{"title":"Regulating bank risk in a mobile labour market","authors":"Anton van Boxtel","doi":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107421","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107421","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper argues that bonus caps can be welfare improving in banking labour markets with high mobility. On the labour market, the largest banks hire the most talented traders, but they need to do so with contracts with high bonuses in order to both screen talent and to prevent poaching by smaller banks. This can lead to excessive risk taking. In some cases, it is socially optimal to prevent screening, leading to a less efficient matching of talent to banks, but also to less risk taking. Bonus caps can achieve this in a way that is both more effective and less costly than setting tighter capital constraints.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48460,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Banking & Finance","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 107421"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143761213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lars Hornuf , Paul P. Momtaz , Rachel J. Nam , Ye Yuan
{"title":"Cybercrime on the ethereum blockchain","authors":"Lars Hornuf , Paul P. Momtaz , Rachel J. Nam , Ye Yuan","doi":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107419","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107419","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine how cybercrime impacts victims’ risk-taking and returns. The results from our difference-in-differences analysis of a sample of victim and matched non-victim investors on the Ethereum blockchain are in line with prospect theory and suggest that victims increase their long-term total risk-taking after losing part of their wealth, leading to lower risk-adjusted returns in the post-cybercrime period. Victims’ long-term total risk-taking increases because they increase diversifiable risk due to victims’ post-cybercrime withdrawal from altcoins. At the same time, the reduction in risk-adjusted returns correlates with increased trading activity and churn, due plausibly to managing cybercrime exposure. In the cross-section of Ethereum addresses, we show that the most affluent victims take a systematic approach to restore their pre-cybercrime wealth level, while the least affluent victims turn into gamblers. Finally, a parsimonious forensic model explains a good part of the addresses’ probability of being involved in cybercrime, on both the victim and the cybercriminal side.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48460,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Banking & Finance","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 107419"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143777711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The role of CDS spreads in explaining bond recovery rates","authors":"Matteo Barbagli , Pascal François , Geneviève Gauthier , Frédéric Vrins","doi":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107414","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107414","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We introduce two novel indices built from CDS market data capturing the level and uncertainty information embedded in credit spreads aggregated by industry, and study their role in predicting bonds recovery rates. Analyzing 613 defaulted U.S. corporate bond issues from 2006 to 2019 and using a beta regression model, we find the cross-sectional mean and approximate entropy of CDS spreads aggregated at the sector level to be important predictors of the recovery rates distributions. In the classical beta regression model, both regressors are statistically significant and enhance the pseudo-R<sup>2</sup> by up to 4%. Notably, a forward model selection procedure includes the sector-level regressor before well-known variables such as the bonds’ coupon rate or the American default rate. In addition, our sector-uncertainty regressor is the only significant uncertainty variable. These findings offer valuable insights for improving credit risk assessment methodologies and identifying key risk indicators of recovery rates before running prediction models.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48460,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Banking & Finance","volume":"174 ","pages":"Article 107414"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143579559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dealer leverage and exchange rates: Heterogeneity across intermediaries","authors":"Ricardo Correa, Laurie DeMarco","doi":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107400","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107400","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We find that the leverage of primary dealers has predictive power in forecasting exchange rates, but that it varies by a novel type of heterogeneity, the dealer’s headquarter jurisdiction, and over time. The leverage of foreign-headquartered dealers in the U.S. drives the predictive power for exchange rates, while it is insignificant for U.S.-headquartered dealers. We propose this heterogeneity can be explained by the relative balance sheet capacity of foreign dealers compared to domestic dealers and how that capacity changes over time with regulation. Furthermore, we document that currency market positions are stronger than cross-border lending as the channel through which leverage affects exchange rates.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48460,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Banking & Finance","volume":"174 ","pages":"Article 107400"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143687447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hisham Farag , Di Luo , Larisa Yarovaya , Damian Zieba
{"title":"Returns from liquidity provision in cryptocurrency markets","authors":"Hisham Farag , Di Luo , Larisa Yarovaya , Damian Zieba","doi":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107411","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107411","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine the liquidity provision premium in cryptocurrency markets using the returns from the short reversal strategy. We show that returns from liquidity provision can be predicted using the volatility index, realized variance, risk aversion, crash risk, tail risk, and innovations of Tether liquidity. We also find that an increase in the liquidity provision premium is associated with a decline in liquidity, trading volume, and transaction count, as well as more withdrawals, higher fees, and greater impermanent loss on Uniswap. This suggests potential competition between centralized and decentralized exchanges. Further, the liquidity provision premium of stock markets in China and Japan positively predicts the premium of cryptocurrency markets (effect of a common shock), meanwhile that of stock markets in the US and Canada negatively predicts the premium of cryptocurrency markets (substitution effect).