Browsing by Author "Figueira, Catarina"

Now showing 1 - 16 of 16
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Banking performance and technological change in non-core EU countries: A study of Spain and Portugal
    (Emerald Group Publishing Ltd, 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z) Figueira, Catarina; Nellis, Joseph G.; Parker, David
    The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cost efficiency of banks operating in two "non-core" EU countries, Portugal and Spain, over a number of years. Specifically, the paper aims to examine the extent to which banks' efficiency is influenced by their portfolio orientation and scale of operation. Data envelopment analysis is used to identify banks' levels of performance over time in both countries. In order to decompose banks' total factor productivity change into technological, scale efficiency and pure efficiency changes, the Malmquist index method is applied. Banks operating in both countries have improved their performance over time and savings banks and large banks, in particular, have tended to outperform other types of banks. Banks operating in Spain tend to perform better than in Portugal and Spanish-owned banks perform better than their Portuguese-owned counterparts. The improvements in performance revealed have mainly been due to technological change. Bankscope is a well- respected data source and has been the basis of many studies of performance in international banking. Unfortunately, owing to data deficiencies, around 20 per cent of the banks operating in Portugal and Spain were not included. Practical implications - If Portuguese banks are to be competitive internationally, there is considerable need for efficiency improvements. The paper provides insights into the dynamics of the Portuguese and Spanish banking systems. The results should be of interest to management in banking and bank regulators in Europe, and economists and others studying bank performance trends. The research reported may shed light on some of the challenges facing the banking sectors of the "new" EU states (such as Poland and Hungary).
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Developing the mortgage sector in Nigeria through the provision of long-term finance : an efficiency perspective
    (Cranfield University, 2014-03) Johnson, Paul Femi; Figueira, Catarina; Nellis, Joe; Manos, Ronny
    This research investigates the role of efficiency in attracting long-term finance to the mortgage sector. Within the framework of the traditional economic theory, the new institutional theory and the theory of mortgage collateral, the study investigates the efficiency of primary mortgage banks and the perceived efficiency of the larger system within which they operate using quantitative and qualitative techniques. Quantitative data were extracted from the financials of 27 mortgage banks in Nigeria, which constitute about 90% of the size of the entire industry in Nigeria, as measured by banks’ total assets. These were analyzed using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic cost frontier (SCF) analysis to determine the efficiency of mortgage banks in Nigeria. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were conducted among 40 CEOs of mortgage banks in Nigeria to investigate the perceived efficiency of both the banks and the entire mortgage sector. This sample constitutes about 54.2% of the CEOs in the industry and represents all geopolitical zones and ethnic groups where mortgage banks exist in the country. A review of housing finance policies, systems and sources of funds in thriving emerging economies was also conducted with the aim of drawing lessons from them that are applicable to improving the efficiency of the Nigerian mortgage sector. The findings from the review formed the basis of a mixed method questionnaire survey to investigate the existing and potential sources of funds for housing finance, to assess the acceptability and suitability of lessons drawn from other countries in Nigeria and to make policy recommendations for improving the efficiency of the Nigerian mortgage sector. The findings reveal that on average, mortgage banks in Nigeria are 33% - 49% efficient compared to best practice firms within the sector. Ownership structure and bank size influence the efficiency of these banks. Banks owned by private organizations and commercial banks are more efficient than those owned by the government or religious organizations. Banks with average total assets in excess of ₦5 Billion are more technically efficient than those with total asset less than ₦5 Billion. Practitioners perceive the mortgage banks and the larger system within which they operate as only about 10% efficient. This perceived efficiency is much lower than the technical efficiency measured in the quantitative assessment. Through the lens of institutional theory, this low rating is attributed to the negative perception of the institutional structures of the mortgage sector by mortgage finance practitioners. The findings also reveal that two categories – external and internal factors – impair the efficiency of the sector. The regulative constraints account for 55% of challenges to efficiency, normative constraints account for 24%, while cultural cognitive constraints account for 21%. The study identified accumulated deposits in pension funds, unclaimed dividends, funds in dormant accounts of commercial banks and other financial institutions, and funds from insurance companies, as possible sources of long-term funds for housing finance, while a concerted effort is being made to set up a secondary mortgage facility. The findings also reveal that effective government policies, regulation and amendment of existing laws would help improve the efficiency of the mortgage banking sector and attract investors to this sector.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    A Dynamic Analysis of Mortgage Arrears in the UK
    (Taylor & Francis, 2005-09-01T00:00:00Z) Figueira, Catarina; Glen, John; Nellis, Joseph G.
