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This dissertation examines several aspects of U.S. financial institutions’ real estate-related activity. The first two essays examine the impact of Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) membership and funding on bank and thrift holding company (BHC and THC) risk and returns. The first essay uses risk measures derived from BHC and THC stock prices, while the second essay uses risk measures based upon BHC and THC bond prices. The third essay studies the impact of BHC investment in real estate on risk and returns using measures based on stock prices. In the first essay, BHC and THC stock portfolios are formed along several dimensions. Bivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) models are estimated to produce measures of total risk, market risk, and interest rate risk for the time period from the beginning of 2001 through 2009. Two sets of results related to FHLB activity are obtained. First, FHLB membership is found to be associated with lower total risk and market risk while having no association with interest rate risk. Second, and similarly, greater reliance on FHLB advances is associated with lower total risk and market risk but is not associated with interest rate risk. These results are consistent with the view that the risks created by government backing of the FHLB system and some of the system’s policies are mitigated by FHLB policies and products that reduce risk. In addition, THC stocks are found to have lower total and market risk than the portfolio of BHC stocks. The second essay investigates the relationship of both FHLB membership and funding with BHC and THC risk by using the cost of uninsured debt as a measure of risk. These relationships are analyzed in a simultaneous equation regression framework using data from the start of the third quarter of 2002 through the end of the first quarter of 2009. The cost of uninsured debt is proxied by yield spreads calculated from trading data on holding company (HC) bonds. Several interesting results are obtained. Reliance on advances is found to have a negative effect on the cost of debt throughout the sample period (the third quarter of 2002 through the first quarter of 2009). Cost of debt has a significant effect on the level of advances only during the recent financial crisis (the third quarter of 2007 through the first quarter of 2009), when the effect is negative. The negative association between cost of debt and the level of advances suggests that BHCs and THCs, on the whole, do not use FHLB advances to make unusually risky loans and supports the argument that FHLB policies and services have some risk-reducing effects. FHLB membership, independent of advances, is found to have no influence on HC cost of debt. Additional analysis indicates that THC status is associated with higher cost of debt than BHC status. The third essay examines the influence of real estate investment by BHCs from the third quarter of 1990 through the fourth quarter of 2010 on their risks and returns. Portfolios are formed of BHC stocks according to BHCs’ ratio of real estate investment to total assets and according to the type of regulation - lenient or strict - under which they invest in real estate. Tests of differences in median portfolio returns between these portfolios are performed. In addition, the effects of real estate investment on risk and return are estimated using univariate GARCH models of portfolio returns. The main results are as follows: 1) BHCs that invest in real estate have greater total risk and lower risk-adjusted returns than those that do not; 2) greater real estate investment is associated with lower returns and greater market risk for some types of BHCs while it is not associated with significant differences in total risk or risk-adjusted returns; and 3) BHCs that invest in real estate under relatively lenient rules have lower returns, greater total risk, and lower risk-adjusted returns than those that invest in real estate under relatively strict rules. The results indicate that benefits from real estate investment by banks - such as diversification of cash flows, economies of scale and scope, and increased charter value - are outweighed by greater variability of returns and lower returns due to BHCs’ lack of expertise in the field. The findings also provide evidence that rules granting banks greater freedom to invest in real estate result in increased risk but not increased returns. / Economics

The syndicated loan is become more and more important for firm's financing. We study three important aspects of loan syndication: the lead arranger's reputation effect on syndicated loan pricing, the switching behavior for repeat syndicate loans and the effect of country-specific bank-firm ownership structure on syndicated loan pricing and bank-firm relationship of repeat loans. The first chapter analyzes the reputation effect of the lead arranger on syndicated loan pricing, based on a sample of loan facilities to non-financial U.S. firms over the 1994-2006 period. Theory suggests that the reputation/spread relationship should generally be positive because more reputable lenders usually employ more costly loan screening and monitoring techniques and therefore must be compensated with a higher spread. After controlling for endogeneity in lender-borrower matching, the empirical results show that the reputable arrangers charge a "reputation premium" for monitoring and due diligence, and the commitment against extracting the information rent from borrowers. The results also show that the less-reputable arrangers offer a "reputation discount", since the market competition from both the loan market and bond market makes it more difficult for less reputable arrangers to sustain the reputation mechanism. In addition, the reputation effect on pricing becomes less significant when the borrower enters a repeat loan relationship with a prior or existing lender. Finally, the study finds that the arranger's reputation can reduce the lead share retained by the lead arranger in its loan portfolio, which serves as evidence that reputation also mitigates the information asymmetry between the lead arranger and participant banks. The second chapter analyzes the switching behavior for two types of repeat loans: migrating loans that remain within the same bank reputation class and loans migrating to a different reputation class. The theoretical literature argues that banks (lenders) and firms (borrowers) benefit from entering into a relationship-lending arrangement. In the syndicated loan market, however, it is very common for repeat loans to switch from one bank to another. We present a model that establishes conditions for implementing empirical investigations relating to relationship lending and the characteristics of the separating equilibrium in the loan market. Using explanatory variables describing firms, loans, and loan syndicates, we find that lending within the high quality bank sector reveals evidence that is consistent with relationship lending. That is, some firms forego longer maturity loans and less oversight to remain with their original lender. A similar finding does not hold for repeat lending in the lower quality bank sector. Regarding loans that migrate in either direction between the high and low quality banking sectors, firm risk is the most important determinant. Relatively riskier firms move down to lower quality lenders while relatively safer firms move up to higher quality lenders. The third chapter investigates the determinants of loan pricing and repeat loan relationship for a sample of 6,180 non-U.S.. firm-loan observations for the period 1998-2007. This paper focuses on the relation between a country-specific governance indicator and country-specific bank-firm ownership structures on loan pricing and the management of a lending relationship between the syndicate bank and firm. We evaluate the relationship between country-specific bank ownership structure and the main characteristics of loan, which are mainly measured by loan pricing and loan switching decision. The paper examines three interrelated questions: 1.How is loan pricing affected by country-specific bank-firm ownership structure? 2. Does country-specific bank-firm ownership structure influence the decision to switch lenders in the repeat loan market? 3. Is country-specific bank-firm ownership structure more important for a borrower to migrate to a higher reputation lender than to a lower reputation lender? We use loan-characteristic, bank-characteristic, and firm-characteristic variables as well as country-specific corruption and country-specific bank-firm ownership structure variables to explore the effect on loan pricing and loan-switching decisions. Using logistic regression analysis, we find that loan switching is less likely for firms when the bank controls the firm, especially in the case of a bank-controlled firm borrows from a low reputation syndicated loan lender. However, when the firm controls a local bank, there is no impact on the firm's switching decision in the syndicated loan market. The bank-controlling firm is as likely to switch as a firm that does not control a bank even though the firm is more opaque to the financial market. Our results suggest that in the international syndicated loan market, the bank-firm relationship is partly shaped by country-specific characteristics and information asymmetry of firms to the financial market. These chapters explores the bank and firm behavior in the syndicated loan market and make the contribution to the literature by offering further knowledge and deeper understanding about the bank-firm relationship and behavior in the loan syndication structure. / Business Administration

