What drives financial crises in emerging markets?

The study examines the causes of financial crises in 31 emerging market countries during 1980–2001. It estimates a probit model using 23 macroeconomic and financial sector variables. Traditional variables such as unemployment and inflation, as well as several indicators of indebtedness such as private sector liabilities and the foreign liabilities of banks explain currency crises rather well, and it appears currency crises occur in tandem with banking crises. Indeed, in emerging market countries the vulnerability to crisis is exacerbated by situations involving large liabilities that permit sudden capital outflows. Increases in indebtedness followed the liberalization of capital flows and domestic financial sectors.     

Capital flows,current account deficits,and financial crises in emerging market economies

Some emerging market economies are said to face today conditions similar to those faced by Mexico in 1994 at the time of its serious financial crisis. This paper identifies a number of macroeconomic and financial indicators, constructs a profile of the Mexican economy at the time of the crisis, and then compares these with the conditions in other major emerging market economies in Latin America and Asia today in order to determine the extent to which they resemble those of Mexico at the time of the 1994 crisis. The conclusion is reached that macroeconomic and financial indicators cannot by themselves predict Mexican-style financial crises. In today's world of highly integrated capital markets, any anticipation of financial unsustainability can lead to a massive capital outflow from the nation and trigger a crisis, with the catalyst usually being a worsening political problem. The usefulness of the indicators discussed is in providing a profile of the financial condition of the nation, evaluating the potential danger of a financial crisis, anticipating the depth of the crisis if one arises, and pointing to the precautions that a nation can take in trying to avoid a crisis or reduce its severity if one does occur.     

Foreign exchange futures volatility: Day-of-the-week,intraday, and maturity patterns in the presence of macroeconomic announcements

Using standard deviations and numbers of price changes calculated from tick data for currency futures, this study finds strong day-of-the-week effects for both the Deutsche mark and Japanese yen, mild effects for the British pound, and no effects for the Canadian dollar after controlling for scheduled macroeconomic announcements and days to contract expiration. The day-of-the-week effects are found to be caused either by Mondays’ low volatility, or by Thursdays’ or Fridays’ high volatility. This result suggests that the day-of-the-week effects in the currency futures are not driven by the announcements of macroeconomic indicators as proposed in previous studies, but rather by other factors, such as private information-based trading or by market microstructure. This study also finds that the announcements are processed equally across the days of the week for all four currency futures. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 19: 665–693, 1999     

Risk–return relationships in foreign‐currency futures following macroeconomic announcements

This study uses the tick data for foreign‐currency futures to examine risk–return relationships on macroeconomic announcements. This study—different from previous studies—examines the risk–return relationship by capturing the announcement effect on returns with announcement surprises and on volatilities with announcement dummies simultaneously in a Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model. Strong risk–return relationships are detected for the first min after the announcements. Furthermore, the return–risk tradeoff ratios differ across currencies and across macroeconomic indicators. The same information can be more profitable when acted on the more liquid currency futures. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22: 729–764, 2002     

我国货币错配问题探讨

本文首先介绍了货币错配的概念,指出大规模的货币错配对一国金融体系的稳定性、货币政策的有效性和汇率政策的灵活性等方面会造成巨大的不利影响,甚至引发货币金融危机;然后,根据戈德斯坦和特纳提出的货币错配衡量指标对中国的货币错配现状进行了探讨,认为中国存在一定程度的货币错配,其风险表现为本币升值下净外汇资产净值的缩水;最后提出了相关的对策和建议。     

The long or short of it: Determinants of foreign currency exposure in external balance sheets

A major focus of the recent literature on the determination of optimal portfolios in open-economy macroeconomic models has been on the role of currency movements in determining portfolio returns that may hedge various macroeconomic shocks. However, there is little empirical evidence on the foreign currency exposures that are embedded in international balance sheets. Using a new database, we provide stylized facts concerning the cross-country and time-series variation in aggregate foreign currency exposure and its various subcomponents. In panel estimation, we find that richer, more open economies take longer foreign-currency positions. In addition, we find that an increase in the propensity for a currency to depreciate during bad times is associated with a longer position in foreign currencies, providing a hedge against domestic output fluctuations. We view these new stylized facts as informative in their own right and also potentially useful to the burgeoning theoretical literature on the macroeconomics of international portfolios.     

