.
    2. Sven Steinkamp & Aaron Tornell & Frank Westermann, 2017. "The Euro Area’s Common Pool Problem Revisited: Has the Single Supervisory Mechanism Ameliorated Forbearance and Evergreening?," IEER Working Papers 107, Institute of Empirical Economic Research, Osnabrueck University, revised 06 Oct 2017.
    3. Joe Peek & Eric S. Rosengren, 2005. "Unnatural Selection: Perverse Incentives and the Misallocation of Credit in Japan," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1144-1166, September.
    4. Sinn, Hans-Werner, 2017. "The Euro Trap: On Bursting Bubbles, Budgets, and Beliefs," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198791447.
    5. Ricardo J. Caballero & Takeo Hoshi & Anil K. Kashyap, 2008. "Zombie Lending and Depressed Restructuring in Japan," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1943-1977, December.
    6. Aizenman, Joshua, 1992. "Competitive Externalities and the Optimal Seigniorage," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 24(1), pages 61-71, February.
    7. Casella, Alessandra, 1992. "Participation in a Currency Union," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 847-863, September.
    8. Sumit Agarwal & David Lucca & Amit Seru & Francesco Trebbi, 2014. "Inconsistent Regulators: Evidence from Banking," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 129(2), pages 889-938.
    9. Milton Friedman & Anna J. Schwartz, 1963. "A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie63-1.
    10. Eichengreen, Barry, 1990. "One Money for Europe? Lessons from the US Currency Union," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt6ks1k831, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    11. von Hagen, Jurgen & Suppel, Ralph, 1994. "Central bank constitutions for federal monetary unions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 774-782, April.
    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. Gropp, Reint & Koetter, Michael & McShane, William, 2020. "The Corona recession and bank stress in Germany," IWH Online 4/2020, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    2. Nurmi, Satu & Vanhala, Juuso & Virén, Matti, 2020. "The life and death of zombies – evidence from government subsidies to firms," Research Discussion Papers 8/2020, Bank of Finland.

    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. Sven Steinkamp & Aaron Tornell & Frank Westermann, 2017. "The Euro Area’s Common Pool Problem Revisited: Has the Single Supervisory Mechanism Ameliorated Forbearance and Evergreening?," IEER Working Papers 107, Institute of Empirical Economic Research, Osnabrueck University, revised 06 Oct 2017.
    2. Diana Bonfim & Geraldo Cerqueiro & Hans Degryse & Steven Ongena, 2020. "On-Site Inspecting Zombie Lending," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 20-16, Swiss Finance Institute.
    3. Fabiano Schivardi & Enrico Sette & Guido Tabellini, 2017. "Credit misallocation during the European financial crisis," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1139, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    4. Christian Keuschnigg & Michael Kogler, 2022. "Trade and credit reallocation: How banks help shape comparative advantage," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 282-305, February.
    5. Viral V. Acharya & Lea Borchert & Maximilian Jager & Sascha Steffen, 2020. "Kicking the Can Down the Road: Government Interventions in the European Banking Sector," NBER Working Papers 27537, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Dan Andrews & Filippos Petroulakis, 2017. "Breaking the Shackles: Zombie Firms, Weak Banks and Depressed Restructuring in Europe," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1433, OECD Publishing.
    7. Valeriya Dinger & Sven Steinkamp & Frank Westermann, 2014. "The Tragedy of the Commons and Inflation Bias in the Euro Area," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 71-91, February.
    8. Choudhary, M. Ali & Jain, Anil K., 2021. "Corporate stress and bank nonperforming loans: Evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    9. Storz, Manuela & Koetter, Michael & Setzer, Ralph & Westphal, Andreas, 2017. "Do we want these two to tango? On zombie firms and stressed banks in Europe," Working Paper Series 2104, European Central Bank.
    10. Özlem Dursun-de Neef, H. & Schandlbauer, Alexander, 2021. "COVID-19 and lending responses of European banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    11. Tantri, Prasanna, 2021. "Identifying ever-greening: Evidence using loan-level data," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    12. Keuschnigg, Christian & Kogler, Michael, 2020. "The Schumpeterian role of banks: Credit reallocation and capital structure," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    13. Ana Mol-Gómez-Vázquez & Ginés Hernández-Cánovas & Johanna Koëter-Kant, 2022. "Banking stability and borrower discouragement: a multilevel analysis for SMEs in the EU-28," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 1579-1593, March.
    14. Pablo Duarte & Gunther Schnabl, 2019. "Monetary policy, inequality and political instability," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 614-634, February.
    15. GOTO Yasuo & Scott WILBUR, 2017. "Efficiency among Japanese SMEs: In the context of the zombie firm hypothesis and firm size," Discussion papers 17123, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    16. Goto, Yasuo & Wilbur, Scott, 2019. "Unfinished business: Zombie firms among SME in Japan’s lost decades," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 105-112.
    17. Hartwig, Benny & Lieberknecht, Philipp, 2020. "Monetary policy, firm exit and productivity," Discussion Papers 61/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    18. M. Ali Choudhary & Anil K. Jain, 2021. "Corporate stress and bank nonperforming loans: Evidence from Pakistan," International Finance Discussion Papers 1327, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    19. Cecilia Dassatti & Francesc Rodriguez-Tous & Rodrigo Lluberas, 2020. "Zombie lending: how many wondering souls are there?," Documentos de trabajo 2020003, Banco Central del Uruguay.
    20. Suarez, Javier & Sánchez Serrano, Antonio, 2018. "Approaching non-performing loans from a macroprudential angle," Report of the Advisory Scientific Committee 7, European Systemic Risk Board.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Evergreening; Central bank credit; Survey data; Forbearance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F33 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions
    • F55 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Institutional Arrangements
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iee:wpaper:wp0113. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ieosnde.html .

    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: Karin Wessler-Rensmann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ieosnde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.