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48460,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Banking & Finance","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 107411"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143769326","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"When expectations of implicit government guarantees diminished, do retail stock investors run away?","authors":"Lin Tang , Zhi Zhuo , Hong Zou","doi":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107418","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107418","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate the impact of implicit government guarantees (IGGs) on the trading behavior of retail stock investors for non-default firms, using China’s first corporate bond default in March 2014 as a negative shock to public expectations of IGGs. Our difference-in-differences analysis shows that, following the Chaori default shock, retail investors withdraw from high-default-risk firms that have not yet defaulted. This outcome is not attributed to industry, geographical or supply-chain contagions, declining stock prices, worsened financial metrics, or merely a seasonal effect. The effect is more pronounced for firms with preexisting larger retail ownership breadth or higher stock trading turnovers, for non-state-owned enterprises, and for firms with less sustainable earnings. When the initial default shows signs of a bailout, retail investors’ withdrawal partially reverses. Overall, the diminishment of IGGs seems to have reduced the moral hazard of retail stock investors and encouraged them to focus more on firms’ fundamentals, potentially enhancing the capital allocation efficiency in China’s stock market in the long run.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48460,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Banking & Finance","volume":"175 ","pages":"Article 107418"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143791732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fear propagation and return dynamics","authors":"Yulong Sun , Kai Wang , Zhiping Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107410","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107410","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study explores the intertemporal relationship between the gold-to-platinum price ratio (logGP) across economic conditions and international equity risk premiums. We find that logGP provides distinct predictive signals based on economic states, with logGP during U.S. contractions works as a strong and robust predictor of global stock market returns both in-sample and out-of-sample. This predictability stems not from U.S. market spillovers but rather reflects investors’ tail risk concerns and forecasts of economic activity. Our results indicate that U.S. recessions act as wake-up calls for international investors. Concerns about a U.S. recession propagating to other economies prompts investors to reassess local risks, thereby influencing local stock market dynamics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48460,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Banking & Finance","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 107410"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143488727","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"International information flow and market quality","authors":"Jiang Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107420","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107420","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Does the informational interdependence among countries affect market quality? Guided by the theoretical literature, this paper examines disruptions to international information flow as a source of financial market frictions. Using nonoverlapping holidays as a novel identification method, I find that disruptions to foreign information inflow deteriorate domestic market liquidity and fairness. I show that market quality worsens through both the informational sensitivity and the abnormal trading channels. Additional analyses indicate that stocks with lower liquidity and higher volatility are prone to more manipulative trading during information disruptions. Furthermore, a stock exchange upgrade weakens the abnormal trading channel. These findings suggest that international information flow is important to financial market quality.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48460,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Banking & Finance","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 107420"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143520278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dissecting the return-predicting power of risk-neutral variance","authors":"Zhongjin Lu , Chaehyun Pyun","doi":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107409","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107409","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We reassess the predictive power of risk-neutral excess-of-market stock variance (Martin and Wagner, 2019) for stock returns. After correcting two look-ahead biases that influence evidence supporting an average predictive coefficient of 0.5 reported in prior works, we find the data are too noisy to reject the null hypothesis of an average coefficient of zero. However, this insignificant average predictive coefficient conceals the predictability’s strong covariance with market volatility, as well as its large variation across characteristics-sorted subsamples. Out-of-sample analysis confirms that while the MW model does not significantly outperform benchmark models on average, it significantly outperforms during high-volatility periods.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48460,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Banking & Finance","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 107409"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143488728","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Naomi Boyd , Shenru Li , He (Helen) Wang , Xianjue Wang
{"title":"Fiduciary duty and corporate social responsibility: Evidence from corporate opportunity waiver","authors":"Naomi Boyd , Shenru Li , He (Helen) Wang , Xianjue Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107417","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107417","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) aligns with shareholder interests or stems from agency conflicts. To explore this, we utilize the staggered adoption of state-level Corporate Opportunity Waiver (COW) laws, which potentially weaken the fiduciary duty of loyalty among directors and officers, thereby exacerbating agency conflicts. Through a difference-in-differences analysis, we find that CSR activities significantly decrease following the enactment of COW laws. This decline is more pronounced in firms with weaker corporate governance, greater external opportunities for directors and officers, less incentivized CEOs, and those operating in less competitive industries. Additionally, our results show that the positive effect of CSR on financial performance is diminished by the adoption of COW laws. These findings support the value-enhancing perspective of CSR and highlight the importance of fiduciary duty of loyalty in promoting CSR.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48460,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Banking & Finance","volume":"173 ","pages":"Article 107417"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143488729","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}