Widespread support for capital account liberalization in emerging markets has recently shifted to skepticism and even support for capital controls in certain circumstances. This sea-change in attitudes has been bolstered by the inconclusive macroeconomic evidence on the benefits of capital account liberalization. There are several compelling reasons why it is difficult to measure the aggregate impact of capital controls in very different countries. Instead, a new and more promising approach is more detailed microeconomic studies of how capital controls have generated specific distortions in individual countries. Several recent papers have used this approach and examined very different aspects of capital controls - from their impact on crony capitalism in Malaysia and on financing constraints in Chile, to their impact on US multinational behavior and the efficiency of stock market pricing. Each of these diverse studies finds a consistent result: capital controls have significant economic costs and lead to a misallocation of resources. This new microeconomic evidence suggests that capital controls are not just "sand", but rather "mud in the wheels" of market discipline

The thesis examines subordinated debt holder market discipline in UK credit institutions during the period 1995 to 2002. The topic is relevant as current research is questioning the role and effectiveness of rules-based bank regulatory oversight, and favouring, instead, incentive-compatible regulatory design and market discipline. In particular, the literature proposes using signals from subordinated debt holders to constrain bank risk-taking. In addition, this market oversight may provide information signals to regulatory agencies that are useful in improving bank regulatory design. The thesis researches two prominent issues related to subordinated debt holder market discipline and, therefore, contributes to the debate in introducing incentive-compatible polices in bank regulatory design. First, testing the risk sensitivity of UK credit institution subordinated debt spreads assesses whether investors are signalling bank risk in market prices. The UK evidence supports the theoretical literature in claiming that eliminating too-big-to-fail policies can encourage effective incentive-based mechanisms. Secondly, the research examines the appropriateness of introducing a mandatory subordinated debt policy in the UK. The empirical analysis raises a number of themes, many of which are in stark contrast to US and other European banks' subordinated debt characteristics. The conclusion is that the regular issuance of subordinated debt should be the overriding policy tool to signal and constrain bank risk-taking (i.e. direct discipline). Extending the policy to include indirect market discipline through a standardised mandatory subordinated debt requirement would impose substantial costs and should not be implemented.

Three independent models are built based on information asymmetric to analysis discipline effects brought by banks` issuance of subordinated debts. The research results offer the theory of subordinated debts discipline effects. First, an adverse selection model is built to examine banks¡¦ policies when issuing subordinated debts based on the banks¡¦ credit risks. The result shows that banks with lower credit risks are more likely to issue subordinated debts, since after the issuance, the yields of these debts are lower. When depositors observe the lower yields of the subordinated debts, they would presume that these banks have lower credit risks. As a result, banks with lower credit risks can decrease their operational costs by issuing subordinated debts. This model has demonstrated that the market can discipline banks indirectly through the issuance of subordinated debts. Second, a moral hazard model to show that issuing of subordinated debts by banks can bring direct market discipline and indirect market discipline to make their loans less risky. The direct market discipline means that the risk level of bank will be evaluated by professional investors. The investors will require that the yields accord to the banks risk. For lowering the cost of issuing subordinated debts, banks will make their loans less risky. The indirect market discipline means that the depositors would take the yields of these debts as a significant signal indicating banks risk levels. The depositors will decide to withdraw their savings when the bank signals a higher risk, and keep their saving when the bank signals a lower risk. I prove that issuing of subordinated debts by banks can bring about these two kinds of market discipline. The model has also demonstrated that if the bank supervisor can utilize the information of issuing subordinated debts effectively, they will achieve higher supervisory goal. Third, a reputation model is built to show that for reputation concerns, a bank would change its monitoring decisions if it issues subordinated debts. Reputation effect in banks is different in different scenarios. When the good banks probability of success is very high, reputation effect would induce the bad bank to start monitor it`s borrowers, and the efforts of bad banks monitoring would be increased by time. When the bad banks probability of success is very low, reputation effect would induce the good bank start monitoring its borrowers. and the efforts of bad banks monitoring would be decreases by time.

