The soft budget constraint - today a popular metaphor - is a paradox. In socialist economies, it implies that the state tends to bail out state-owned firms in financial trouble, in spite of the tremendous performance problems of the entire system that result. When the system broke down, the soft budget constraint was expected to disappear. However, it seems to persist, and its persistence appears to hamper the transition process itself. This study seeks an answer to this paradox. It aims at increasing our understanding of why the soft budget constraint exists. By investigating state-owned enterprises in Tanzania before, during and after socialism, the prevalence of the soft budget constraint is examined and an explanation of its existence is suggested. The approach is institutional. The soft budget constraint is defined as an informal institution and an invisible-hand explanation of its emergence, persistence and logic is applied. The study shows that the soft budget constraint emerged as an unintended consequence of the establishment of the Tanzanian socialist system in the 1970s. A behavioural solution to recurrent systemic problems was offered, and thus the soft budget constraint performed several functions. Once established, its very existence set off a cumulative process of self-generation. Four reinforcement mechanisms that accounted for its prevalence during Tanzanian socialism are identified. Its character as a behavioural rule helps to explain why it persisted during market-oriented reform, initiated in the mid-1980s. The soft budget constraint was part of the socialist heritage, was adapted to systemic change, and influenced the direction and character of this change. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.

Abstract This dissertation explores two interrelated aspects of banking crises and bank regulations in perspective of regulator¡¦s soft budget constraints (SBCs in brief) and bank top management compensation. First, this paper models, in a game of incomplete information, bank behavior during banking crises when asymmetric information exists between regulators and banks. Here, I show that the situation creates the incentives for banks to roll over their defaulting loans to disguise their financial statements. Although a prudential regulator may mitigate this incentive by offering a ¡§slack¡¨ rescue packages, the bank¡¦s reputational concern may cause them to reject rescue offers. In this instance, regulators may be forced to offer amounts of recapitalization that will meet the amount necessary to restore banks to solvency. Otherwise, banks may have to gamble for resurrection, or wait until the banking crises become severe, and then more banks become insolvent, regulators have to offer optimal rescue packages subject to SBCs. New findings include (1) During banking crises, the optimal regulatory policies, on the one hand, may cause regulators have to offer rescue or bailout packages subject to different SBCs, on the other hand, mitigate banker¡¦s moral hazard. The more severe the crises will be, the greater soft budget constrained to regulators. (2) The potential severity of banking crises can be measured by the ratios, getting from net worth over the total amount of recapitalization offered by regulators and recovered from nonperforming loans. (3) As banking crises become severe, the cost of rescue becomes larger than that of bailout, the best regulatory policy is to intervene; On the contrary, if a situation labeled ¡§ too-many-to-fail¡¨ arises, the regulators may offer to rescue distressed banks subject to SBC. (4)As Bayesian equilibrium cost of regulator in crises is increasing, a random creative ambiguity for regulators to offer bailout or rescue plans may be the optimal policy to mitigate the expectation of SBC for banks . Second, this paper also shows that in the circumstances of universal banking or bank holding company, concentrating bank regulation on bank capital ratios and risk-based deposit insurance may be ineffective in controlling banker¡¦s risk-taking and moral hazard. Here, this paper follows, a more direct mechanism of influencing bank risk-taking incentives, in which the insurance premium scheme incorporate features of top management compensation. In a model of universal banking with two-periods and three-subsidiaries or departments, bank owner pre-commits to regulators to pick an optimal management compensation structure that induces the first-best value-maximizing investment choices by a bank¡¦s management. Findings include (1) If insurance premium is not fairly priced, the incentives are created for banks to have a ¡§regulatory arbitrage¡¨ by segregating its nonperforming assets from the investment bank, and shift it to the commercial bank, that increases the deposit-insurer an additional risk liability, and aggravates the risk-shifting within the universal bank; and vice versa. (2) Given management contracts{ fixed salary, a bonus paid, a fraction of equity of the bank} and { fixed salary, a penalty , a fraction of equity}for bank and security investment department respectively ; and a capitalization level corresponding must exceed the lower risky investment outcome , here bonus paid larger than 0, a penalty larger than 0, a fraction of equity between 0 and 1, then the investment policies implemented by managers, is less risky than when manger¡¦s interests are fully aligned with the equity interests. (3) Given a fairly priced insurance premium, and capitalization level corresponding must exceed the lower risky investment outcome, then the optimal management compensation structure can internalize the cost of moral hazard and induce the Pareto-optimal and department-equilibrium investment policies, thus mitigate moral hazard under universal banking. Finally, the state-owned and half-state-owned banks have experienced the institution-induced ineffectiveness; and the latter suffer from poor business performance level, partially because of the issues of ownership structure. This paper shows the investment policy with moral hazard under these banks incorporated with optimal compensation structures, and given capitalization level corresponding must exceed the lower risky investment outcome, then the optimal policies induced, that will improve their business performance level. This paper also shows that as the controlling shareholders have power over banks in excess of their cash flow rights, the incentives will be created for them to expropriate the minority shareholders. And, when the incentives for expropriation exists, the investment policy will be distorted with the managerial bias induced by their private benefits, and deteriorate morale of the banks. The regulatory mandatory requirements of one-share-one-vote principle may be proposed, instead.

Diese Arbeit hat zum Ziel, marktunterstützende institutionelle Reformen im Transformationsprozess zu analysieren. Als Einstieg in die Thematik wird die Aufnahme mittel- und osteuropäischer Länder in die Europäische Union mit der zurückliegenden Süderweiterung der Europäischen Gemeinschaft verglichen. Die folgenden Kapitel befassen sich mit der Bedeutung weicher Budgetbeschränkungen in Transformationsökonomien. Zunächst werden anhand von Daten bulgarischer und rumänischer Unternehmen theoretische Erklärungsansätze für weiche Budgetbeschränkungen getestet. Im anschließenden Teil wird analysiert, ob Handelskredite einen Teil der normalen Geschäftspraxis darstellen oder ob Handelskredite starke Handelsverflechtungen zwischen Unternehmen unterstützen und damit die Wahrscheinlichkeit von weichen Budgetbeschränkungen erhöhen können. Im empirischen Teil werden Daten aus Ungarn und Rumänien verwendet, die aus Unternehmensbefragungen stammen. Im letzten Kapitel wird die Unternehmensebene verlassen und mit makroökonomischen Daten gearbeitet. Ziel ist es hier, den Einfluss institutioneller Reformen auf das Wirtschaftswachstum zu testen. / Main objective of this work is to analyse market-supporting institutional reforms in the transition process. In the first part of the dissertation, the upcoming enlargement of the European Union towards the east is compared with the earlier southern enlargement. Research in the following chapters is devoted to the problem of soft budget constraints in transition countries. Firstly, theories on the causes of soft budget constraints are empirically tested. Therefore a panel data set consisting of company account data for Bulgarian and Romanian firms is used. Secondly, firm-level survey data from Hungary and Romania is used to test whether trade credits are just part of normal business practice or whether trade credits are representing a systematic phenomenon supporting soft budget constraints of firms in transition. Thirdly, macroeconomic data is utilised to illustrate the impact of implementing institutional change on economic performance.