Question

Principles of banking and finance question

Describe how the presence of market imperfections explains the importance of financial intermediaries and the relative unimportance of financial markets in the financing of corporations.

Answer 1

Financial intermediaries benefit by carrying risk at relatively low transaction costs. Since higher risk assets on average earn a higher return, financial intermediaries can earn a profit on a diversified portfolio of risky assets. Individual investors benefit by earning returns on a pooled collection of assets issued by financial intermediaries at lower risk. Risk to individual investors is lowered through the pooling of assets by the financial intermediary.

If there are no informational or transactions costs, people could make loans to each other at no cost and would thus have no need for financial intermediaries.

Financial intermediaries can take advantage of economies of scale and thus lower transactions costs. For example, mutual funds take advantage of lower commissions because the scale of their purchases is higher than for an individual, while banks’ large scale allows them to keep legal and computing costs per transaction low. Economies of scale which help financial intermediaries lower transactions costs explains why financial intermediaries exist and are so important to the economy.

Financial intermediaries develop expertise in such areas as computer technology so that they can inexpensively provide liquidity services such as checking accounts that lower transactions costs for depositors. Financial intermediaries can also take advantage of economies of scale and engage in large transactions that have a lower cost per dollar of transaction.

Investors in financial instruments who engage in information collection face a free-rider problem, which means other investors may be able to benefit from their information without paying for it. Individual investors therefore have inadequate incentives to devote resources to gather information about borrowers who issue securities. Financial intermediaries avoid the free-rider problem because they make private loans to borrowers rather than buy the securities borrowers have issued. Since they will reap all the benefits from the information they collect, their information collection activities will be more profitable. They thus have greater incentive to invest in information collection.

Although it might seem a good idea to “copy and paste” regulatory frameworks that ensure the soundness of a financial system from one country to the other, this is usually not a good idea. Developed and developing countries have quite different financial systems. Incorporating a system of deposit insurance will surely result in an increase in deposits at financial intermediaries. However, without proper regulations (i.e., prudential regulation and supervision) to limit the moral hazard problems associated with a system of deposit insurance, banks will probably accept more risks than they would otherwise do. This is obviously not a desired consequence. The increase in moral hazard problems will probably offset the benefit derived from avoiding bank runs (the most immediate effect of a system of deposit insurance).

Financial intermediaries operating in countries with relatively weak property rights and legal systems usually require a lot of collateral when making loans. The rationale for that behavior is that in the event that the borrower defaults, the bank knows that it will be quite difficult and expensive to recover its loan. Therefore, requesting extra collateral might help the bank speed up the process. In practice, a bank that has requested two other houses as collateral for a mortgage has better chances to recover its loan in the event of default. Of course this means that fewer individuals will have access to mortgages (even those with excellent credit risk are left out), since it is quite difficult to come up with such an amount of collateral (usually having your parents as cosigners and using your parents’ house as collateral is not enough). Inefficient financial systems make access to credit much more difficult in some countries, but it is fair to say that this might be the result of inefficient legal systems. As explained earlier, inefficient financial systems contribute to lower economic growth rates. This example illustrates how difficult it can be for a young individual to buy a house, resulting in less expenditure in residential investment.

The process of financial innovation is generally good for the economy: Its goal is to create new financial instruments as a response to the ever-changing preferences of financial system participants. One of its most beneficial effects is to increase the efficiency of the financial system. This process also can be risky at times. The creation of new financial instruments is often associated with their mismanagement. Sometimes this can result in the creation of asset-price bubbles, as happened with mortgage-backed securities (or CDOs, or SIVs) in the 2007–2009 crisis. When these instruments are improperly priced, this can disrupt the financial system. Regulators can at best be one step behind in this process, since usually as a profitable opportunity is created (e.g., by trading MBSs, CDOs, etc.) many financial intermediaries will follow this path. Only after there is a thorough understanding of the structure and risk of new financial instruments can proper regulations be written and enforced. But this usually only happens after there is a disruption in the financial system.