High quality financial reporting is critically important for bank regulation, particularly market discipline, but limited evidence exists on why banks provide different levels of financial reporting quality. I examine whether institutional investors and financial analysts impact bank financial reporting quality. Although I find no impact of analysts on bank financial reporting quality, institutional ownership is positively associated with financial reporting quality, and this relation is strongest for banks with high information asymmetry and for “monitoring” institutional investors. Institutional investors also sell shares following the announcement of a restatement, suggesting they are willing to use the threat of exit as a mechanism to influence bank managers and demand financial reporting quality. Finally, I find institutional investors demand financial reporting quality primarily for high risk banks and also reduce ex-ante bank risk and ex-post non-performing loans. Collectively, these results suggest institutional investors are an important component of bank governance. / text

Along this dissertation I propose to walk the reader through several macroeconomic implications of information asymmetries, with a special focus on financial issues. This exercise is mainly theoretical: I develop stylized models that aim at capturing macroeconomic phenomena such as self-fulfilling liquidity dry-ups, the rise and the fall of securitization markets, and the creation of systemic risk. The dissertation consists of three chapters. The first one proposes an explanation to self-fulfilling liquidity dry-ups. The second chapters proposes a formalization of the concept of market discipline and an application to securitization markets as risk-sharing mechanisms. The third one offers a complementary analysis to the second as the rise of securitization is presented as banker optimal response to strict capital constraints. Two concepts that do not have unique acceptations in economics play a central role in these models: liquidity and market discipline. The liquidity of an asset refers to the ability for his owner to transform it into current consumption goods. Secondary markets for long-term assets play thus an important role with that respect. However, such markets might be illiquid due to adverse selection. In the first chapter, I show that: (1) when agents expect a liquidity dry-up on such markets, they optimally choose to self-insure through the hoarding of non-productive but liquid assets; (2) this hoarding behavior worsens adverse selection and dries up market liquidity; (3) such liquidity dry-ups are Pareto inefficient equilibria; (4) the government can rule them out. Additionally, I show that idiosyncratic liquidity shocks à la Diamond and Dybvig have stabilizing effects, which is at odds with the banking literature. The main contribution of the chapter is to show that market breakdowns due to adverse selection are highly endogenous to past balance-sheet decisions. I consider that agents are under market discipline when their current behavior is influenced by future market outcomes. A key ingredient for market discipline to be at play is that the market outcome depends on information that is observable but not verifiable (that is, information that cannot be proved in court, and consequently, upon which enforceable contracts cannot be based). In the second chapter, after introducing this novel formalization of market discipline, I ask whether securitization really contributes to better risk-sharing: I compare it with other mechanisms that differ on the timing of risk-transfer. I find that for securitization to be an efficient risk-sharing mechanism, it requires market discipline to be strong and adverse selection not to be severe. This seems to seriously restrict the set of assets that should be securitized for risk-sharing motive. Additionally, I show how ex-ante leverage may mitigate interim adverse selection in securitization markets and therefore enhance ex-post risk-sharing. This is interesting because high leverage is usually associated with “excessive” risktaking. In the third chapter, I consider risk-neutral bankers facing strict capital constraints; their capital is indeed required to cover the worst-case-scenario losses. In such a set-up, I find that: 1) banker optimal autarky response is to diversify lower-tail risk and maximize leverage; 2) securitization helps to free up capital and to increase leverage, but distorts incentives to screen loan applicants properly; 3) market discipline mitigates this problem, but if it is overestimated by the supervisor, it leads to excess leverage, which creates systemic risk. Finally, I consider opaque securitization and I show that the supervisor: 4) faces uncertainty about the trade-off between the size of the economy and the probability and the severity of a systemic crisis; 5) can generally not set capital constraints at the socially efficient level.

