Article
Accounting Standards and Banking Regulation: Some Effects of Divergence
This article is written in English.
Internal rate of return IRR is one of the key criteria for justifying and choosing capital investments with conventional cash flows. However, this criterion is not practically used when the rate of return of investment instruments (short sales, options, futures, swaps) is calculated because these instruments create non-conventional cash flows. The author previously showed that IRR problems were observed when the present value of cash flows changed sign from period to period. This paper offers a criterion to evaluate the rate of return of investment instruments with non-conventional cash flows, i.e. General Rate of Return (GRR).
The paper analyses how the individuals' deposits influences the resources of Russian banks. We show that the depositors panic in the crisis has a serious effect on stability of both bank and national bank system. We show the tendencies how the volume and structure of individuals' deposits change; how to avoid the rash of withdrawals by individual depositors; and how the resources of Russian banks shrank because of such withdrawals happened in the period of the crisis. We also present our assessment of how the resources of Russian banks reduced because of the rash of withdrawals in the crisis.
The Working Paper examines the peculiarities of the Russian model of corporate governance and control in the banking sector. The study relies upon theoretical as well as applied research of corporate governance in Russian commercial banks featuring different forms of ownership. We focus on real interests of all stakeholders, namely bank and stock market regulators, bank owners, investors, top managers and other insiders. The Anglo-American concept of corporate governance, based on agency theory and implying outside investors’ control over banks through stock market, is found to bear limited relevance. We suggest some ways of overcoming the gap between formal institutions of governance and the real life.
Into the Red explores the emergence of a credit card market in post-Soviet Russia during the formative period from 1988 to 2007. In her analysis, Alya Guseva locates the dynamics of market building in the social structure, specifically the creative use of social networks. Until now, network scholars have overlooked the role that networks play in facilitating exchange in mass markets because they have exclusively focused on firm-to-firm or person-to-person ties. Into the Reddemonstrates how networks that combine individuals and organizations help to build markets for mass consumption. The book is situated on the cutting edge of emerging interdisciplinary research, linking multiple layers of analysis with institutional evolution. Using an intricate framework, Guseva chronicles both the creation of a credit card market and the making of a mass consumer. These processes are placed in the context of the ongoing restructuring in postcommunist Russia and the expansion of Western markets and ideologies through the rest of the world.
This empirical paper adds to competition and industrial organization literature by exploring the interplay between industry structure and competitiveness on local, rather than nation-wide, markets. We use micro-level statistical data for banks in two Russian regions (Bashkortostan and Tatarstan) to estimate Herfindahl-Hirschman index, Lerner index, and Panzar-Rosse model. We estimate Panzar-Rosse model in two ways: via the widely used price-equation that accounts for scale effects and then via a revenue-equation that disregards scale effects as suggested by Bikker, Shaffer and Spierdijk (2009). We find both regional markets to be ruled by monopolistic competition, although estimation by revenue-equation does not reject monopoly hypothesis for Tatarstan. Existence of sizeable locally-owned and operated institutions does not necessarily lead to higher competitiveness of the given regional market. Non-structural methods of estimation suggest that bank competition in Bashkortostan is stronger than in Tatarstan.
The year 2019 saw the Asian Bankers Association (ABA) undertaking activities aimed at further enhancing the value of the Association to its members and the Asian banking sector as a whole. Conceptualized and implemented with the valuable guidance and support of ABA officers and member banks, the activities and projects of the Association in 2019 are summarized in this Year-in-Review report.
Using data on foreign borrowing, I identify Russian banks that were affected by the sudden stop of external financing caused by the Lehman Brothers’ collapse. Applying the difference-in-difference method, I compare these «affected» banks to «unaffected» ones and find that the Russian Central Bank’s (CBR) anti-crisis financial assistance primarily went to the former group. Tracing the impact of the CBR’s liquidity infusions on banks’ portfolio allocation decisions, I find that banks used CBR funds not only to pay out foreign debt, but also to accumulate cash deposits in non-resident banks. I also find that affected banks increased their holdings of market securities significantly more than unaffected ones, which suggests that the CBR’s bailout policies impacted their risk-taking strategies. While there was no significant difference in corporate lending growth between the two groups after the sudden stop, lending to borrowers with weaker banking relationships (individuals and entrepreneurs) decreased more among affected banks.
The paper examines the structure, governance, and balance sheets of state-controlled banks in Russia, which accounted for over 55 percent of the total assets in the country's banking system in early 2012. The author offers a credible estimate of the size of the country's state banking sector by including banks that are indirectly owned by public organizations. Contrary to some predictions based on the theoretical literature on economic transition, he explains the relatively high profitability and efficiency of Russian state-controlled banks by pointing to their competitive position in such functions as acquisition and disposal of assets on behalf of the government. Also suggested in the paper is a different way of looking at market concentration in Russia (by consolidating the market shares of core state-controlled banks), which produces a picture of a more concentrated market than officially reported. Lastly, one of the author's interesting conclusions is that China provides a better benchmark than the formerly centrally planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe by which to assess the viability of state ownership of banks in Russia and to evaluate the country's banking sector.
The paper examines the principles for the supervision of financial conglomerates proposed by BCBS in the consultative document published in December 2011. Moreover, the article proposes a number of suggestions worked out by the authors within the HSE research team.