    The UK economy has enjoyed an unprecedented period of positive economic growth since the early 1990s. The absence of recession for more than a decade has been accompanied by a sustained decline in the level of mortgage arrears, as reported by major lenders. This paper seeks to examine the factors which have driven the reduction in mortgage arrears and, in doing so, identify those factors which are most likely to cause arrears to increase in the future, should economic conditions deteriorate. The paper employs the Johansen methodology to test for the presence of multiple cointegrating vectors. An error correction model is estimated in order to examine long-run and short-run dynamics in mortgage arrears. In line with previous research concerning the causes of mortgage arrears, the results presented here emphasise the importance of changes in the rate of unemployment, loan–income and debt–service ratios. More importantly, our results highlight the statistical significance of unwithdrawn housing equity as an explanatory variable with respect to mortgage arre
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    FinTech, financial inclusion, and different dimensions of inequality: channels and evidence
    (British Academy of Management, 2023-09-06) Figueira, Catarina; Subramanian, Lakshmy
    This study investigates the relationship between FinTech, financial inclusion, and different dimensions of inequality, (gender, income, and carbon) for a panel of 113 nations using the Global Findex waves of survey data from 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2021. The study employs structural equation modelling to simulate both the direct and indirect effects. The key findings include (i) FinTech significantly increases income inequality and reduces gender inequality (through financial inclusion). (ii) FinTech promotes financial inclusion. (iii) Financial inclusion reduces all dimensions of inequality. (iv) Regulatory quality, education, and access to credit reduce different dimensions of inequality through financial inclusion. These results add to a modest but growing body of work on the role of FinTech and financial inclusion in fostering better resource distribution and inclusive development across countries. Moreover, this is the first study to investigate different dimensions of inequality and model interrelationships. The study provides preliminary evidence of the varying distributional effects of FinTech and financial inclusion on different dimensions of inequality.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Gender diversity and board performance: women's experiences and perspectives
    (Wiley, 2015-02-06) Kakabadse, Nada K.; Figueira, Catarina; Nicolopoulou, Katerina; Hong Yang, Jessica; Kakabadse, Andrew P.; Özbilgin, Mustafa F.
    Despite considerable progress that organizations have made during the past 20 years to increase the representation of women at board level, they still hold few board seats. Drawing on a qualitative study involving 30 companies with women directors in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Ghana, we investigate how the relationship between gender in the boardroom and corporate governance operates. The findings indicate that the presence of a minority of women on the board has an insignificant effect on board performance. Yet the chairperson's role is vital in leading the change for recruiting and evaluating candidates and their commitment to the board with diversity and governance in mind. Our study also sheds light on the multifaceted reasons why women directors appear to be resisting the discourse of gender quotas.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    How efficient is the Polish banking industry?