Pleinement en phase avec le contexte de crise financière internationale d'une part, et avec les discussions autour de la réforme de la réglementation bancaire (Bâle III) d'autre part, cette thèse met l'accent sur la notion de la discipline de marché dans le secteur bancaire, l'un des piliers du dispositif bâlois. La thèse cherche, particulièrement, à répondre à la problématique suivante : les actionnaires de la banque peuvent-ils être considérés comme acteurs de la discipline de marché ou, au contraire, comme des acteurs contrariant les objectifs des autorités réglementaires ? Par le biais de deux études empiriques menées sur un échantillon de 247 banques européennes, sur une période allant de 2004 à 2006, cette recherche a étudié les déterminants de la probabilité de défaillance des banques (en tant que mesure de risque) et le rôle disciplinaire de l'actionnaire (à travers l'impact de la charter value sur la prise de risque des banques). Les résultats de ces études montrent : (1) que le ratio de solvabilité (ratio de Bâle I et II) n'est pas un indicateur robuste de la défaillance bancaire; (2) que d'autres critères (autres que l'adéquation des fonds propres), telles que la qualité des actifs, la profitabilité ou encore la liquidité, peuvent jouer un rôle important dans la détermination de la probabilité de défaillance des banques ; (3) que la charter value permet de discipliner la prise de risque des banques, ce qui est en faveur de l'hypothèse du rôle actif des actionnaires dans la discipline de marché ; (4) que la discipline par la charter value est totalement inefficace pour les grandes banques systémiques (too big to fail). Ces résultats vont globalement dans le sens de la réforme de Bâle III qui vise, notamment, à réviser la composition des fonds propres réglementaires et à appliquer un traitement particulier aux banques systémiques. Ce travail doctoral donne lieu à une contribution théorique qui permet d'éclairer le concept de discipline de marché dans le secteur bancaire, ainsi qu'à des contributions opérationnelles sous forme de recommandations aux régulateurs et superviseurs de l'activité bancaire. / Fully in line with the international financial crisis on the one hand, and with the discussions on the reform of banking regulations issued by Basel III on the other, this thesis focuses on the concept of market discipline in the banking sector, one of the pillars of Basel accords. The thesis seeks, in particular, to answer the following question: can bank shareholders be considered as potential source of market discipline or, conversely, as actors frustrating the objectives of regulators? Using two empirical studies conducted on a sample of 247 European banks over a period from 2004 to 2006, this study investigated the determinants of banks failure probability (as a measure of bank risk) and the shareholder disciplinary role (through the effect of charter value on banks risk-taking). Results highlight that: (1) the solvency ratio (Basel I and II ratio) is not a robust indicator of bank failure, (2) other criteria (others than capital adequacy), such as the asset quality, the profitability or the liquidity, can play an important role in the determination of bank failure probability (3) the charter value constrain the risk-taking of banks which confirms the effectiveness of shareholders discipline (4) that the charter value discipline is totally ineffective for large systemic banks (TBTF). These results converge globally with the Basel III reform which aims, in particular, to revise the composition of regulatory capital and apply special treatment on systemic banks. This doctoral work brings theoretical contributions which add to bank market discipline literature as well as operational contributions in the form of recommendations for regulators and supervisors of banking system.

nÃo hà / Verifica se hà influÃncia do gerenciamento de resultados no custo de capital das debÃntures emitidas no Brasil, definido este custo pela taxa de remuneraÃÃo efetiva das debÃntures. Parte-se da hipÃtese de que, no Brasil, o gerenciamento de resultados nÃo influencia o custo de capital relacionado Ãs emissÃes de debÃntures. Esta hipÃtese baseia-se na premissa de que, devido à forma como o custo de capital das emissÃes de debÃntures à definido no Brasil, os investidores interessados e o banco mandatÃrio possuem informaÃÃes internas da empresa, obtidas durante os processos de road show, due diligence e bookbuilding. Para tanto, utilizaram-se tÃcnicas de regressÃo para a identificaÃÃo do grau de gerenciamento de resultados, a partir do modelo proposto por Kang e Sivaramakrishnan (1995), obtendo-se um indicador por empresa e outro por empresa para cada ano observado. Foi considerado o perÃodo entre 1998 e 2010, o qual contou com 1.067 observaÃÃes. Para a verificaÃÃo da associaÃÃo entre o gerenciamento de resultados e o custo de capital, foram analisadas 236 emissÃes de debÃntures no perÃodo mencionado, considerando tÃtulos tanto com remuneraÃÃo prefixada quanto indexadas Ãs taxas DI e IGP-M. Nas regressÃes foram tambÃm consideradas variÃveis de controle, sendo estas relacionadas Ãs debÃntures em si, como maturidade (prazo para pagamento do principal); relacionadas à posiÃÃo financeira da empresa, como crescimento das vendas, retorno sobre o patrimÃnio lÃquido e endividamento oneroso; e relacionadas à estrutura da organizaÃÃo, como tamanho, origem do capital, negociaÃÃo em bolsa e nÃvel de governanÃa corporativa. Os resultados nÃo permitiram rejeitar a hipÃtese da pesquisa, uma vez que nÃo foi identificada associaÃÃo estatisticamente significante entre o gerenciamento de resultados e o custo de capital das debÃntures emitidas no Brasil. Este resultado, bem como a ausÃncia de significÃncia estatÃstica das variÃveis financeiras, està de acordo com as premissas de que nas negociaÃÃes primÃrias os investidores possuiriam informaÃÃes privilegiadas, reduzindo assim a relevÃncia da informaÃÃo contÃbil.

