Credit and Financial Capital in Roman Egypt

Author(s):  
Merav Haklai

Roman Egypt sets an example of a monetized society in which credit was widely used in both monetary and in-kind transactions. During the first two and a half centuries of Roman rule, interactions between the three main legal systems in Egypt—Demotic, Greek, and Roman—gradually created a coherent institutional environment that structured credit and financial capital. In this environment, Greek law gained the upper hand as the most frequently used system of law for conducting economic interactions. The administrative, fiscal, and financial conditions set up by Roman governance, and above all the new and reduced maximum Roman legal interest rate, affected the development of credit-related mechanisms. Legal structures that enabled the creation of credit went through a slow and gradual change, in which available legal formats were adjusted to accommodate for somewhat different activities. Παραθήκη‎ formulae, originally used for making deposits, increasingly were being used in de facto loans, thereby casting new content in an existing formula. While this practice is commonly attested in transactions between private individuals, using παραθήκη‎ agreements seems not to have served as a common financial tool for Roman Egypt’s banking sector.

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Ebrahim Merza ◽  
Sayed-Abbas Almusawi

<p>This paper aims at finding the effective factors that influence three sectors in Kuwait stock exchange market (KSE) in addition to the whole stock market. The three sectors are banking, real estate and insurance sectors. The paper measures KSE performance through the average share prices calculated on a quarterly basis starting from 2005 until first quarter of 2015. It is found that each sector behaves differently towards macroeconomic variables. The most important determinants for the KSE overall market performance were found to be gold price and the deposits rate. Individually, the banking sector is influenced by consumer price index, interest rate on loans, oil price and gold price. The insurance sector is influenced by money supply, residential real estate price and oil price. The real estate sector is influenced by the exchange rate with respect to US dollars, interest rate on loans, oil price and gold price.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-98
Author(s):  
Mehmed Ganić

This paper provides an empirical analysis of factors affecting Bank Interest Margins in eight countries of the South‑East European (SEE) region between 2000 and 2014. The purpose of this paper is to examine and investigate the main drivers of Bank Interest Rate Margins across selected countries throughout the SEE region. Also, the study explored the relationship between the dependent variable Interest Rate Spread (IRS – as a proxy variable for measuring variation in Bank Interest Rate Margins) and a set of selected banks’ specific variables in SEE by employing panel data estimation methodology. This research is based on aggregate data for the whole banking sector of each country. In line with some expectations, our findings confirm the importance of credit risk, bank concentration operative efficiency, and inflation expectations in determining Bank Interest Rate Margins. Interestingly, in contrast to the majority of recent empirical research, the study found an inverse relationship between the bank concentration variable and Bank Interest Rate Margins as well as between the operational efficiency variable and Bank Interest Rate Margins. Also, the study could not find statistically significant evidence that Bank Interest Rate Margins are determined by output growth, bank profitability (measured by ROA) or liquidity risk.


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (8) ◽  
pp. 2921-2954 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hoffmann ◽  
Sam Langfield ◽  
Federico Pierobon ◽  
Guillaume Vuillemey

Abstract We study the allocation of interest rate risk within the European banking sector using novel data. Banks’ exposure to interest rate risk is small on aggregate, but heterogeneous in the cross-section. Contrary to conventional wisdom, net worth is increasing in interest rates for approximately half of the institutions in our sample. Cross-sectional variation in banks’ exposures is driven by cross-country differences in loan-rate fixation conventions for mortgages. Banks use derivatives to partially hedge on-balance-sheet exposures. Residual exposures imply that changes in interest rates have redistributive effects within the banking sector. Received October 31, 2017; editorial decision August 30, 2018 by Editor Philip Strahan. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Mohammad Abdel Mohsen Al-Afeef ◽  
Atallah Hassan Al-Ta'ani

Banking sector is one of the most important sectors that support the sustainable economic development in Jordan, therefore this study aimed to test the impact of risks; (Liquidity risk, bank credit risk and interest rate risk) on the safety in the banking sector in the Jordanian commercial banks during the period 2005-2016.The results of the study showed that there is a statistically significant impact for each of liquidity risk and interest rate risk on the safety in the banking sector, and there isn't statistically significant impact for credit risk on the safety in the banking sector during the period of this study, and also find that the explanatory of model was 60.5%, which means that 39.5% due to other factors.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lambert Ejokor John Konboye ◽  
Alwell Nteegah

