Institut für Financial Management

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A behavioral finance approach to explain the price momentum effect
(2009) Prothmann, Felix; Burghof, Hans-Peter
The research topic of my thesis is the stock price momentum effect which states that stocks with high returns over the past 3 to 12 months continue to outperform stocks with a poor past performance within the next 3 to 12 months. My work is structured into three main parts. The first one gives an overview about the present stand of the literature. It becomes clear that the profitability of momentum strategies is documented in many studies, for different samples and for different periods. In the search for an explanation for the profitability of momentum strategies, the literature has not come to a consensus: One the one hand, according to the rational-based approach,momentum profits represent a compensation for risk and is consistent with the EMH. On the other hand, the behavioral finance theories attempts to explain the existence of the momentum effect with a non-rational behavior of at least some investors. The second and the third part of my thesis are closely linked and examine the behavioralexplanation approach that stock price momentum can be explained by the anchoring bias ? a specific form of non-rational behavior. It states that investors orientate too much on a reference point when forming estimates. This idea goes back to George and Hwang (2004) documenting that the momentum effect can be explained by profits to the 52-week high strategy, which itself is assumed to be driven by the anchoring bias. Based on this theory, the null hypothesis of both parts of my thesis states: Stock price momentum cannot be explained by anchoring. This investigation supports anchoring as the explanation of the momentum effect.
A computational study on the effects of the organizational structures on the risk of different types of banking groups
(2023) Jamshidisafari, Saeed; Burghof, Hans-Peter
In this dissertation, two theoretical models are used to compare centralized and decentralized banking structures. In the first approach, the problem for both banks is to choose an expansive or restrictive credit policy without having complete knowledge of the state of the overall and local economies. Observing and appraising verifiable information (hard information) is the benefit of the centralized banks, whereas considering unverifiable information (soft information) about the local economies, so-called soft signals, is the important asset of the decentralized banks. To compare two banking systems, the risk-return trade-off method is used to determine which type of banking system might have better performance. Although the overestimation of the local economy may have a negative impact, this soft signal has a quite positive impact on risk measures in general. As a result, decentralized bank managers are better at detecting bad loans in their banks. In addition, because small banks have less bureaucracy, the borrower can obtain credit more effortlessly and swiftly. In the second approach, a theoretical bank run model based on Chari and Jagannathan (1988) is developed by implementing a cheap talk game to compare banking structures during bank shocks when managers communicate strategically with depositors to prevent non-efficient bank runs. These two banks behaved considerably differently in the local economy, and this issue is directly tied to regional culture. The limitation of punishment in the legal system incentivizes the management system in centralized banks at some point to be cunning. Consequently, based on the modified model, the higher the punishment or the lower the salary, the less likely the manager is to be persuaded to lie. On the other hand, in small banks, trust and soft information between bank management and depositors protect inefficient bank runs. A decentralized banking system can improve the financial systems credibility by mitigating undesirable shocks during times of crisis. Hence, having decentralized banks in the banking structure increases the depositors’ welfare.
An empirical analysis of residual value risk in automotive lease contracts
(2011) Nau, Katharina; Burghof, Hans-Peter
The work at hand concentrates on the risk structure of lease contracts and therefore aims to give insights and support to the risk management of lease firms. The focus lies on a special and highly important type of risk in such contracts named residual value risk describing the risk arising from deviations of the actual residual value at maturity stage of the contract from the estimated one fixed in the contract at its completion. My analysis deals with automobile leases covering the major share of this market. The main objective of this work is the analysis of two research question: 1.) What determines residual values? 2.) How can residual values be predicted? On the one hand, a minimum level of predictability is necessary to manage residual value risk. That is why an identification of determinants of residual values is extremely important. The possibility to link fluctuations in residual values to changes in explanatory variables allows one to trace the pattern of residual values based on the pattern of the identified risk factors. On the other hand, residual values are not known in advance but needed at the completion of the lease contract. This is why residual values have to be predicted. These questions are assessed by an empirical analysis using the ARIMAX regression methodology. The analysis uses a sample covering monthly residual values of 17 cars in the German automobile market for the observation period from June 1992 to December 2008. The determinants of the residual values describe the market environment of used cars. Those can be classified into three man categories. The first one illustrates the overall economic situation, the second one describes the situation in the new and used car market and the third one specifies a certain car model in more detail. The empirical results give evidence that the chosen factors influence the residual values of cars. Moreover, those determinants lead to very accurate predicted residual values showing a high forecast ability. Furthermore, the empirical results and considerations are used to conduct a theoretical analysis in order to derive implications for the residual value risk management. The valuation model of McConnell and Schallheim (1983) is used on the one hand to quantify the impact of fluctuations in the underlying factors on the lease rate and, on the other hand, to analyse the effects of misspecifications in an underlying market factor on the lease rate and the value of the lease contract. These theoretical considerations give insights and support to improve the risk management of residual values in lease contracts.