No description available.

This dissertation topic is on the market discipline of banking institutions during the most recent business cycle (i.e., the business cycle surrounding the Great Recession of 2007). Market discipline has been a focal point of banking regulation since the implementation of Basel II in June 2004. In an attempt to provide a comprehensive framework that provides international standards on bank supervision, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision designed a complementary three-pillar structure. These include: capital requirements, the supervisory review process, and market discipline. Recent research has shown that the success of capital requirement ultimately lies in how well it serves market discipline (Gordy and Howells, 2006). The FDIC defines market discipline as: The forces in a free market (without the influence of government regulation) which tend to control and limit the riskiness of a financial institution’s investment and lending activities. Such forces include the concern of depositors for the safety of their deposits and the concern of bank investors for the safety and soundness of their institutions. Source: FDIC Glossary of Definitions Thus, regulators must account for market discipline in their design of a new regulatory framework. In Chapter 1, I investigate how the yield spreads of debt issued by U.S. Systemically Important Banks (SIBs) in the secondary market are associated with their idiosyncratic risk factors, as well as bond features, and macroeconomic factors, over a complete business cycle across the pre-crisis (2003:Q1 to 2007:Q3), crisis (2007:Q4 to 2009:Q2), and post-crisis (2009:Q3 to 2014:Q3) periods. Both Global and Domestic SIBs (G-SIBs and D-SIBs) are considered. Economic theory suggests that as SIB risk-levels increase, bond-buyers demand a higher yield spread (lower price) on the debt security (Evanoff and Wall, 2000). However, explicit and implicit government safety nets before, during, and after the crisis complicate the market discipline mechanism and make a priori predictions of the yield changes in response to increases in risk inconclusive. This renders the issue an empirical exercise. By stratifying across the most recent business cycle, I am able to investigate two broad objectives. First, I study how bond-buyers react to increases in SIB risk across the recent business cycle. Second, I investigate the degree to which the proportion of the variance in yield spreads explained by macroeconomic factors changed across the phases of the cycle. Unusual volatility during and after the financial crisis in the macroeconomic realm, and the keen focus by regulators, investors, and other stakeholders on idiosyncratic risk makes it theoretically unclear which countervailing force is the primary driver of yield spreads in the secondary market. The data includes over 9.7 million bond trades across the 26 SIBs based in the U.S. I obtain several interesting results. First, bond-buyers do react to increases in bank risk factors (leverage, credit risk, inefficiency, lack of profitability, illiquidity, and interest rate risk) by charging higher yield spreads. Second, bond buyer response to risk is sensitive to the phase of the business cycle. Third, the proportion of variance in yield spreads driven by issuing-firm-specific and bond-specific risk factors (as opposed to macroeconomic factors) increased from 29% in the pre-crisis period to 48% and 77% during the crisis and post-crisis periods, respectively. This last finding indicates that market discipline greatly improved in the two latter phases of the business cycle, and while the literature on market discipline following the 2007-2009 crises is still scant, this result is consistent with some extant studies (Balasubramnian and Cyree, 2014). Despite unprecedented accommodative fiscal and monetary policies during and after the financial crisis, market discipline in the secondary bond market has strengthened considerably, providing evidence that regulatory intervention and market discipline can work in tandem. These results can advise regulators, investors, bank risk managers, and others, on how bond traders react to issuing-bank, bond, and macroeconomic factors. For example, regulators and policy makers should account for the effect of market discipline in formulation of their monetary and fiscal policies designed to achieve specific targets because, otherwise, they may miss the targets. In Chapter 2, I study the impact of bank risk taking and macroeconomic factors on the growth of interest-bearing deposits and interest rates paid on those deposits for U.S. commercial banks with less than $10 billion in total assets (known as commercial banking organizations or CBOs). The sample period for deposit growth covers the recent business cycle (2003:Q1 to 2014:Q4) and it is broken down into pre-crisis (2003:Q1 to 2007:Q3), crisis (2007:Q4 to 2009:Q2), and post-crisis (2009:Q3 to 2014:Q4) sub-periods in order to contrast the patterns of effects over these phases of the business cycle. Deposit pricing equations are estimated over the post-crisis period only due to data limitations. Separate deposit growth rate equations are estimated across four deposit types (transaction, savings, large, and small