Can emerging market central banks bail out banks? A cautionary tale from Latin America

This paper investigates whether emerging market countries can implement monetary policies to cope with financial crises as advanced countries did during the recent global crisis—injecting significant amounts of money into the financial system without facing major short-run adverse macroeconomic repercussions. Using panel data techniques, the paper analyzes episodes of financial turmoil in 16 Latin American countries during 1995–2007. The results show that developing and emerging market countries should be cautious because injecting money on a large scale into the financial system may fuel further macroeconomic instability, increasing the chances of simultaneous currency crises.     

Political conditions and currency crises in emerging markets

This article demonstrates the impact of structural political conditions on the likelihood of currency crises in emerging markets. Controlling for a standard and parsimonious set of macroeconomic variables, I find that: right-wing government is less conducive to currency crises; ‘strong’ governments (those with larger legislative majorities and those which face more fragmented legislative opposition) are also less vulnerable. Democracy also reduced the likelihood of currency crises in emerging markets; yet, in contrast to previous studies, this article does not find a significant impact of elections on the likelihood of currency crises.     

What explains default risk premium during the financial crisis? Evidence from Japan

As is well documented, subprime mortgage markets carried significant default risk. This paper investigates the relationship between default risk premium, stock market conditions and macroeconomic variables during the financial crisis. Using iTraxx Japan Credit Default Swap (CDS) index spreads covering the period from March 2006 to November 2009, we employ a time-varying dynamic factor model with Markov regime switching to generate regime probabilities for default risk. We analyze the sensitivity of default risk premium changes to stock market conditions and macroeconomic variables by using two-state Markov switching models: a crisis regime sparked by rising loan defaults in the sub-prime mortgage market, and a non-crisis regime. We found strong evidence that the relationship between default risk premium changes, stock market and macroeconomic variables is regime-dependent. Our results suggest that during periods of crisis, CDS indices behave as a higher-risk indicator and become more sensitive to stock market conditions and macroeconomic variables. This paper examines the effects of the financial crisis in explaining the default risk premium. Understanding the determinants of default risk premium is important for financial analysts, economic policy makers and credit risk management.     

Banks,Financial Liberalisation and Financial Crises in Emerging Markets

The East Asian financial crisis has raised a series of important issues. Amongst them is the question of the role of the banking sector and financial liberalisation in contributing to financial crises. How do weaknesses in the domestic banking sector, when combined with both domestic and international financial liberalisation, engender currency crises? What is lacking in the literature is a simple conceptual framework within which these connections can be conceptualised and drawn out and in which the role of banks is explicitly discussed. This paper seeks to provide just such a framework. Within it, international financial liberalisation can be seen as fuelling a boom in domestic credit, which leads to acute balance sheet problems for domestic banks, and exposes the country concerned to a currency crisis in the event of a sudden reversal of capital inflows, which banking weaknesses may itself trigger.     

Macroeconomic factors and antidumping filings: evidence from four countries

This paper examines the relationship between antidumping filings and macroeconomic factors. Real exchange rate fluctuations affect the two criteria for dumping in opposite ways, making the overall effect on filings ambiguous in theory. Examining the filing patterns of the four major users of AD law during the 1980-98 period we find that real exchange rates and domestic real GDP growth both have statistically significant impacts on filings. Bilateral filing data indicate that a one-standard deviation real appreciation of the domestic currency increases filings by 33%. We also find one-standard deviation fall in domestic real GDP increases filings by 23%.     

The impact of macroeconomic announcements on emerging market bonds

This paper examines how emerging market bonds react to macroeconomic announcements. Global bond spreads respond to rating actions and changes in U.S. interest rates rather than domestic data and policy announcements. All announcements affect market volatility. Macroeconomic data and policy announcements reduce uncertainty and stabilize spreads, while rating actions cause greater volatility. Results are robust to country-specific and panel analyses, assuming conditional variance and controlling for the surprise content of news. In subsamples, announcements matter less for countries with more transparent policies and higher credit ratings. In a crisis, rating actions become less important, and investors focus on simple and timely indicators.     

The Aftermath of a Currency Collapse: How Different are Emerging Markets?