    (2005-06-01T00:00:00Z) Figueira, Catarina; Nellis, Joseph G.; Parker, David
    In 2004 Poland entered the EU. This paper investigates whether the Polish banking industry is prepared for entry by looking specifically at its comparative efficiency in relation to one of the largest banking sectors in the EU, that of the UK. A range of efficiency measures is used. The empirical results reveal a surprising degree of relative efficiency in the Polish banking industry, no doubt reflecting the substantial economic changes introduced in Poland since 1989. The results suggest that the Polish banking sector should be able to survive the new competition that it will face following entry into the EU.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Infrastructure regulation and poverty reduction in developing countries: a review of the evidence and a research agenda
    (Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam., 2008-05-01T00:00:00Z) Parker, David; Kirkpatrick, Colin; Figueira, Catarina
    Poverty reduction is a primary goal of development policy. In large parts of the World people have to live on meagre incomes and have limited access to infrastructure services, such as mains water, safe sanitation, mains power supplies, maintained roads and telephones. In response, more and more infrastructure provision has been opened up to private investment over the last two decades and regulatory institutions have been introduced to protect the public interest in the absence of state ownership. In this paper the role of infrastructure regulation in poverty reduction is investigated drawing on the published evidence. The conclusion is that the evidence is both patchy and sometimes contradictory. There is mixed knowledge regarding the extent to which regulators address poverty issues and about the results of regulatory decisions. The paper concludes by proposing a future research agenda aimed at improving our understanding of the ways in which infrastructure regulation impacts on poverty, with the objective of improving actual regulatory policy in developing economies.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Infrastructure regulation and poverty reduction in developing countries: a review of the evidence and a research agenda
    (Cranfield University School of Management, 2007-02) Parker, David; Kirkpatrick, Colin; Figueira, Catarina
    Poverty reduction is a primary goal of development policy. In large parts of the World people have to live on meagre incomes and have limited access to infrastructure services, such as mains water, safe sanitation, mains power supplies, maintained roads and telephones. In response, more and more infrastructure provision has been opened up to private investment over the last two decades and regulatory institutions have been introduced to protect the public interest in the absence of state ownership. In this paper the role of infrastructure regulation in poverty reduction is investigated drawing on the published evidence. The conclusion is that the evidence is both patchy and sometimes contradictory. There is mixed knowledge regarding the extent to which regulators address poverty issues and about the results of regulatory decisions. The paper concludes by proposing a future research agenda aimed at improving our understanding of the ways in which infrastructure regulation impacts on poverty, with the objective of improving actual regulatory policy in developing economies.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    International Banking Strategy and Efficiency: issues and directions.
    (2003-07-01T00:00:00Z) Phelps, Bob; Figueira, Catarina; Nellis, Joseph G.
    This paper reviews measures of banking efficiency and analyses the efficiency construct and its applications. We discuss the issues of data availability and methodological problems that occur when trying to obtain realistic local and global efficiency indicators for banks. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research that both inform theory and have practical application.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Investigation into currency and banking crises: a novel approach to the identification and prediction of twin crises.
    (Cranfield University, 2018-09) Rahadyan, Heru; Figueira, Catarina
    This thesis focuses on providing novel insights into the relationship between currency crises and banking crises and building a tool to identify and predict the crises. Even though currency and banking crises have occurred periodically, the nature of twin crises is still unclear. There are still debates on whether currency crises trigger banking crises. The dates of twin crises are still difficult to identify due to the limitation of the existing technique. In addition, economists have difficulty in examining the risk of the crises as there is no consensus on how to define them. To address the issue, we examine the twin crises literature using the systematic literature review methodology. We then identify the pressure dynamics of the twin crises in Latin American and East Asian countries during the period 1980-2007. Finally, we examine the crisis risk of the currency and banking crises in 80 countries during 1970-2016. The literature suggests that banking crises often precede currency crises. However, on the contrary, we show that currency crises often precede banking crises by minimising the bias in the identification techniques. While the literature argues that foreign liabilities are responsible for twin crises, we explain that liquidity shortages and the insolvencies of banks may also trigger twin crises. In addition, we argue that currency crises may also trigger bank crises. Thus, twin crises should be examined as a two-way relationship. Furthermore, we combine the Exchange Market Pressure Index and the Money Market Pressure Index into a c-index to evaluate the twin crises episodes in the existing literature. We find that the model is able to pinpoint the dates of the twin crises episodes in our sample countries. Finally, we divide the crises into four levels as there is no consensus on how to define the crises. We demonstrate that the c-index can predict the probability of any given condition to shift to the ‘next crisis level’ in the next two years. The findings also suggest that regulators and investors are risk takers in low-pressure periods and become risk-averse when conditions worsen.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Monetary policy, ownership structure, and risk-taking at financial intermediaries
    (Wiley, 2022-11-07) Caselli, Giorgio; Figueira, Catarina
    This paper examines how ownership structure interacts with monetary policy in shaping financial intermediaries' appetite for risk. By constructing a large panel of banks across Western Europe, we provide evidence that differences in bank ownership influence the transmission of monetary policy via the risk-taking channel. While shareholder banks actively adjust the riskiness of their portfolios to changes in interest rates, stakeholder banks appear to be less responsive to such changes. These findings call for greater attention to the nature of bank ownership when setting monetary policy.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Ownership diversity and the risk-taking channel of monetary policy transmission
    (Cambridge University Press, 2020-07-04) Caselli, Giorgio; Figueira, Catarina; Nellis, Joseph G.