time deposits), while separate deposit pricing equations are estimated across 30 deposit types (including various terms and balances for certificates of deposits as well as personal and business money market accounts and interest checking accounts, among others). Bank heterogeneity is accounted for via fixed effects estimation. I obtain several interesting results. First, there is a relationship between bank risk taking and subsequent deposit withdrawals over the three sub-sample periods, indicating that depositors do respond to bank riskiness under the pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis environments (market discipline). Second, there is also market discipline in deposit pricing as evidenced by the statistically significant and consistent relationship between bank risk taking and deposit pricing across all 30 different product types I study. Third, when deposits are disaggregated into insured and uninsured components, I find that the uninsured depositors react to changes in bank credit risk via deposit withdrawals (during the pre-crisis period) and pricing (during the post-crisis period) to a greater extent than do the fully insured depositors, supporting the presence of moral hazard. Fourth, since the pre-crisis period, macroeconomic factors have become even a greater force in driving the changes in deposit growth because of market intervention and implicit and explicit government guarantees. As macroeconomic factors drive more of the variation in deposit growth, mechanisms to keep CBO risk in check depend less on the depositors and banks and more on macroeconomic policy. In Chapter 3, I investigate the impact of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) of 2010 on accounting fees for commercial banks with less than $10 billion in total assets (known as commercial banking organizations or CBOs), while controlling for their litigation risk via legal fees spent on outside counsel. Using panel data from 2008 through 2014 for U.S. CBOs, I find that litigation risk is the primary driver of accounting fees for “large” CBOs with $1 billion - $10 billion in total assets. This finding is contrary to previous studies, which attribute the majority of explained variance in those fees to firm size alone. To my knowledge, these results are the first to explicitly confirm the litigation risk-audit fee hypothesis (Seetharaman et al., 2002) for the banking industry. In terms of magnitude, I find that for every one percent increase in legal fees, accounting fees will increase from two to nine basis points, depending on CBO size. Controlling for bank-specific risk and the general business cycle, our results show that Dodd-Frank has the greatest impact on accounting fees for small CBOs (<$500 million in total assets), which experience an increase in these expenses of 73% due to the drafting of the Act, and an increase of 105% due to the subsequent passage (compared to an increase of 56% and 86% in accounting fees for the large CBO cohort during the drafting and subsequent passage of Dodd-Frank, respectively). I also find that a decrease in bank leverage (for CBOs of all sizes) and an increase in real estate loans to total loans (for large CBOs) are indicative of higher accounting fees. / Economics

Os depositantes, ao aplicarem seus recursos nos bancos, delegam a estes a função de monitoramento dos tomadores de empréstimos e, com isso, podem concentrar seus esforços em monitorar a instituição bancária. A disciplina de mercado ex-post é exercida na eventualidade de os bancos assumirem riscos excessivos, e de os depositantes, ao serem informados de tal fato, serem capazes de agir no sentido de disciplinar os bancos, seja pela requisição de taxas de juros mais elevadas, seja pelo saque de seus depósitos. A disciplina de mercado ex-ante é exercida sobre os gestores dos bancos que, conhecedores das conseqüências de assumirem riscos excessivos para suas instituições, preferem não tomar essa atitude. Um dos veículos de informação para o exercício do monitoramento, e subsídio para as ações de disciplinamento, são os demonstrativos contábeis divulgados periodicamente. A aplicação dos princípios contábeis faculta ao gestor o exercício da discricionariedade na apuração das acumulações contábeis, accruals. Essa possibilidade permite que a discricionariedade seja exercida de forma oportunística, prática conhecida genericamente na literatura contábil como manipulação contábil / gerenciamento de resultados, com o propósito de iludir o usuário da informação contábil e levar à obtenção de benefícios tanto para os bancos como pessoalmente para seus gestores. O objetivo desta tese foi verificar a existência de evidências empíricas de que as acumulações contábeis discricionárias influenciam o exercício da disciplina de mercado exercida pelos depositantes dos bancos brasileiros. O estudo efetuou a separação das acumulações contábeis não-discricionárias e discricionárias por meio da utilização das variáveis de despesas e saldo de provisão para créditos de liquidação duvidosa, saldo e sua variação das operações de crédito, saldo e sua variação das operações em atraso, operações registradas como prejuízo e, além disso, inova com a consideração do risco das operações de crédito por meio da utilização, como proxy do