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Market microstructure, banks’ behaviour and interbank spreads: evidence after the crisis

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Abstract

We present a study of the European electronic interbank market of overnight lending (e-MID) before and after the beginning of the financial crisis. The main goal of the paper is to explain the structural changes of lending/borrowing features due to the liquidity turmoil. Unlike previous contributions that focused on banks’ dependent and macro information as explanatory variables, we address the role of banks’ behaviour and market microstructure as determinants of the credit spreads. We show that all banks experienced significant variations in their liquidity costs due to the sensitivity of interbank rates to the timing and side of trades. We argue that, while larger banks did experience better funding conditions after the crisis, this was not just a consequence of the “too big to fail” perception of the market. Larger banks have been able to play more strategically when managing their liquidity by taking advantage of the changing market microstructure.

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Notes

  1. While our main cross-sectional regression results do not incorporate banks’ specific characteristics other than size and nationality, we perform an additional robustness check using a panel data model with time and bank fixed effects that can capture bank characteristics such as credit and liquidity risk.

  2. Baglioni and Monticini (2013) use the main refinancing rate as reference. We choose to estimate the spread with respect to the average market rate so that the spread is not directly affected by official rates and monetary policy decisions.

  3. Although the market is open 8 a.m.–6 p.m., in Fig. 4 we consider only the data 9 a.m.–5 p.m. because only in Greece and Portugal markets are open 8–9 a.m. and 5–6 p.m.

  4. Temizsoy et al. (2015), performing link-level rather than bank-level regressions, and show that the effect of the microstructure variable is qualitatively the same also when controlling for the identity of the counterparty to a trade as well as when including indices of preferential lending and borrowing among the regression variables.

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Acknowledgements

Funding was provided by European Union (Grant No. 255987) and, for the Systemic Risk Centre, by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, Grant No. ES/K002309/1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. American University in Dubai, P.O. Box 28282, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Burcu Kapar

  2. Department of Economics, City, University London, Northampton Square, London, EC1V 0HB, UK

    Giulia Iori

  3. Dipartimento di Studi Aziendali e Giuridici, Università di Siena, Piazza San Francesco 8, 53100, Siena, Italy

    Giampaolo Gabbi

  4. SDA Bocconi School of Management, Via Ferdinando Bocconi 8, 20136, Milano, Italy

    Giampaolo Gabbi

  5. Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Guido Germano

  6. Systemic Risk Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK

    Guido Germano

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  1. Burcu Kapar
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  2. Giulia Iori
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Correspondence to Giampaolo Gabbi.

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Regression results

Regression results

See Tables 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13.

Table 2 Descriptive statistics
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Table 3 t-test p values for Table 2
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Table 4 Pooled OLS results for borrowers
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Table 5 Fixed-effect model for borrowers
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Table 6 Pooled OLS results for different groups of borrowers
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Table 7 Pooled OLS results for a.m./p.m. volume imbalance for borrowers
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Table 8 Pooled OLS results for quoter/aggressor volume imbalance for borrowers
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Table 9 Pooled OLS results for lenders
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Table 10 Fixed-effect model results for lenders
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Table 11 Pooled OLS results for different groups of lenders
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Table 12 Pooled OLS results for a.m./p.m. volume imbalance ratio for lenders
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Table 13 Pooled OLS results for quoter/aggressor volume imbalance for lenders
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Kapar, B., Iori, G., Gabbi, G. et al. Market microstructure, banks’ behaviour and interbank spreads: evidence after the crisis. J Econ Interact Coord 15, 283–331 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11403-019-00248-3

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