    This paper joins a rapidly growing body of literature that aims to uncover the link between monetary policy and bank risk taking. We investigate the hypothesis that the ownership composition of the banking system moderates monetary policy transmission via the risk-taking channel. Borrowing measures used in ecology to quantify diversity of species within an ecosystem and first applied to the field of finance by Michie, J. and Oughton, C. 2013. ‘Measuring Diversity in Financial Services Markets: A Diversity Index’, Centre for Financial and Management Studies Discussion Papers no. 113, this paper shows that the impact of exogenous monetary policy shocks on banks’ probability of default is reduced in countries with greater ownership diversity. We also find that—ceteris paribus—shareholder- and stakeholder-oriented banks located in more ownership-diverse systems tend to have a lower appetite for risk than their counterparts operating in less diverse markets. These results are robust across several econometric specifications and emphasise the stabilising role played by ownership diversity in modern financial systems. At the same time, our evidence suggests that a more interdisciplinary approach, firmly grounded in the applied, empirical research methodology, can provide novel and useful insights into the implications of monetary policy for financial and economic outcomes.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Ownership structure and the risk-taking channel of monetary policy
    (2017-09) Caselli, Giorgio; Figueira, Catarina
    Recent years have seen a growing interest in the implications of monetary policy for bank risk taking and financial stability. Yet, there has hitherto been limited attention on how ownership structure affects the relationship between monetary policy and bank risk. Drawing on three interconnected studies written as journal articles, this thesis provides novel insights into the role of banks in monetary policy transmission. First, it refines our understanding of the monetary transmission process via financial intermediaries. Based on a systematic review of 152 articles published during the 1963–2016 period, this research integrates a highly fragmented body of evidence into a multidimensional framework that combines the mechanisms of monetary transmission through financial institutions with the conditions underpinning the functioning of each mechanism. Second, this thesis incorporates concepts from the property rights and agency theory perspectives into the analysis of the risktaking channel. By building a sample of commercial, cooperative and savings banks from 17 Western European countries over the 1999–2011 period, this study finds that the impact of lower interest rates on bank risk taking is reduced for stakeholder banks relative to their shareholder counterparts. Third, this research contributes to the current debate about how to design a more stable and resilient financial system by introducing diversity measures from ecological theories into the study of the monetary policy–bank risk nexus. After estimating the ownership composition of the banking sector in terms of relative market shares of shareholder banks vis-`a-vis stakeholder banks, this work shows that the effects of unexpected monetary policy shocks on banks’ probability of default is dampened in countries with greater ownership diversity. Taken together, these findings advance knowledge in this field of enquiry by highlighting the need to account for differences in ownership structures when assessing the implications of the monetary environment for bank riskiness.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Testing for international financial markets integration
    (2005-05-31T20:29:56Z) Figueira, Catarina; Nellis, Joseph G.; Parker, David
    This paper examines the extent to which financial markets across the main international financial centres integrated between 1988 and 2001 in the face of technological change and capital market liberalisation. Two empirical approaches are adopted based on principal components analysis and cointegration tests, applied respectively to covered interest rate differentials and real interest rates.. The results suggest that some financial integration occurred during the 1990s but that integration is far from complete at the international level. The study also confirms differing trends in the integration of financial markets in different geographical regions.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Travel abroad or stay at home?: Investigating the patterns of bank industry M&As in the EU.
    (Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2007) Figueira, Catarina; Nellis, Joseph G.; Schoenberg, Richard
    The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent of bank industry consolidation across the European Union, the patterns that have emerged from the mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and the regulatory framework that underpins these processes. It aims to identify the key challenges that have to be addressed if M&As are to expand.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    What has changed since the crisis?
    (2013-03-01T00:00:00Z) Figueira, Catarina