Empirical essays on agency problems in venture capital
(2023) Koenig, Lukas; Burghof, Hans-Peter
In the first essay, we explore the potential agency conflict between limited partners and general partners in venture capital firms due to changes in investment style. Investment style refers to the characteristics of a venture capital funds portfolio, such as the portfolio companies stage of development, location, and industry. While investment style can significantly impact the risk and return profile of a fund, it is usually not explicitly agreed upon by limited and general partners. We argue that changes in investment style, known as style drifts, can reveal information about the risk-taking behavior of venture capitalists and present empirical evidence in support of this claim. To determine whether style drifts constitute an agency conflict, we consider two sets of hypotheses. The first set posits that style drifts are intentional decisions to take on more risk, potentially driven by incentives related to compensation or employment. The second set suggests that style drifts may occur because of competitive pressure and may not necessarily be indicative of an intent to increase risk. Our findings suggest that style drifts are likely to create an agency conflict, as the evidence supports the hypothesis that well-performing venture capitalists increase investment risk to benefit from higher compensation potential via carried interest when they feel confident, they will be able to raise a follow-on fund securing their base income via management fees. Additionally, we examine the impact of style drifts on individual investments and fund performance and find that overall, style drifts hurt a funds exit rate, indicating the potential for increased risk. In the second essay, we examine the relationship between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, specifically focusing on the role of information asymmetry in the funding process. Using text classification and text mining techniques we analyze the content and level of detail in capital allocation plans provided by entrepreneurs to investors, which serve as a proxy for private informational updates that are typically not widely available. Our analysis shows that investors do consider the content and specificity of these updates when making valuation decisions and that both positive information signals and more detailed information are related to higher valuations. We also investigate the effect of the relative level of information asymmetry between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs on the value of these updates, finding that they are more impactful in situations where there is a higher level of information asymmetry. The results of our study have practical implications for entrepreneurs, as we find that the negative impact of negative information signals can be offset by providing highly specific information and that the value of an informational update is influenced by the existing level of information asymmetry. In the third essay, I explore the impact of university affiliations on the initial matching process between venture capitalists and founders, the involvement of the investor during the funding relationship, and the eventual startup performance and investment exit success. University affiliations can influence the funding relationship through two channels: first, attending a top university may serve as a signal of founder quality to venture capitalists, helping them to avoid adverse selection; second, shared alumni networks may establish trust and reduce information asymmetry between otherwise unknown individuals. Using a dataset of 42,101 investments involving 38,452 unique venture capitalists and founders, I find that educational ties between venture capitalists and founders have a positive effect on the funding relationship, including the initial matching, the level of involvement of the investor during the funding relationship, and the eventual startup performance and investment exit success. The effect of sharing an educational background between a venture capitalist and a founder is about five times larger than the effect of a founder attending a top university. Further, the results also show that educational ties are more valuable the more exclusive they are, and that redundant ties between the founding team and the investors have diminishing value for the investment decision.
