{"title":"Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions Under Lender Scrutiny","authors":"Buhui QIu, Teng Wang","doi":"10.17016/feds.2024.025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17016/feds.2024.025","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines corporate mergers and acquisitions (M and A) outcomes under lender scrutiny. Using the unique shocks of U.S. supervisory stress testing, we find that firms under increased lender scrutiny after their relationship banks fail stress tests engage in fewer but higher-quality M and A deals. Evidence from comprehensive supervisory data reveals improved credit quality for newly originated M and A-related loans under enhanced lender scrutiny. This improvement is further evident in positive stock return reactions to M and A deals financed by loans subject to enhanced lender scrutiny. As companies engage in fewer but higher-quality deals, they also experience higher returns on assets. Our findings highlight the importance of lender scrutiny in corporate M and A activities.","PeriodicalId":496709,"journal":{"name":"Finance and economics discussion series","volume":"113 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140786002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Leland D. Crane, Emily Green, Molly Harnish, Will McClennan, Paul E. Soto, Betsy Vrankovich, Jacob Williams
{"title":"Tracking Real Time Layoffs with SEC Filings: A Preliminary Investigation","authors":"Leland D. Crane, Emily Green, Molly Harnish, Will McClennan, Paul E. Soto, Betsy Vrankovich, Jacob Williams","doi":"10.17016/feds.2024.020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17016/feds.2024.020","url":null,"abstract":"We explore a new source of data on layoffs: timely 8-K filings with the Securities and and Exchange Commission. We develop measures of both the number of reported layoff events and the number of affected workers. These series are highly correlated with the business cycle and other layoff indicators. Linking firm-level reported layoff events with WARN notices suggests that 8-K filings are sometimes available before WARN notices, and preliminary regression results suggest our layoff series are useful for forecasting. We also document the industry composition of the data and specific areas where the industry shares diverge.","PeriodicalId":496709,"journal":{"name":"Finance and economics discussion series","volume":"143 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140793281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andrew C. Chang, Joanne W. Hsu, Eva Ma, Kate Bachtell, Micah Sjoblom
{"title":"Does it Pay to Send Multiple Pre-Paid Incentives? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment","authors":"Andrew C. Chang, Joanne W. Hsu, Eva Ma, Kate Bachtell, Micah Sjoblom","doi":"10.17016/feds.2024.023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17016/feds.2024.023","url":null,"abstract":"To encourage survey participation and improve sample representativeness, the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) offers an unconditional pre-paid monetary incentive and separate post-paid incentive upon survey completion. We conducted a pre-registered between-subject randomized control experiment within the 2022 SCF, with at least 1,200 households per experimental group, to examine whether changing the pre-paid incentive structure affects survey outcomes. We assess the effects of: (1) altering the total dollar value of the pre-paid incentive (“incentive effect”), (2) giving two identical pre-paid incentives holding the total dollar value fixed (“reminder effect”), and (3) offering multiple pre-paid incentives of different amounts holding the total dollar value fixed (“slope effect”) on survey response rates, interviewer burden, and data quality. Our evidence indicates that a single $15 pre-paid incentive increases response rates and maintains similar levels of interviewer burden and data quality, relative to a single $5 pre-paid incentive. Splitting the $15 into two pre-paid incentives of different amounts increases interviewer burden though lengthening time in the field without improving response rates, reducing the number of contact attempts needed for a response, or improving data quality, regardless of whether the first pre-paid is larger or smaller than the second.","PeriodicalId":496709,"journal":{"name":"Finance and economics discussion series","volume":"75 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140769672","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
S. Firestone, Nathan Godin, Ákos Horváth, Jacob S. Sagi
{"title":"Risk Perception and Loan Underwriting in Securitized Commercial Mortgages","authors":"S. Firestone, Nathan Godin, Ákos Horváth, Jacob S. Sagi","doi":"10.17016/feds.2024.019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17016/feds.2024.019","url":null,"abstract":"We use model-implied volatility to proxy for property risk perceptions in the commercial real estate lending market. Although loan-to-value ratios (LTVs) unconditionally decreased following the Global Financial Crisis, LTVs conditioned on implied volatility and other theoretically motivated fundamental determinants of optimal leverage show no conclusive trend before or after the crisis. Taking reported property and loan attributes at face value, we find no clear pattern of unwarranted credit being extended to commercial real estate assets. We conclude that systematically higher LTV decisions pre-crisis would have primarily stemmed from risk misperceptions rather than imprudent practices. Our findings suggest that the aggregate LTV level should be interpreted as a proxy for lending standards only after controlling for aggregate risk perceptions, among a host of asset and lending market factors. Our findings also highlight the importance of measuring and tracking aggregate risk perceptions in informing regulators and policymakers.","PeriodicalId":496709,"journal":{"name":"Finance and economics discussion series","volume":"1216 31","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140774069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Commercial Construction Activity’s Long and Variable Lags","authors":"David Glancy, Robert J. Kurtzman, L. Loewenstein","doi":"10.17016/feds.2024.016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17016/feds.2024.016","url":null,"abstract":"We use microdata on the phases of commercial construction projects to document three facts regarding time-to-plan lags: (1) plan times are long—about 1.5 years on average—and highly variable, (2) roughly one-third of projects are abandoned in planning, (3) property price appreciation reduces the likelihood of abandonment. We construct a model with endogenous planning starts and abandonment that matches these facts. Endogenous abandonment makes short-term building supply more elastic, as price shocks immediately affect the exercise of construction options rather than just planning starts. The model has the testable implicationthat supply is more elastic when there are more “shovel ready” projects available to advance to construction. We use local projections to