Claire Célérier
- 28 June 2016
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 14Details
- Abstract
- This study investigates the rationale for issuing complex securities to retail investors. We focus on a large market of investment products targeted exclusively at households: retail structured products in Europe. We develop an economic measure of product complexity in this market via a text analysis of 55,000 product payoff formulas. Over the 2002–2010 period, product complexity increases, risky products become more common, and product headline rates diverge from the prevailing interest rates as the latter decline. The complexity of a product is positively correlated with its headline rate and risk. Complex products appear more profitable to the banks distributing them, have a lower expost performance, and are more frequently sold by banks targeting low-income households. These empirical facts are consistent with banks strategically using product complexity to cater to yield-seeking households.
- JEL Code
- I22 : Health, Education, and Welfare→Education and Research Institutions→Educational Finance, Financial Aid
G10 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→General
D18 : Microeconomics→Household Behavior and Family Economics→Consumer Protection
D12 : Microeconomics→Household Behavior and Family Economics→Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
- 23 April 2019
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2271Details
- Abstract
- We identify the effects of exogenous credit constraints on firm ability to attract and retain skilled workers. To do so, we exploit a shock to the value of the pension obligations of Portuguese banks resulting from a change in accounting norms. Using bank-firm credit exposures that we match with a census of all Portuguese employees, we show that firms in a relationship with affected banks borrow less and reduce employment mostly of high-skilled workers. High-skilled workers are more likely to exit and less likely to join affected firms. Overall, credit market frictions might have long lasting effects on firm productivity and growth through firm accumulation of human capital.
- JEL Code
- G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
J21 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Demand and Supply of Labor→Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
J24 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Demand and Supply of Labor→Human Capital, Skills, Occupational Choice, Labor Productivity - Network
- ECB Lamfalussy Fellowship Programme