Essays in relationship banking : the efficiency of savings-linked relationship lending and credit information sharing
(2017) Kirsch, Steffen; Burghof, Hans-Peter
The first part of my thesis concerns credit information production of lenders. In a multi-period partial equilibrium model of lending to private households I compare arm’s-length lending with relationship lending that is based on information production about borrowers in preceding saving relationships. These are often the only source of private information that lenders possess about loan demanding households. The model shows that savings-linked relationship lending leads to a Pareto improvement or an increasing allocative efficiency of the financing market compared to arm’s-length lending in markets of low time preference or low average borrower quality. In these markets, savings-linked relationship lending can overcome financing market failure due to adverse selection, especially for financing volumes that are large in comparison to households’ periodic savings or incomes. Thus, the model shows that savings-linked relationship lending is particularly well suited and economically beneficial for housing finance of private households and is able to increase home ownership rates. Competitive savings-linked relationship lending, as derived in the model, shares major characteristics with contractual saving for housing which is a widespread and important product of housing finance in Continental Europe. My model therefore provides, to my knowledge, the first theoretical relationship lending explanation for contractual saving for housing. Further, my results add a novel economic explanation for synergies between the two main activities of traditional commercial banking, deposit-taking and lending. The second part of my thesis concerns credit information sharing between lenders. Credit information sharing between lenders can have a disciplinary effect on borrowers because defaulting with one lender ruins the reputation with every other lender (Vercammen, 1995; Padilla and Pagano, 2000). This reputation effect, however, diminishes and finally disappears the more comprehensive credit registries become. I show in a multi-period model of repeated lending that credit information sharing can induce borrower discipline beyond “passive” reputation effects if banks apply classical disciplining, that is, if failure to pay inevitably provokes consequences. I find that such disciplining can Pareto improve the efficiency of the financing market and reduce defaults by overcoming market failure and mitigating underinvestment in projects and in effort, even for comprehensive and unrestricted credit information sharing. I further show that disciplining borrowers by pro rata rationing credit after default is more promising than tightening credit rates. Hence, my model provides a rare case of efficient equilibrium credit rationing: disciplining by credit rationing enhances the efficiency of the market while constituting aggregate equilibrium credit rationing in the sense of Stiglitz and Weiss (1981). Contrary to the previous literature that suggests to restrict and randomize credit reporting in order to prevent diminishing reputation effects, the policy implications following from my work are, first, to rather restrict access to credit registries than their content and, second, to enhance transparency of information sharing.
Ethical banking and finance : a theoretical and empirical framework for the cross-country and inter-bank analysis of efficiency, productivity, and financial performance
(2012) Abu-Alkheil, Ahmad; Burghof, Hans-Peter
Islamic banking is a growing worldwide phenomenon involving a variety of institutions and instruments. Previously, Islamic banks? transactions made up a small part of the total banking industry. Recently, Islamic banks have significantly expanded their network, and have been able to mobilize a large amount of funds and upgrade many economic ventures. Given the unique behavior of Islamic banks and their involvement in both social and economic activities, there has always been a question about their long run financial sustainability, particularly in adverse market conditions. Thus, a reliable and unbiased estimation of Islamic banks?efficiency and productivity performance is essential for the evaluation of Islamic banking operations within and outside its traditional borders of Muslim economies. Due to the short history of Islamic banking in Europe, and consequently the lack of sufficient data, empirical researches on the financial performance of Islamic banking have concentrated primarily in Muslim-majority countries and focused on the theoretical issues and descriptive statistics rather than rigorous statistical and econometric estimation. The main purpose of our analysis is to bridge this gap in the global and cross-country literature and to contribute to the ongoing debate regarding the performance of Islamic banking. Therefore, the orientation of this thesis is chiefly quantitative in nature. The aim of this thesis is primarily to shed some light on the emergence and the continual global growth of Islamic banking all over the world. It also tries to assess, for the first time, the relative performance of Islamic commercial and investment banks operating in Europe against counterparties-conventional banks in Europe and also against Islamic banks from Muslim-majority countries. Our methodology in this academic work clearly differs from the literature researches. This thesis is, basically, divided into two main parts. In first part, we specifically discuss the basic features and principles of the Islamic banking and finance. We then reviewed several in-depth market analysis results concerning Islamic banking and finance that were performed by well-known specialized financial institutions. In the second part, we primarily utilize different empirical approaches to examine the performance of our sample banks which shows a great variety, ranging from large active banks to new and small banks. More specifically, we use the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method to calculate the commercial banks? efficiency scores and investment banks (cost)-X-efficiency levels; the DEA-based Malmq- uist Productivity Index (MPI) to estimate the banks productivity indices; the common financial ratios to measure the banks financial performance; the T-Test to determine the differences of investment bank's performance pre- and post- the financial crisis that hit the world?s economy in 2007; the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS)-regression to determine the impact of internal and external factors on bank's efficiency and also to check the robustness of the overall results obtained from DEA scores; Spearman's rho correlation to investigate the association of the DEA-efficiency scores with the traditional accounting ratios; and