validate that this prediction holds in the cross-section for U.S. cities.","PeriodicalId":496709,"journal":{"name":"Finance and economics discussion series","volume":"213 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140782715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assessing the Common Ownership Hypothesis in the US Banking Industry","authors":"Serafin Grundl, Jacob P. Gramlich","doi":"10.17016/feds.2024.022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17016/feds.2024.022","url":null,"abstract":"The U.S. banking industry is well suited to assess the common ownership hypothesis (COH), because thousands of private banks without common ownership (CO) compete with hundreds of public banks with high and increasing levels of CO. This paper assesses the COH in the banking industry using more comprehensive ownership data than previous studies. In simple comparisons of raw deposit rate averages we document that (i) private banks do offer substantially more attractive deposit rates than public banks, but (ii) the deposit rates of public banks are similar in markets without CO where a single public bank competes only with private rivals, and in markets with CO where multiple public banks compete with each other. Panel regressions of deposit rates on the profit weights implied by the COH are generally consistent with the COH if only quarter FEs (without other controls) are included but not if bank-quarter FEs are included. Estimates with bank-quarter FEs are “precise zeros” with 95% CIs suggesting that the threefold rise in CO among public banks between 2005 and 2022 moved their deposit rates by less than a quarter of a basis point in either direction. To assess the COH along non-price dimensions we also estimate the effect of CO on deposit quantities, and find that the estimates are also not consistent with the COH.","PeriodicalId":496709,"journal":{"name":"Finance and economics discussion series","volume":"424 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140757615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Francesca Carapella, Jin-Wook Chang, Sebastian Infante, Melissa Leistra, Arazi Lubis, Alexandros P. Vardoulakis
{"title":"Financial Stability Implications of CBDC","authors":"Francesca Carapella, Jin-Wook Chang, Sebastian Infante, Melissa Leistra, Arazi Lubis, Alexandros P. Vardoulakis","doi":"10.17016/feds.2024.021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17016/feds.2024.021","url":null,"abstract":"A Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is a form of digital money that is denominated in the national unit of account, constitutes a direct liability of the central bank, and can be distinguished from other central bank liabilities. We examine the positive and negative implications for financial stability of a CBDC under different design options. We base our analysis on the lessons derived from historical case studies as well as on analytical frameworks useful to characterize the mechanisms through which a CBDC can affect financial stability. We further discuss various policy tools that can be employed to mitigate financial stability risks.","PeriodicalId":496709,"journal":{"name":"Finance and economics discussion series","volume":"96 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140778120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reexamining the 'Role of the Community Reinvestment Act in Mortgage Supply and the U.S. Housing Boom'","authors":"Kenneth P. Brevoort","doi":"10.17016/feds.2024.009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17016/feds.2024.009","url":null,"abstract":"Concerns have lingered since the 2007 subprime crisis that government housing policies promote risky mortgage lending. The first peer-reviewed evidence of a causal effect was published by the Review of Financial Studies in a paper (Saadi, 2020) linking the crisis to changes in the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in 1995. A review of that paper, however, shows that it misrepresents the policy changes as having taken effect in mid-1998, 2.5 years after they were implemented. When the correct timing is used, a similar analysis yields no evidence of a relationship between CRA and riskier mortgage lending. Instead, the results are shown to reflect an unrelated confounding event, the first collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market following Russia’s debt default in August 1998.","PeriodicalId":496709,"journal":{"name":"Finance and economics discussion series","volume":"40 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139812349","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reexamining the 'Role of the Community Reinvestment Act in Mortgage Supply and the U.S. Housing Boom'","authors":"Kenneth P. Brevoort","doi":"10.17016/feds.2024.009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17016/feds.2024.009","url":null,"abstract":"Concerns have lingered since the 2007 subprime crisis that government housing policies promote risky mortgage lending. The first peer-reviewed evidence of a causal effect was published by the Review of Financial Studies in a paper (Saadi, 2020) linking the crisis to changes in the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in 1995. A review of that paper, however, shows that it misrepresents the policy changes as having taken effect in mid-1998, 2.5 years after they were implemented. When the correct timing is used, a similar analysis yields no evidence of a relationship between CRA and riskier mortgage lending. Instead, the results are shown to reflect an unrelated confounding event, the first collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market following Russia’s debt default in August 1998.","PeriodicalId":496709,"journal":{"name":"Finance and economics discussion series","volume":"28 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139871989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reasons Behind Words: OPEC Narratives and the Oil Market","authors":"Celso Brunetti, Marc Joëts, Valérie Mignon","doi":"10.17016/feds.2024.003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17016/feds.2024.003","url":null,"abstract":"We analyze the content of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries(OPEC) communications and whether it provides information to the crude oil market. To this end, we derive an empirical strategy which allows us to measure OPEC’s public signal and test whether market participants find it credible. Using Structural Topic Models, we analyze OPEC narratives and identify several topics related to fundamental factors, such as demand, supply, and speculative activity in the crude oil market. Importantly, we find that OPEC communication reduces oil price volatility and prompts market participants to rebalance their positions. Our analysis indicates that market participants assess OPEC communications as providing an important signal to the crude oil market.","PeriodicalId":496709,"journal":{"name":"Finance and economics discussion series","volume":"32 23","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139815713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}