risco, da taxa de juros das operações de crédito. Utiliza modelos econométricos para avaliar a influência das acumulações contábeis discricionárias na disciplina de mercado, por meio da utilização das variáveis de taxa de juros e variação dos volumes de depósitos, índice de alavancagem, despesas de provisão para créditos de liquidação duvidosa, despesas de pessoal, razão das receitas de prestação de serviço e outras despesas administrativas, retorno dos ativos e seu desvio da média amostral e liquidez, além de variáveis de controle. Quanto à formulação teórica, recorreu-se, sob o aspecto econômico, à teoria do monitoramento delegado; sob o aspecto contábil, à abordagem positiva da contabilidade; e, por fim, sob o aspecto econométrico, ao método generalizado dos momentos sistêmico (GMM-sis). Obtiveram-se dados públicos e próprios do Banco Central do Brasil, relativos a 102 bancos, os quais foram tratados para contemplar os efeitos de escala das instituições por meio de normalizações pelos ativos totais e créditos totais, onde aplicável e, também, os efeitos inflacionários, por meio do deflacionamento pelo IPCA. Nos resultados obtidos, foram encontrados indícios da existência da prática de disciplina de mercado por parte dos depositantes, conforme estudos já realizados no Brasil. Também foram encontrados indícios de que a prática de manipulação contábil efetuada por meio das acumulações contábeis discricionárias tem influência no exercício da disciplina de mercado, no sentido de reduzir as taxas de juros negociadas entre os bancos e os depositantes, ocasionando transferência de renda dos depositantes para os bancos. Isso significa que os gestores dos bancos logram êxito ao manipularem os resultados contábeis, por meio da utilização das acumulações contábeis discricionárias, e iludem os depositantes ao obterem taxas de juros inferiores às que deveriam ser pagas. Isto sugere que o mercado não é eficiente para tratar as informações contábeis publicadas pelos bancos. / When the depositors invest their money in the banks they delegate the monitoring function of the borrowers to the bank and can concentrate their efforts in monitoring the banks. The market discipline ex-post occurs in the event of the bank taking excessive risks and, knowing that, the depositors can act in the sense of disciplining the banks by requiring greater interest rates or withdrawing their deposits. The market discipline ex-ante occurs when the bank managers, knowing the consequences of assuming excessive risks, decide not take them. One of the vehicles of information to exercise such monitoring, and subside the actions to discipline the banks, are the accounting reports periodically published. The use of the accounting principles allows the managers to calculate the accruals discretionary. This possibility facilitates the use of the discretionarity in an opportunistic way, known in the literature as accounting manipulation / earnings management, with the objective to mislead the user of accounting information and obtain benefits to the bank or to its managers. The objective of this study is to verify the existence of empirical evidence that the discretionary accruals influence the exercise of the market discipline practiced by the depositors of Brazilian banks. The study separates the accounting accruals non-discretionary and discretionary using the variables of allowance and provision for loan losses, outstanding loans and its changes, non-performing credits and its changes, and credit write-offs. Also, it innovates by considering the risks of credit operations through the use of the loans interest rate as credits risk proxy. It utilizes econometric models to evaluate the influence of the discretionary accruals in the market discipline, by using variables of the deposits interest rates and volume changes, leverage index, provision for loan losses, payroll expenses, the ratio services revenue and other administrative expenses, return on assets and its deviation from sample average and other control variables. The theoretical approach utilizes the theory of delegate monitoring in the economics aspects, the positive accounting approach in the accounting aspects, and the systemic generalized method of moments (GMM-sis) in the econometric aspects. Banco Central do Brasils public and private data on 102 banks was used and processed to contemplate institutions scale effects, which were normalized by dividing them by total assets or by total loans where applicable and, to contemplate the inflations aspects, by deflating the data by consumer price index, IPCA. And in fact it were found evidence in the results obtained that there is a depositors market discipline practice, confirming studies done in Brazil, and that the accounting manipulation, through discretionary accruals, influence the market discipline in the sense of lowering the interest rates negotiated between the banks and the depositors, and thus allowing a transfer of wealth between them. This means that the banks managers are successful in manipulating the accounting results through discretionary accruals and mislead the depositors, which get interest rates lower than should be paid. This suggests that the market is not efficient to process the banks published accounting information.