eventually the efficiency?profitability matrix in order to determine the characterization of the banks' performance and the factors that influence efficiency. Our analysis is carried out, primarily, over the period from 2005 to 2008. This indeed helps to account for the impact of the recent financial crisis on the efficiency and productivity performance of the selected banks. The preliminary review of the market surveys-based analysis shows that the Islamic finance and banking is one of the fastest growing sectors in the financial world. Islamic financial products and services are increasingly being regarded as a viable investment opportunity, making them very attractive for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Leading Islamic banks from Muslim countries are expanding their network. Several European banks have directly involved in providing Islamic financial products in order to satisfy the special needs for Muslim customers and the non-Muslims who seek ethical financial and investment solutions. Eventually, European governments have also started to amend their legal, tax, and regulatory systems to allow the establishment of Islamic banks. Most importantly, from an empirical point of view, our presented results suggest that the Islamic commercial banks in Europe are found to be relatively technically inefficient. They have also, on average, poor financial performance and under-performing practices. Moreover, Islamic banks in Europe actually suffer from significant productivity losses over the sample years driven, to a large extent, by the regress in banks? technology innovations. By and large, the bank?s inefficiency stems from both the sub-optimal size of operations and the lack of management knowledge and skills. Findings suggest that the optimal size for Islamic banks to achieve better levels of performance is neither large nor small rather medium. Therefore, increasing banks size through mergers and acquisition will substantially enhance their technical efficiency and productivity progress. The period prior to the current financial crisis was marked by the most stable economic environment for generations. Our results illustrate that Islamic banks lag relatively, before the emergence of the crisis, behind their conventional peers in terms of estimated efficiency scores and productivity changes. Strikingly, conventional banks gradually lose their superiority over Islamic banks in subsequent years, but remain, on average, a head of Islamic banks. Islamic banks are, indeed, less vulnerable to the effects of the crisis as compared with counterparties-conventional banks. They exhibit only slight inefficiency and productivity regress during this severe crisis and therefore, produce a consistent and remarkable positive trend in technical efficiency, productivity performance, and financial profitability. This might be because of the beliefs in the power of petro-dollars in the Gulf region, the fact that the Islamic banks are relatively small and young at present, and could also be due to the religious financial constraints. Such factors might have played an important role in preventing Islamic banks from being severely affected by the crisis. Overall, results suggest that the small and new Islamic banks in Europe can be as efficient and productive as large and old Islamic and conventional banks. They also have long run sustainability, substantial room for improvements, and a great potential in the banking industry to sustain their competitive edge not only in Muslim countries but also in the European financial system. The estimated findings pertaining to the performance of Islamic investment banks in Europe suggest that these banks experience low (cost)-x-efficiency and poor allocative-efficiency compared with counterparties-conventional banks. Bank?s inefficiency is caused largely by the under-utilization of inputs, the bank's diseconomies of scale, and also appears to be due to the regulations not controlled by management due to fluctuations and instability in factor prices. Islamic investment banks additionally show a clear paradox between their high calculated efficiency scores and low achieved profitability ratios. They are also less risky, more solvent, and operate with lower use of debt. Nevertheless, Islamic investment banks suffer a gradual deterioration in liquidity position. The banks' supply of Murabaha (cost-plus loans) financing appears to be most dominant and has increased significantly in importance. Overall, findings seem to reveal that the banks that are technically more efficient are larger in size (total assets), financially more profitable, have greater loans intensity, acquire lower levels of debt, invests more in appropriate human skills, have a lower market share (total deposits), and operate in countries with higher GDP-per capita. Such results reflect the strong and high association between the DEA-efficiency measures and the standard accounting measures, suggesting that the DEA approach can be adopted separately or concurrently along with financial ratios to make comparisons of Islamic banks performance more robust.
Financial development and its effects on the structure of banking systems, economic growth, and inequality
(2022) Gehrung, Marcel; Burghof, Hans-Peter
Besides the well-known factors for economic growth and income inequality such as globalization, technological progress, demographic change, or human capital acquisition, financial development is often overlooked. This dissertation uses the case of the Single Banking License on the harmonized European Financial Market to show how financial liberalization and the abolishment of financing constraints improve economic growth and closes the gap between top and bottom income shares in the European Union. In the second part of the thesis, with the use of a worldwide data set, we show that the actual access to financial services through a widespread network of bank branches and ATM machines is one of the major channels through which financial development affects economic growth and inequality. These two examples argue in favor of the supply-leading hypothesis of financial development. The third part of the thesis then gives proof for the demand-following side of financial development. By means of a novel and hand-picked data set of historical contracts for contractual saving for housing (Bausparen) from one of the first building societies in the Weimar Republic, the Gemeinschaft der Freunde Wüstenrot, we show how this new financial product spread geographically across the German Empire and across social classes. The fact that especially the upper lower class and lower middle class used CSH most frequently shows that CSH is a prime example of financial development. Meanwhile, the need for this new form of housing finance stems from an insufficient credit supply of common banks and only little subsidies by the state.