M.S.

The problems of this study may be stated as follows: (1) to show the various methods used by Virginia savings and loan associations in handling their delinquent accounts, (2) to determine by research their major advantages and disadvantages, and (3) to determine which methods or procedures would serve the best interests of the associations and their customers. Information concerning the current procedures and conditions were supplied by thirty (30) savings and loan officers, who answered questionnaires mailed to them. These replies represented over 50 per cent of the associations currently doing business in Virginia. In addition, selected representative associations were visited and operating personnel interviewed. The conclusions which were reached as a result of the analysis of the accumulated information have been stated. The study shows that procedures followed by the different savings and loan associations vary to a considerable extent and that innovation in management techniques would benefit many of these organizations. / Master of Science

This paper has three chapters. In the first chapter, we develop a measure of housing sentiment for 24 cities in China by parsing through newspaper articles from 2006 to 2017.We find that the sentiment index has strong predictive power for future house prices even after controlling for past price changes and macroeconomic fundamentals. The index leads price movements by nearly 9 months, and it is highly correlated with other survey expectations measures that come with a significant time lag. In the second chapter, we show that short term house price movement is predictable by solely using newspaper and historical price change. In the last chapter, using the sentiment index constructed from newspaper, we got empirical results to show that some people are forward-looking when deciding default and a positive sentiment (anticipated house price appreciation) will lower the Z score of probability of default by 0.028. / Doctor of Philosophy / This paper has three chapters. In the first chapter, we develop a measure of housing sentiment for 24 cities in China by parsing through newspaper articles from 2006 to 2017. Two sentiment index were created using text mining method based on keywords matching and machine learning respectively.We find that the sentiment index has strong predictive power for future house prices even after controlling for past price changes and macroeconomic fundamentals. The index leads price movements by nearly 9 months, and it is highly correlated with other survey expectations measures that come with a significant time lag. In contrast, we find much weaker feedback coming from past prices to current sentiment. In the second chapter, we show that short term house price movement is predictable by solely using newspaper and historical price change. The accuracy of the prediction could be up to 0.96 for out of sample prediction. We first use a text mining method to transfer all the text information into numerical vector space, which is able to represent the extracted full information contained in a text. Then by adopting machine learning models of Neural networks, SVM, and random forest, we classified the newspaper into 1 (up) and 0 (down) group and constructed an index as the mean label accordingly. In the last chapter, by merging the Fannie Mae loan performance data with the sentiment index constructed from newspaper as well as the macro variables about local market, we got empirical results to show that some people are forward-looking when deciding default and a positive sentiment ( anticipated house price appreciation) will lower the Z score of probability of default by 0.028. We found that during the recession period, people access more information when they try to default, on top of the traditional econ conditions and historical house price, they also consider the future house price change. Moreover, borrowers with high income, high home value, and high FICO scores tend to pay more attention to future price change. However, for those who are less experienced in this game (first time home buyer), they only pay attention to the historical price change during the recession period.

Educational loan defaulting is a problem increasing on a worldwide scale. In Malaysia, the default rate is almost 50% in the case of loans advanced to students in higher education. With this in mind, for the first time, this study analyses this chronic problem in-depth with consideration to primary data collected from a cross-section of students currently studying in public universities in Malaysia. With help from the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the empirical analysis establishes that loan defaults are influenced by a complex interaction of personal-, social- and psychology-related variables: students’ attitude, intention to repay loan, parental influence, perceptions that loan repayment will affect quality of life after graduation, perceptions towards loan agreement, and an awareness of loan repayment issues created by the media. This study succeeds in disentangling the precise impact of such variables in regard to loan defaults. The findings are of great relevance to government-funding agencies, which can better plan the loan advancement and recovery process once they understand the true reasons behind defaults. The novel method utilised for the first time with the objective to study the default issue should also be useful to academic researchers seeking to conduct similar studies in the context of other countries. This study should also assist policy makers in planning long-term strategies in terms of assessing, designing and evaluating new loan schemes. Developing countries, such as Malaysia, face competing demands on their limited financial resources. An increase in the recovery rate will bring in funds that can be lent to additional students or used for strengthening educational infrastructure. These measures add useful value to the social and economic set-up of the country.