IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v158y2024ics0378426623002212.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Capital regulation induced reaching for systematic yield: Financial instability through fire sales

Author

Listed:
  • Boermans, Martijn A.
  • van der Kroft, Bram

Abstract

Credit rating-based capital regulation induces financial institutions to take on additional systematic risk. In this paper, we uncover interconnected channels through which this systematic risk hoarding affects financial stability using a proprietary ECB bond holdings dataset. First, banks and insurance corporations effectively reduce their capital buffers by hoarding bonds with high systematic credit risk. Second, this hoarding increases the portfolio concentration of credit rating-constrained and unconstrained financial institutions. Third, in addition to the general tendency of regulated financial institutions to fire sale bonds after rating downgrades, we reveal even larger fire sales precisely when their regulatory advantages of reaching for systematic yield disappear. Using a shock in capital regulation, we establish this causal relationship between the severity of fire sales and the tendencies of regulatory-constrained financial institutions to seek bonds with high systematic credit risk. Such systematic risk hoarding reduces capital buffer by an additional 16% in economic downturns.

Suggested Citation

  • Boermans, Martijn A. & van der Kroft, Bram, 2024. "Capital regulation induced reaching for systematic yield: Financial instability through fire sales," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:158:y:2024:i:c:s0378426623002212
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2023.107030
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426623002212
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2023.107030?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. Mark Mink & Rodney Ramcharan & Iman van Lelyveld, 2020. "How Banks Respond to Distress: Shifting Risks in Europe’s Banking Union," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 20-006/IV, Tinbergen Institute.
    2. Francis A. Longstaff & Sanjay Mithal & Eric Neis, 2005. "Corporate Yield Spreads: Default Risk or Liquidity? New Evidence from the Credit Default Swap Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(5), pages 2213-2253, October.
    3. Bo Becker & Victoria Ivashina, 2015. "Reaching for Yield in the Bond Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(5), pages 1863-1902, October.
    4. Robin Greenwood & Samuel G. Hanson & Jeremy C. Stein & Adi Sunderam, 2017. "Strengthening and Streamlining Bank Capital Regulation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 48(2 (Fall)), pages 479-565.
    5. Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, 2011. "Fire Sales in Finance and Macroeconomics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(1), pages 29-48, Winter.
    6. Ellul, Andrew & Jotikasthira, Chotibhak & Lundblad, Christian T., 2011. "Regulatory pressure and fire sales in the corporate bond market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 596-620, September.
    7. Richard Stanton & Nancy Wallace, 2018. "CMBS Subordination, Ratings Inflation, and Regulatory†Capital Arbitrage," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 47(1), pages 175-201, March.
    8. Asim Ijaz Khwaja & Atif Mian, 2008. "Tracing the Impact of Bank Liquidity Shocks: Evidence from an Emerging Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1413-1442, September.
    9. Pennacchi, George, 2006. "Deposit insurance, bank regulation, and financial system risks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-30, January.
    10. Markus Behn & Rainer Haselmann & Vikrant Vig, 2022. "The Limits of Model‐Based Regulation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(3), pages 1635-1684, June.
    11. Anat R. Admati, 2016. "The Missed Opportunity and Challenge of Capital Regulation," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 235(1), pages 4-14, February.
    12. Lu, Erin P. & Lai, Gene C. & Ma, Qingzhong, 2017. "Organizational structure, risk-based capital requirements, and the sales of downgraded bonds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 51-68.
    13. Bekaert, Geert & De Santis, Roberto A., 2021. "Risk and return in international corporate bond markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    14. Giuliano Iannotta & George Pennacchi & João A C Santos, 2019. "Ratings-Based Regulation and Systematic Risk Incentives," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(4), pages 1374-1415.
    15. Bo Becker & Marcus M Opp & Farzad Saidi, 2022. "Regulatory Forbearance in the U.S. Insurance Industry: The Effects of Removing Capital Requirements for an Asset Class," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(12), pages 5438-5482.