Institutions, contracts, and regulation of housing financing
(2023) Braun, Julia; Burghof, Hans-Peter
The real estate market and, more specifically, the housing market is one of the most important markets of an economy. It impacts public health, influences social relations and crime, triggers other’s sector growth, and thus affects the prosperity of an economy. The close interconnectedness between economic sectors creates mutual dependencies and spillover effects from one market to another. Due to this, a stable and resistant housing market is in common public, economic, and political interest. The prediction of the development of the housing market, however, is highly challenging as it displays several individual features. One is its high capital intensity. What drives housing investment is sustainable access to housing financing. As sufficient funding is a precondition for acquiring residential property, mortgage lending institutions play a decisive role in the housing market. They enable home seekers to become homeowners and, at the same time, decide by whom and when a residential property can be bought. Furthermore, they influence housing prices. By either granting loans or rejecting applicants and conducting other business, the demand for dwellings is influenced which affects prices. This was clearly evidenced by the latest financial crisis. A second special feature of the housing market is its distinct heterogeneity. From various perspectives, housing is, above all, particularly individual. Dwellings must meet individual circumstances, habits, and preferences. Furthermore, they need to fit into geographical or political circumstances. To meet these individual needs, some financial systems are quite diverse, consisting of manifold types of financial intermediaries that offer several products to finance a residential property. Others are rather uniform, characterized mainly by privately organized institutions, focused on common banking business. This dissertation investigates the impact of different types of financial institutions, financial contracts, and financial regulation on the housing market. The first part investigates whether various lending practices of different types of financial institutions affect housing market cycles differently. We develop a heterogeneous agent-based model that mimics a real-world housing market, consisting of potential home buyers and sellers who trade residential property. Financial intermediaries finance residential property and, therefore, mainly determine whether housing investment can be realized. We create a heterogeneous financial market with special emphasis on two institutional bank types: conventional banks (CBs) and building and loan associations (BLs). Especially in Germany and continental Europe, both serve the mortgage lending market while BLs constitute a peculiar but essential real estate financier. In our research, BLs represent an example of specialized financial intermediaries. Contrasting the mortgage granting decisions of the two bank types that arise out of varying business models and specialized institutional regulations, we find that CBs exercise procyclic mortgage lending that exacerbates prevailing up- or downturns in the housing market. Using BLs’ core product, contractual saving for housing (CSH), they put less emphasis on collateral values. Instead, they use information out of relationship lending which leads to less pronounced market cycles and more stable housing prices. Computational experiments reveal that a heterogeneous financial market, consisting of both CBs and BLs creates the most stable housing market and, at the same time, provides homeownership for a larger share of the economy. As the first part of the dissertation suggests a diversified financial market with differing institutional features and heterogeneous product landscapes to stabilize the housing market and diminish the risk of crises, the second part extends the research scope to embrace regulatory environments. I introduce an extended heterogeneous agent-based model of a housing and a financial market to assess whether it is reasonable to impose homogenous regulatory requirements for heterogeneous financial institutions out of the perspective of housing, capital, and financial market stability. In addition to the real estate market, where potential buyers and sellers can trade dwellings, I model a capital market on which banks can trade a standardized share portfolio that depicts alternative investment opportunities for financial institutions. If banks engage in risky business which is either to finance housing investments or trading shares, Basel III requires them to hold a specified amount of equity. Banks’ business activities are thus restricted by the prevailing capital adequacy requirements (CAR). Via computational experiments, I introduce a heterogeneous regulation in terms of different levels of CAR for a special type of financial intermediary, BLs, while CAR for CBs are held fixed. The results provide evidence that imposing CAR on banks is effective in increasing market stability and the resilience of the banking sector. The obligation to meet CAR restricts risky business activities and increases banks loss absorbency capacity. However, stability is not only a monotonic function of capital. Elevating CAR for BLs worsens stability measures and banking soundness. The study reveals that the institutional type of BLs and their special regulation imposes a risk-mitigating and stabilizing effect on the housing, the capital, and the financial market which can be intensified if CAR are aligned to their individual business model. These findings advocate in favor of heterogeneous CAR that shape market structures and create most stable market conditions. The third part of this dissertation investigates a special component of the current regulatory requirements of Basel III, the countercyclical capital buffer (CCyB). The macroprudential tool strives to counteract the issue of procyclicality of the previous regulatory rules. Conducting computational experiments in an artificial market setting, we examine the macroeconomic performance of the CCyB by evaluating the dynamics of key stability indicators of the housing and the financial market. Under four different scenarios, an undisturbed market, a financial shock scenario, a positive housing demand shock scenario, and in times of a housing bubble, we test whether the macroprudential tool meets its regulatory goals. Doing this, we find that, in general, the CCyB performs well in stabilizing the housing and the financial market in all of the tested market settings. It is not able, however, to prevent any of the simulated crises to occur. Furthermore, its effectiveness depends on the magnitude of the shock and on how much buffer has been built up by banks in the previous periods. A CCyB introduced at the wrong time might even affect market conditions procyclically. As the introduction of a CCyB is currently discussed in different countries, this study contributes to current regulatory issues and provides valuable insights. With its three parts, this dissertation provides new insights into the relationship between financial and housing markets. Incorporating the special features of the housing market, it reveals the merits of a diversified financial market and the existence of specialized financial institutions and heterogeneous financial products. Furthermore, the results argue in favor of a heterogeneous regulation. Additionally, it provides information about the effectiveness of a currently discussed regulatory component, the CCyB. Hereby, this dissertation contributes to existing literature and has important implications for the design of financial markets and regulatory capital requirements in order to stabilize one of the most important markets of an economy, the housing market.
