I am an Associate Professor of Finance at HEC Paris. My areas of research are financial intermediation and corporate finance. Please download my CV.
Finance Department
HEC Paris
78351 Jouy-en-Josas
France
Phone: (++33) 139 67 7119.
E-Mail: efing(at)hec(dot)fr
My affiliations and profiles:
google.scholar
CEPR affiliate
CESifo affiliate
IDEAS – RePEc
SSRN
How Do Investors and Firms React to an Unexpected Currency Appreciation Shock?
Forthcoming in The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, with Rüdiger Fahlenbrach, Christoph Herpfer, and Philipp Krüger.
Bank Bonus Pay as a Risk Sharing Contract
The Review of Financial Studies, 36, 2023, 235-280, with Harald Hau, Patrick Kampkötter, and Jean-Charles Rochet. (Best Paper Award at Paris December Finance Meeting 2019)
Reaching for Yield in the ABS Market: Evidence from German Bank Investments (Internet Appendix)
Review of Finance, 24, 2020, 929-959. (Joint winner of the ESRB Research Prize in Memory of Ieke van den Burg 2016, finalist to the IQAM Award 2021 of the Review of Finance, Swiss Finance Institute best paper doctoral award 2015)
Shareholder Bargaining Power and the Emergence of Empty Creditors (Internet Appendix)
Journal of Financial Economics, 134, 2019, 297-317, with Stefano Colonnello and Francesca Zucchi.
Structured Debt Ratings: Evidence on Conflicts of Interest
Journal of Financial Economics, 116, 2015, 46-60, with Harald Hau. (Award for best paper on financial markets at Paris December 2013 Finance Meeting)
Incentive Pay and Bank Risk-Taking: Evidence from Austrian, German, and Swiss Banks
Journal of International Economics, 96, 2015, 123-140, with Harald Hau, Patrick Kampkötter, and Johannes Steinbrecher.
WORKING PAPERS:
Freeze! Financial Sanctions and Bank Responses
Conditionally accepted for publication in The Review of Financial Studies, with Stefan Goldbach and Volker Nitsch. (SFS Cavalcade Award 2019 for the Best Paper in CF)
When the UN or another political body impose financial sanctions on a country, banks are typically required to end business relations with targeted counterparties. Based on German regulatory data for years 2002-15, we show that parent institutions of multinational banking groups reduce their positions in sanctioned countries by -38%. However, their branches and subsidiaries in countries with weak policies against financial crime increase lending by +66% after sanctions are imposed. These branches and subsidiaries receive additional intra-group credit from their parent banks. The evidence suggests that credit is rerouted to sanctioned countries through bank branches and subsidiaries in offshore locations.
Risk Managers in Banks
HEC Working Paper, with Patrick Kampkötter.
How do banks remunerate risk managers? Studying 127 banks during the years 2003 to 2007, we show that the performance pay of risk managers is positively aligned with the performance pay of traders and loan officers. A risk manager receives a 13.6 to 33.5 Cents higher bonus when the average bonus paid in front offices increases by one Euro. Labor markets or risk sharing among employees do not fully explain this finding. Risk managers whose remuneration is strongly aligned with performance pay in front offices work for banks that did better in the crisis of 2008-2009. These findings are consistent with predictions derived from a model of efficient risk manager compensation.
PERMANENT WORKING PAPERS:
Bank Capital Regulation with an Opportunistic Rating Agency
SFI Working Paper.
(Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award 2013, Swiss Finance Institute best paper doctoral award 2012)
This paper models the strategic interaction between a rating agency, a bank and a bank regulator who lacks information about bank asset risk. The regulator can either (1) make bank capital requirements contingent on credit ratings; or (2) set rating-independent capital requirements. Truthful ratings provide efficiency gains because they allow the regulator to constrain high risk bank investment without simultaneously reducing overall investment volume. However, if collusion between the rating agency and the bank corrupts rating quality, rating-independent regulation enhances welfare. The welfare benefits are largest if regulators maintain rating-contingent capital requirements and discipline rating agencies.
NON-REFEREED PUBLICATIONS:
What does a bank’s payroll reveal about its risk-taking?
International Banker, April 10, 2017, with Harald Hau and Patrick Kampkötter
Optimale Vergütungsstrukturen in Banken
Die Bank, 2015(3), 65-69, with Florian Frank, Harald Hau, Patrick Kampkötter and Johannes Steinbrecher
Die Dosis macht das Gift – eine Analyse zum Einfluss von Bonuszahlungen auf die Profitabilität und das Risiko von Banken
ifo Schnelldienst 68 (03), 2015, 23‐31, with Harald Hau, Patrick Kampkötter and Johannes Steinbrecher.
Bankers’ Bonuses and Performance Sensitivity
voxeu.org, November 13, 2014, with Harald Hau, Patrick Kampkötter and Johannes Steinbrecher.
Corrupted Credit Ratings: Standard & Poor’s Lawsuit and the Evidence
voxeu.org, June 18, 2013, with Harald Hau
Matthias Efing 