    16. Girardi, Giulio & Hanley, Kathleen W. & Nikolova, Stanislava & Pelizzon, Loriana & Sherman, Mila Getmansky, 2021. "Portfolio similarity and asset liquidation in the insurance industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 69-96.
    17. Mark Mink & Rodney Ramcharan & Iman van Lelyveld, 2020. "How banks respond to distress: Shifting risks in Europe's banking union," Working Papers 669, DNB.
    18. Nanda, Vikram & Wu, Wei & Zhou, Xing (Alex), 2019. "Investment Commonality across Insurance Companies: Fire Sale Risk and Corporate Yield Spreads," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(6), pages 2543-2574, December.
    19. Johnny Kang & Carolin E. Pflueger, 2015. "Inflation Risk in Corporate Bonds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(1), pages 115-162, February.
    20. Nils Friewald & Christian Wagner & Josef Zechner, 2014. "The Cross-Section of Credit Risk Premia and Equity Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(6), pages 2419-2469, December.
    21. Admati, Anat R., 2016. "The Missed Opportunity and Challenge of Capital Regulation," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 235, pages 4-14, February.
    22. Henry, Tyler R. & Kisgen, Darren J. & Wu, Juan (Julie), 2015. "Equity short selling and bond rating downgrades," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 89-111.
    23. Andrew Ellul & Chotibhak Jotikasthira & Anastasia Kartasheva & Christian T Lundblad & Wolf Wagner, 2022. "Insurers as Asset Managers and Systemic Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(12), pages 5483-5534.
    24. Kathleen Weiss Hanley & Stanislava Nikolova, 2021. "Rethinking the Use of Credit Ratings in Capital Regulations: Evidence From the Insurance Industry [Causes of the financial crisis]," The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(2), pages 347-401.
    25. Patrick Behr & Darren J. Kisgen & Jérôme P. Taillard, 2018. "Did Government Regulations Lead to Inflated Credit Ratings?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1034-1054, March.
    26. Kisgen, Darren J. & Nickerson, Jordan & Osborn, Matthew & Reuter, Jonathan, 2020. "Analyst Promotions within Credit Rating Agencies: Accuracy or Bias?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(3), pages 869-896, May.
    27. Allen, Bill & Chan, Ka Kei & Milne, Alistair & Thomas, Steve, 2012. "Basel III: Is the cure worse than the disease?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 159-166.
    28. Norden, Lars, 2017. "Information in CDS spreads," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 118-135.
    29. Laeven, Luc & Levine, Ross, 2009. "Bank governance, regulation and risk taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 259-275, August.
    30. Manso, Gustavo, 2013. "Feedback effects of credit ratings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 535-548.
    31. Norden, Lars & Weber, Martin, 2004. "Informational efficiency of credit default swap and stock markets: The impact of credit rating announcements," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(11), pages 2813-2843, November.
    32. Abad, Pilar & Díaz, Antonio & Escribano, Ana & Robles, M.-Dolores, 2021. "Crossing boundaries beyond the investment grade: Induced trading by rating-contingent investment constraints," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    33. Söhnke M Bartram & Jennifer Conrad & Jongsub Lee & Marti G Subrahmanyam, 2022. "Credit Default Swaps around the World," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(5), pages 2464-2524.
    34. Altman, Edward I. & Saunders, Anthony, 2001. "An analysis and critique of the BIS proposal on capital adequacy and ratings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 25-46, January.
    35. Douglas, Rohan & Berndt, Antje & Duffie, Darrell & Ferguson, Mark, 2017. "Corporate Credit Risk Premia," Research Papers repec:ecl:stabus:3617, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    36. Bao, Jack & O’Hara, Maureen & (Alex) Zhou, Xing, 2018. "The Volcker Rule and corporate bond market making in times of stress," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 95-113.
    37. Jess N. Cornaggia & Kimberly J. Cornaggia & John E. Hund, 2017. "Credit Ratings Across Asset Classes: A Long-Term Perspective," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(2), pages 465-509.
    38. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    39. Matthias Efing, 2020. "Reaching for Yield in the ABS Market: Evidence from German Bank Investments [Causes of the financial crisis]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 24(4), pages 929-959.
    40. Opp, Christian C. & Opp, Marcus M. & Harris, Milton, 2013. "Rating agencies in the face of regulation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 46-61.
    41. Antje Berndt & Rohan Douglas & Darrell Duffie & Mark Ferguson, 2018. "Corporate Credit Risk Premia [Fallen angels and price pressure]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(2), pages 419-454.