Die Integration der Marktperspektive in der Steuerung von Problemkrediten
(2015) Englert, Jan Patrick; Burghof, Hans-Peter
The treatment of non-performing loans by banks will remain relevant for the foreseeable future given the recurring nature of bad loan cycles. These cycles differ in their origins as they are triggered by different industries, different countries or a variety of economic contexts. Examples include the bursting of the dotcom bubble and the real estate bubble or the financial crisis in 2008. Likewise, political instability (Russia-Ukraine conflict, financial sanctions), ever-shorter and more volatile economic cycles, cross-border and cross-industry interdependencies, or crises and scandals can cause micro- and macroeconomic uncertainty with the accompanying risk of contagion to the real economy, the financial markets and thereby the credit markets. Almost ten years after the emergence of the financial crisis, European financial institutions are still under pressure, facing high levels of problem- and non-strategic loans. German banks are no exception in having to face these challenges too. Since bank lending still accounts for a dominant share of the market for corporate financing, portfolio steering and credit risk management were, for many years, limited in scope to banks’ internal processes only. An interaction between internal loan processes and capital markets was not foreseen. This has been fundamentally transformed with the emergence of functioning secondary markets for non- and sub-performing loans. These challenges are compelling European banks to address problem loan situations and the efficiency of their loan management processes, something that can only be accomplished through a clean-up of loan portfolios and the institutionalization of professional loan management practices along the entire value chain for problem loans. This requires a re-alignment of the traditional lending business and an anchoring of market-oriented problem loan management within banks’ credit processes. Accordingly, this research paper is based on the hypothesis that the sustainable management of problem loans is impossible without close interaction with capital markets, requiring a reorientation of the traditional lending business to deal with the bad loan business as a core business, even though precisely the opposite is the case.
Investor beliefs and their impact on financial markets
(2021) Hartmann, Carolin; Burghof, Hans-Peter
The idea of this thesis is to use new data sources to approximate investor beliefs. It investigates whether the approximation improves the measurement of return and volatility in existing model frameworks. The findings are that differences in implied volatility, Google Search volume and Twitter Volume can be proxy variables for investor beliefs. They have an impact on financial market indicators and on the prediction of future market movements. Comparison of the trading behaviour of individual and institutional investors to predict market movements The first approach is to create a new sentiment index which compares the difference between retail investor behaviour at the Stuttgart Stock Exchange (SSE) and professional investors at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE). The measure is a comparison between the implied volatility measures for the DAX at the FSE (VDAX and VDAX-NEW) and a newly created implied volatility index (VSSE) for the SSE. The sentiment index is significant in predicting the daily returns on a size-based long-short portfolio over a four-year period. The analysis shows the persistent inconsistence between prices of structured products for retail investors on the SSE and option prices of professional investors on the FSE. The results provide empirical evidence that there are significant persistent behavioural differences between the two investor types which is reflected in persistent mispricing. Measurability of investor beliefs and their impact on financial markets The second approach is to measure individual investor beliefs with Google search volume (GSV) and Twitter volume (TV) to analyse their impact on financial markets. The basis is a daily panel of 29 Dow Jones Industrial average index (DJIA) stocks over a time period of 3.5 years in a panel data set-up. The impact on trading activity measured by turnover, is positive for GSV and TV on the same day and the next day which indicates their predictive power. The impact on realized volatility (RV), indicating the share of noise traders on the market, is only positive and significant for TV. It is significant on the same day and the next day. The impact of GSV is not significant. The results support the idea that GSV and TV capture the beliefs of individual investors. Although they suggest that the impact of TV on financial markets is more important than the impact of GSV. Predictive power of Google and Twitter The third approach is to use GSV and TV as a proxy for investor attention and investor sentiment, to assess their predictive power on the RV of the DJIA. The basis is a time-series set-up with a vector autoregression (VAR) model over a period of 2.5 years. The findings show that GSV and TV granger cause RV, controlling for macroeconomic and financial factors. Again, the effect of TV on RV is more important than the effect of GSV. In-sample, the linear prediction model with GSV and TV outperforms a standard AR (1) process. Out-of-sample the AR (1) process outperforms the standard model with GSV and TV. Clustering for high and low volatility groups, the analysis shows that the effect of GSV and TV on RV changes. Especially in times of high and low RV, GSV and TV seem to contain new information, as they improve the model fit compared to a standard AR (1) process. However, the results are not persistent in- and out-of-sample. This underlines that the results of GSV and TV are not generally persistent but depend on the selected criteria. Overall, the results of this thesis show that investor beliefs have an impact on financial markets. The measures, such as a sentiment index based on implied volatility, GSV and TV are proxy variables for investor beliefs. Future research should further improve the comprehension of investor beliefs to improve causality and economic significance in the long term.
Sovereign and bank risk : contagion, policy uncertainty and interest rates
(2024) Bales, Stephan; Burghof, Hans-Peter
This dissertation addresses the dependence between sovereign and bank default risk and the importance of policy uncertainty and interest rates for this nexus. To this end, the thesis includes four self-contained but interrelated studies with different methodological approaches. The first paper sheds light on the cross-country contagion of sovereign and bank default risk between 2009 and 2021 to assess the introduction of the European Banking Union in 2014. Based on Credit Default Swap premia of systemically important banks in the 10 largest eurozone countries, the estimated network structures provide evidence that the introduction of the Single Supervisory Mechanism, as part of the European Banking Union, has been effective in reducing overall financial contagion in the short run (up to 1 month). In the long run, the risk dependence is still very pronounced. Nevertheless, a shock in sovereign or bank risk is less severely transmitted to other eurozone countries after 2014, indicated by lower volatility spillovers. Thus, the Banking Union supports financial stability by weakening the strength of dependence rather than eliminating the dependence itself. The second study takes a closer look at the domestic dependence between sovereign and bank risk in 14 countries. The estimation of dynamic conditional correlations indicates that the dependence is significantly higher in euro member states. This reveals a systematic eurozone risk factor mainly rooted in the home bias of domestic sovereign bond holdings of eurozone banks. Moreover, fixed-effect panel regressions indicate that the sovereign-bank correlation increases in times of great policy uncertainty, high interbank market rates, low bank lending margins, and a low ratio of core bank capital. Economically, banks with a low level of core equity capital are less capable of withstanding shocks to their balance sheets, which spills over to the state and results in higher risk dependence. In addition, banks charge each other higher rates for short-term lending during times of financial distress. In this way, bank liquidity issues and lending aversion in the interbank market are passed on to other banks and ultimately to the sovereign. Overall, the second study emphasizes the importance of bank capital adequacy regulations and joint European policies to mitigate domestic sovereign-bank dependencies. The third study extends prior results and examines the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the sovereign-bank nexus by introducing a continuous wavelet time domain. This setting allows to derive causal lead-lag relationships for each point in time. The assessment of the lead-lag relationships in 10 countries shows that a higher level of sovereign default risk leads to an increase in bank risk in the short horizon. In the medium run (6-32 months), the relationship reverses and the default risk of banks determines sovereign risk. Once the influence of policy uncertainty on sovereign and bank risk is eliminated, the partial coherency shows that the sovereign-bank dependence significantly weakens. This reveals the great relevance of political risk factors for the sovereign-bank nexus. The final study addresses the impact of different sources of uncertainty. Besides newspaper-based economic policy uncertainty, the study employs the implied volatility of options written on the S&P500 and a Twitter-based uncertainty index. Based on stock returns of the 22 largest U.S. banks, the computation of principal components, Granger causality, and volatility spillover provides evidence that EPU and Twitter-based uncertainty capture different sources of investor perception in the very short horizon (up to 1 week). Twitter captures consumer uncertainty more appropriately in the short run than newspapers, which usually have a delay in responding to news due to editorial processes. In addition, the study reveals that the impact of uncertainty is considerably stronger for banks with a high ratio of loans to total assets and a large ratio of derivatives to total bank assets. Moreover, banks with a greater loan ratio face a higher level of credit risk. Assuming that bank risk can be transmitted to the state through the sovereign-bank nexus, the results emphasize the importance of differentiating between the sources of uncertainty to evaluate its implications for financial stability. The findings also highlight the increasing importance of social media for the financial markets.
