KREDIT und KAPITAL - Issue 3/1999


Contents


Articles

Welfens, Paul J. J.
Die russische Transformationskrise: Monetäre und reale Aspekte sowie Politikoptionen

Groeneveld, Johannes M.
The Forces Behind the Consolidation Trend in the European Banking Industry

Kritikos, Alexander S.
Kleinkredite mit anreizgesteuertem Solidareintritt. Eine Diskussion der notwendigen Bedingungen für ein Sicherheitssubstitut

Freihube, Thorsten and Kehr, Carl- Heinrich and Krahnen, Jan P. and Theissen, Erik
Was leisten die Kursmakler? Eine empirische Untersuchung am Beispiel der Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse


Reports

Borner, Harald
Die Kreditbeziehung als Mittel zur Verhaltensbeeinflussung. Ein Überblick.


Book Reviews

Baltensperger, Ernst (Hrsg.)
Spekulation, Preisbildung und Volatilität auf Finanz- und Devisenmärkten (Jürgen Ehlgen)

Süchting, Joachim und Heitmüller, Hans- Michael (Hrsg.)
Handbuch des Bankmarketing (Martin Körner)


Summaries

Welfens, Paul J.J.
"The Russian Transformation Crisis: Monetary and Real Aspects as well as Policy Option"

On the one hand, this paper analyses the transformation crisis in Russia including its elements and causes while presenting possible policy options for overcoming this crisis on the other. Besides an emergency in the Russian banking sector, an inability to respond in an adequate manner to the need for adjustment to structural change - which is the reason impeding economic growth - has been identified as the severest element of the crisis. Inappropriate economic policy decisions, illusory reform programmes and premature liberalisation of capital movements together with a system of quasi-fixed exchange rates adopted in 1997 unleashed a dramatic situation in August 1998. Russia's specious success in transforming its system of macroeconomic management has thus disappeared again, but this success was - to a certain extent - only an illusion; a move towards a market-economy and a transportation system based on more intensive competition has not been made in actual fact, as can be seen from the ongoing decline in the goods haulage volume atypical of transformation. The first seven years of Russia's transformation were characterised by a decline in the gross domestic product and in the real money balances relative to the gross domestic product as well as by rising unemployment. Alongside the Russian economy's increasing dollarisation and a general loss of confidence on the part of workers, businessmen and foreign investors, there is now a threat of an aggravating economic crisis for which parts of the IMF's Board of Directors including their inappropriate strategy in support of transformation in Russia as well as their partly naive assessment of international irritations are to be held responsible to a certain extent. A thoroughly revised approach toward transformation strategies - with the emphasis being laid on functioning institutions - as well as energetic policy-making with the EU, the EBRD and the IMP/World Bank supporting this process are urgent in the interest of containing and overcoming the crisis in Russia that involves potentially grave global irritations. For Russia's transformation, the marginal benefit of applied economic theory and Western transfer payments could have been substantial, but it could not materialise in the first phase of the process in the absence of meaningful IMF approaches and because of Russia's internal policy-making mistakes.

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Groeneveld, Johannes M
"The Forces Behind the Consolidation Trend in the European Banking Industry"

This paper analyzes the backgrounds and implications of the consolidation trend in the European banking sector in a systematic way. Aside from deregulation and innovations in the information technology, it is argued that the EMU constitutes an important driving force behind mergers and acquisitions in the EU banking industry. Here, a distinction is made between so-called input and output considerations on the one hand, and domestic and cross border mergers and acquisitions on the other. The desire to achieve input efficiencies refers to the pro claimed existence of scale, scope and X-efficiencies. The other category of arguments emphasizes the wish to realize efficiencies on the output side of the production process (e. g. an increase in market share or the prestige of the management). The latter category of arguments appears to be more valid. On the basis of theoretical and empirical reflections, further consolidation is expected to take place in France, Germany and Italy in particular. Moreover, a European banking sector consisting of three layers is a distant prospect.

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Kritikos, Alexander S.
"Small-scale Lendings with Incentive-guided Solidarity Action. A Discussion about the Conditions at the Base of Loan Collateral Substitutes"

In credit markets, the problems of adverse selection and moral hazard result in credit rationing. This means that persons having no property to submit as loan collateral have no access to the ordinary credit markets precisely for this reason. Institutionalising incentive-guided solidarity action on a mutual basis between groups of borrowers may quality as loan collateral substitute in the eyes of banks if borrowers are sufficiently poor. This contract design allows part of the risk and the associated lending costs to be shifted to the borrowers. This type of business is profitable if the business relationship between the bank and its borrowers is standardised, if it is long-term in nature and if a minimum number of borrowers is involved.

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Freihube, Thorsten and Kehr, Carl-Heinrich and Krahnen, Jan P. and Theissen, Erik
"What is the Performance of the "Makler"? An Empirical Analysis Based on the Example of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange"

The present contribution represents a detailed empirical analysis of the role of the specialists ("Makler") operating at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The dataset employed permits the impact of specialist activities on liquidity and volatility to be analysed as well as the profitability of the specialists' transactions to be evaluated. Specialist participation in floor trading is substantial. The trades they make for their own accounts account for over 20 % of the volume in the batched auctions and for over 40 % of the volume in the continuous trading session. It is also shown with regard to the latter that specialist activities visibly help reduce the bid-ask spread. The effective spread ultimately paid is less than one-third of the spread calculated from the orders in the specialist's limit order book. It is shown that specialist participation in the batched auctions results in reduced volatility. The specialists' impact on volatility is sometimes evaluated on the basis of the "specialist stabilization ratio". We argue, however, that this measure does not supply meaningful results.

During our sample period specialists did, on average, not earn profits on the trades they made for their own account. Decomposing overall profits shows that positive spread revenues cannot compensate for positioning losses. Overall, our analysis shows that specialists are contributing towards a higher quality of Germany's stock markets. The implications of these results for the way in which stock trading should be organized in Germany are discussed.

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Reports

Borner, Harald

"Credit Relations as an Instrument for Influencing the Behaviour of Customers - An Overview"

On the basis of various models for credit contracts, capital structure and financial intermediation, the present contribution discusses the possibilities inherent in credit relations for influencing the behaviour of customers. It turns out that several precautions for influencing the behaviour of customers, while occasioning problems themselves, prompt debtors (at least in part) to behave in conformity with contracts. Insofar as those problems are concerned, this contribution discusses mainly the role governing the ties between financial intermediaries and debtors.

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