    42. Sudheer Chava & Rohan Ganduri & Chayawat Ornthanalai, 2019. "Do Credit Default Swaps Mitigate the Impact of Credit Rating Downgrades?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 23(3), pages 471-511.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Martijn Boermans & Bram van der Kroft, 2020. "Capital regulation induced reaching for systematic yield: Financial instability through fire sales," Working Papers 673, DNB.
    2. Stefano Lovo & Philippe Raimbourg & Federica Salvadè, 2022. "Credit rating agencies, information asymmetry and US bond liquidity," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(9-10), pages 1863-1896, October.
    3. Bo Becker & Marcus M Opp & Farzad Saidi, 2022. "Regulatory Forbearance in the U.S. Insurance Industry: The Effects of Removing Capital Requirements for an Asset Class," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(12), pages 5438-5482.
    4. Abad, Pilar & Díaz, Antonio & Escribano, Ana & Robles, M.-Dolores, 2021. "Crossing boundaries beyond the investment grade: Induced trading by rating-contingent investment constraints," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    5. Becker, Bo & Opp, Marcus & Saidi, Farzad, 2020. "Regulatory Forbearance in the U.S. Insurance Industry: The Effects of Eliminating Capital Requirements," CEPR Discussion Papers 14373, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Girardi, Giulio & Hanley, Kathleen W. & Nikolova, Stanislava & Pelizzon, Loriana & Sherman, Mila Getmansky, 2021. "Portfolio similarity and asset liquidation in the insurance industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 69-96.
    7. Goergen, Marc & Gounopoulos, Dimitrios & Koutroumpis, Panagiotis, 2021. "Do multiple credit ratings reduce money left on the table? Evidence from U.S. IPOs," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    8. Nanda, Vikram & Wu, Wei & Zhou, Xing (Alex), 2019. "Investment Commonality across Insurance Companies: Fire Sale Risk and Corporate Yield Spreads," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(6), pages 2543-2574, December.
    9. Sui, Cong & Chen, Nan & Yang, Mo, 2023. "Not all market participants are alike when facing crisis: Evidence from the 2015 Chinese stock market turbulence," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    10. Ge, Shan & Weisbach, Michael S., 2021. "The role of financial conditions in portfolio choices: The case of insurers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 803-830.
    11. Natee Amornsiripanitch & Zeqiong Huang & David Kwon & Jinjie Lin, 2022. "Net Income Measurement, Investor Inattention, and Firm Decisions," Working Papers 22-05, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    12. Kubitza, Christian & Grochola, Nicolaus & Gründl, Helmut, 2021. "Life insurance convexity," ICIR Working Paper Series 42/21, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR).
    13. Antonio Falato & Ali Hortaçsu & Dan Li & Chaehee Shin, 2021. "Fire‐Sale Spillovers in Debt Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(6), pages 3055-3102, December.
    14. Abad, Pilar & Ferreras, Rodrigo & Robles, M-Dolores, 2019. "Informational role of rating revisions after reputational events and regulation reforms," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 91-103.
    15. Robert Czech & Gábor Pintér, 2020. "Informed Trading and the Dynamics of Client-Dealer Connections in Corporate Bond Markets," Discussion Papers 2032, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    16. Kubitza, Christian, 2021. "Investor-driven corporate finance: Evidence from insurance markets," ICIR Working Paper Series 43/21, Goethe University Frankfurt, International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR).
    17. Stephanie Heck, 2022. "Corporate bond yields and returns: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 36(2), pages 179-201, June.
    18. Jess N. Cornaggia & Kimberly J. Cornaggia & Ryan D. Israelsen, 2020. "Where the Heart Is: Information Production and the Home Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5532-5557, December.
    19. Chia‐Chun Chiang & Greg Niehaus, 2020. "Correlated Trading by Life Insurers and Its Impact on Bond Prices," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 87(3), pages 597-625, September.
    20. Milton Harris & Christian Opp & Marcus Opp, 2020. "The Aggregate Demand for Bank Capital," NBER Working Papers 27858, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Credit ratings; Systematic risk; Regulatory arbitrage; Portfolio concentration; Capital buffers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • 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:eee:jbfina:v:158:y:2024:i:c:s0378426623002212. 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: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    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.