Testing market imperfections via genetic programming
(2011) Jansen, Sebastian; Burghof, Hans-Peter
The thesis checks the validity of the efficient markets hypothesis focusing on stock markets. Technical trading rules are generated by using an evolutionary optimization algorithm (Genetic Programming) based on training samples. The trading rules are subsequently applied to data samples unknown to the algorithm beforehand. The benchmark strategy consists of a classic buy-and-hold strategy in the DAX and the Hang Seng. The trading rules generally fail at consistently beating the benchmark thus indicating that market efficiency holds.
The connection between banking systems and the economy
(2021) Schmidt, Daniel Alexander; Burghof, Hans-Peter
Banks fulfil various tasks within an economy. While the functions of banks are comparable around the world, the banking business organisation and banking systems are not. In addition, the way in which banks conduct their business differs greatly depending on the legal structure of the institute. Given the important role of banks as well as the variety of banking systems and business models, analysing their influence on the economy and on firms is a relevant task of modern research. In this dissertation, I focus on European countries to answer the overall research question: How are banking systems and the economy connected? My contribution to the literature is threefold. (1) I show that the presence of savings banks and co-operative banks improve regional wealth and reduce inequality. (2) Furthermore, my analyses explain how those banking types enhance the performance of local firms, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. Moreover, I evaluate the connection between banking systems and the economy from a different angle. (3) I outline the impact of economic factors on regulatory capital requirements for large banks. The results suggest that banking regulation is not completely politically independent and differs between European states. I show that national economic preconditions change the parameters for banking business within a country. In my first project, my co-authors and I use panel data on regional levels to study the influence of regional banking systems on local wealth and inequality in five European countries. We know from the literature that banks behave differently depending on their characteristics such as the size, the legal form, their business purposes and their internal company structure. As the varying banking forms have different advantages and disadvantages, a diverse banking system should be beneficial. The econometrical analyses demonstrate the positive impact of a multiplex regional banking system on GDP per capita, the unemployment rate and the primary private household income per capita. The results support the insights from the literature and show the positive influence of small regional banks. The outcome suggests that certain banking forms are beneficial in different situations. For example, savings banks especially reduce local unemployment whereas co-operative banks improve regional GDP per capita, and LLCs have a particularly large impact on primary private household income per capita. In the third chapter, I specify the influence of regional banking systems on certain participants of local economies. Local and decentralized banks are better able to analyse soft information. This ability should be of advantage when working with new companies and smaller firms where, for example, the ability of the management is key for the success of such enterprises. The econometrical analyses in this chapter show the strong positive influence of savings banks, co-operative banks and LLCs on SMEs. The evidence suggests that the positive impact of smaller banks is also apparent when observing performance of all firms within a local economy, but is clearer when looking on SMEs in particular. In the fourth chapter, my co-authors and I analyse the connection between financial systems and the economy from a different perspective. Progressing from a regional level of observation, we concentrate on comparing country information. The literature suggests that politicians might be motivated to influence the regulation of financial institutions to the benefit of their respective country or their own re-election. In panel regressions including information from the EBA, bank balance sheet data and economic data, we demonstrate that the processes to identify systemically important institutions within Europe are comparable. Building on this finding, we show that national regulators adjust the equity requirements for such institutions (i.e. O-SIIs) depending on the economic situation of their respective country. Therefore, capital requirements are influenced by factors not necessarily connected to the systemic importance of large banks. This unequal treatment leads to different business environments for otherwise comparable banks, depending on the country in which they are located. This is especially relevant, as the target was to harmonize banking regulation for large institutions in Europe.
The role of traditional exchanges in fragmented markets : an empirical analysis post MIFID
(2015) Spankowski, Ulli; Burghof, Hans-Peter
The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) has changed regulated European equity trading significantly after its introduction in November 2007. This dissertation analyses the impact of MiFID on trading intensity and market quality from an intraday and interday perspective by investigating the British equity market. A second focus of this work is the analysis of the influence of high frequency traders in a fragmented market environment. In this context, this dissertation addresses the behavior of market participants and their influence on market quality during particular market scenarios in a fragmented market environment.

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