The incessant bank distress coupled with the poor financial intermediation capacity of the banking sector has been identified as the main problems of the banking subsector in Nigeria. This underscores the continue quest for increase capital base of banks as possible remedy to these problems. This development makes it imperative for us to examine how capitalization has affected banks profitability in Nigeria. To achieve our objectives, both panel and Partial Frontier efficiency analyses were utilized in this investigation. Using gross profits of 18 DMBs as dependent variable while capital base of DMBs, real income (GDP), financial deepening, interest rate and inflation rate are independent variables, we found that: capitalization has a significant impact on profitability of banks, while financial development, real income level were found to had contributed less to profitability of banks in Nigeria. It was further discovered that, interest rate has less implication on the profitability, while the impact of inflation on profitability of banks was positively but insignificantly. We also found that 58 % of the total variation in profitability is influenced by capital base, financial deepening, interest rate, GDP and price level in Nigeria over the period. The study further revealed that impact of capitalization on profitability of banks is the same across the banks. Finally, using the partial efficiency frontier analysis, we found that Unity Bank and UBA performed better with improved capital base while Union and Heritage Banks performed abysmally with high capital base given the very low efficiency scores. Based on these findings, the study recommends; periodic upward review of capital base of banks, stable macroeconomic policy, and creating enabling environment for investments as ways of enhancing an efficient financial sector and growth of the Nigerian economy. Int. J. Soc. Sc. Manage. Vol. 3, Issue-3: 203-213


1993 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 431
Author(s):  
Nick Palethorpe

Banks in many parts of the world, including Australia, have tightened credit because of their level of loan losses in the late 1980's and early 1990's. However, recent financings of petroleum projects in this region indicate that the banks' appetite for such lending has not been adversely affected. In fact, banks which lent to Australian petroleum projects in the 1970s and 1980s have generally not only had a return on their money but have also had the return of their money.The funding requirements for Australian petroleum developments in the 1990s and beyond appear considerable. It is expected that there will be keen competition from the banking sector to supply these funds.The need to properly assess and mitigate the risks inherent in such developments will continue, if not heighten, as advanced technology, often in hostile environments, is required to develop more marginal fields.In so far as oil price, foreign exchange and interest rate risks are concerned, there is likely to be a growing emphasis by banks on managing risk so as to contain what historically have been high levels of volatility. A number of products have been developed by banks to manage these risks and if correctly applied they can also serve to reduce risk. There is some cost, however this can be offset by application of the same bank products. By reducing risk it is also possible to obtain higher levels of debt.


2019 ◽  
pp. 097215091985748 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamed Ahmad Almahadin

This study investigates the dynamic impacts of local interest rate volatility and the spillover effects of the US policy rate on the banking development of Asian countries from 1980 to 2015. Bounds testing within the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) framework is employed to explore the long-term and short-term impacts. In addition, the study adopts a principal components analysis to create a comprehensive index for banking development to capture the major dimensions of the banking development concept. The empirical findings indicate that local interest rate volatility has negative impacts on the banking industry of Asian countries. Moreover, the existence of the negative spillover impact of the US policy rate on the banking development proxy is revealed in the sampled countries. These impacts continue to play a significant role in dampening the path of banking sector development. Therefore, the banking industry of Asian countries seems to be vulnerable to interest rate risk. The results could provide important implications for policymakers to improve the banking systems of Asian economies. Bankers must consider the impacts of local interest rate policies, as well as the role of US interest rates.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4803 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiuyi Yang ◽  
Youze Lang ◽  
Changsheng Xu

Recently, China has witnessed a continuously increasing Debt-to-GDP ratio and a vigorously expanding shadow banking sector. Housing prices hovering at a high level seriously affect the lives of ordinary residents. Disappointingly, a variety of activities such as intense deleveraging campaigns and tight monetary controls produce little effect. Why do these seemingly rightful implementations hardly work? What should governments do to stop the incessant expansion of asset bubbles? What role ought financial supervisors to play in regulating credit markets and facilitating a sustainable and inclusive economic growth? This paper sets off from the pledgeability of asset bubbles and constructs a generalized overlapping generation (OLG) model incorporating financial frictions and collateral constraints, in order to explore the bubble evolution under the alterations of market interest rates and credit conditions. The results show a unique bubble equilibrium, in which the steady-state bubble size expands when interest rate increases. Numerical results further reveal that the bubble-inflation effect of a higher interest rate is reinforced by a more stringent collateral constraint. Our research contributes to an explanation of the inefficacy of present policies and provides the following policy implications: The combination of an interest rate elevation and a strong loan restriction is in fact undesirable for suppressing asset bubbles. Not merely does it strike productivity and capital formation, but it also fosters investors to hold more risky assets to solve liquidity shortage under constrained borrowing capacity.


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