Contributions published at Department of Banking and Finance (Pablo Koch Medina)

Does households' leverage matter for their job search, matching in the labor market and pay? To answer this question we exploit a loan-to-value ratio restriction in Norway that exogenously reduces household leverage. Using comprehensive register data, we find that lower leverage enables displaced workers to find jobs with higher starting wages. Lower leverage increases the probability of finding jobs in higher paying firms and the likelihood of switching into new occupations and industries. The positive effects are long-lasting and more pronounced for young and higher educated workers. Our results indicate that policies aimed at limiting households' leverage have the potential to substantially improve their labor market outcomes.

This paper introduces a new proprietary measure of a firm's negative impact on biodiversity, the corporate biodiversity footprint, and studies whether it is priced in the cross-section of stock returns. Using an international sample of firms, we find no evidence that the biodiversity footprint explains these returns, on average. However, event-study evidence shows that, following the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15), which raised awareness of biodiversity issues, however, firms with larger corporate biodiversity footprints lost value. This response is consistent with investors revising their valuation of these firms downward upon the prospect that regulations to preserve biodiversity will become more stringent.

In this paper, we propose a new method to estimate non-fundamental demand shocks for green financial assets based on the arbitrage activity of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). By estimating the monthly abnormal flows into environment-friendly ETFs, we construct a Green Sentiment Index that captures shifts in investors' appetite for environmental responsibility that are not yet priced in the value of the underlying assets. Our measure of green sentiment differs significantly from the news-based climate indexes proposed by the extant literature, and it has additional explanatory power on both stock returns and corporate decisions. Over the period 2010-2020, shifts in green sentiment anticipate a persistent stock-price out-performance of more environmentally responsible firms, (of approximately 53 basis points over six months for a one-standard-deviation higher green sentiment) as well as an increase in their capital investments and cash holdings, particularly for more equity-dependent ones.

The dramatic takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS has concentrated all the risk of the rescue onto the shoulders of one Swiss bank. That makes some people in Switzerland very nervous.

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Existing factor models struggle to model the covariance matrix for a large number of stocks and factors. Therefore, we introduce a new covariance matrix estimator that first shrinks the factor model coefficients and then applies nonlinear shrinkage to the residuals and factors. The estimator blends a regularized factor structure with conditional heteroskedasticity of residuals and factors and displays superior all-around performance against various competitors. We show that for the proposed double- shrinkage estimator, it is enough to use only the market factor or the most important latent factor(s). Thus there is no need for laboriously taking into account the factor zoo. Supplementary material for this article is available online.

Die Übername der taumelnden Credit Suisse durch die UBS erhöht die systemischen Risiken am Finanzplatz Schweiz, glaubt Bankenexperte Thorsten Hens - und warnt vor irrationalem Verhalten der Wirtschaftsakteure.

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Sur la RTS, l’économiste et professeur Marc Chesney a sévèrement critiqué l’attentisme général qui a conduit à la chute de la deuxième banque du pays.

Für den Ökonomen Marc Chesney, Professor an der Universität Zürich, ist die Übernahme der Credit Suisse durch die UBS eine schlechte Lösung. Sie zeige die Schwächen eines Systems, das den Bankrott systemrelevanter Banken eigentlich verhindern sollte.

Not because of trust: Ultimately, CS stumbled because its equity capital was too low, says banking professor Marc Chesney. Those interested in history may still remember: After the UBS rescue in 2008, politicians discussed the “too big to fail” rules at length. Rules for banks that are so big that, if they go bankrupt, they could plunge the economy into a crisis and trigger an international financial crisis. The financial requirements were increased and there were clear rules on how a big bank can still be wound up in the event of a crisis.

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Ein Schweizer Experte, der sich mit dem Einfluss von psychologischen Faktoren an den Finanzplätzen beschäftigt, kritisiert die Schweizer "Too big to Fail" -Regulierung und die Kommunikationsstrategie der Behörden in der CS-Krise.

Die UBS übernimmt die strauchelnde Credit Suisse. Die Marktmacht des neuen Geldriesen könnte in Zukunft zum Problem werden.

«Ein Bundesratsmitglied oder der Nationalbankpräsident hätte hinstehen und sagen müssen: Die CS ist too big to fail», sagt Thorsten Hens in der NZZ. Ein kurzer Satz hätte gereicht.

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