In currency crises, unlike in orderly devaluations, the financial markets dominate events. Previous research has shown that the output effects of a crisis tend to be worse in emerging markets, and the current account adjustment greater. This paper examines the evolution of a wider range of macroeconomic variables from two years before a currency collapse to two years afterwards. On the basis of twelve recent episodes, it is shown that currency collapses (crises followed by depreciations) have had a much greater adverse impact in emerging markets (defined as relatively high‐income developing countries exposed to international capital markets) than in developed countries. There is greater nominal and real depreciation, a substantial inflation shock, a much bigger output effect, and far greater import compression, whilst inflows of portfolio capital virtually cease. These differences are statistically significant. Nevertheless there is wide variation n the post‐collapse experience of the six emerging markets studied (Mexico, Thailand, Korea, Indonesia, Russia and Brazil). Although all six experienced a sudden stop or even a reversal of capital flows and very sharp nominal depreciations, inflation remained low in Thailand, Korea and Brazil, and output losses were comparatively small in Russia and Brazil. Previous studies of individual crises suggest that important factors are the state of the banking system and its vulnerability to currency movements, the ability of the authorities to establish a credible macroeconomic policy after the collapse, and whether the crisis triggers significant political instability.     

Behavior of output during currency crises

This paper documents the behavior of output and its association with other macroeconomic variables in 195 episodes of currency crises in developing countries during 1970-2000. We find that about 60% of the crises are contractionary, while the rest are expansionary. Crises are one and a half times more likely to be contractionary in emerging markets than in other developing economies. The number of contractionary crises or their severity does not increase in the 1990s. Economies which experience capital inflows in the years prior to the crisis or an increase in external debt burden during the crisis are more likely to slow down during crises, while those with restrictions on capital flows prior to the crisis or are more open to international trade are less likely to do so. The results are robust to different ways of measuring changes in output during crises.     

The Greek Debt Crisis: Likely Causes,Mechanics and Outcomes

We use insights from the literature on currency crises to offer an analytical treatment of the crisis in the market for Greek government bonds. We argue that the crisis itself and its escalating nature are very likely to be the result of: (i) steady deterioration of Greek macroeconomic fundamentals over 2001–09 to levels inconsistent with long‐term EMU participation; and (ii) a double shift in markets’ expectations, from a regime of credible commitment to future EMU participation under an implicit EMU/German guarantee of Greek fiscal liabilities, to a regime of non‐credible EMU commitment without fiscal guarantees, respectively occurring in November 2009 and February/March 2010. We argue that the risk of contagion to other periphery EMU countries is significant; and that without extensive structural reforms, the sustainability of the EMU is in question.     

The international lender of last resort and selective bail-out

In the event of a third generation crisis, international lending of last resort should be used if and only if the international lender of last resort (ILOLR) is informed on the subject of domestic financial and banking markets. Therefore, it will act at a macroeconomic level, as an usual ILOLR, but also at a microeconomic level, since there will be selective lending to commercial banks. There are two conditions of optimality of this intervention: first, the country should be eligible; and secondly, only solvent banks should be bailed out.     

我国货币中性的实证研究

国际金融危机爆发以来,降低利率、增加流通中货币成了各国政府解决金融危机的共同做法,货币对于经济的积极作用再次引起人们的关注。过于宽松的货币政策能持续多久,会不会造成严重的通货膨胀,进而破坏经济的健康发展,也同样引起人们的关注。本文对我国1978-2009年的流通中货币、利率、物价指数对GDP的影响进行了实证研究,结果表明流通中货币不是实际GDP增长的格兰杰原因,货币是中性的;GDP的实际增长率是实际利率的格兰杰原因,名义利率和GDP没有因果关系;GDP和物价指数没有格兰杰因果关系,通货膨胀不能促进经济的增长。     

Funding development infrastructure without leverage: A risk‐sharing alternative using innovative sukuk structures

Muslim countries of the developing world suffer indebtedness resulting mostly from funding development infrastructure. Faced with a dire need for development infrastructure but with inadequate resources to fund them domestically, these governments often resort to foreign borrowing. As neither foreign banks nor international debt markets would allow for the debt to be in home currency, the funding is invariably denominated in foreign currency. For the borrowing country, in addition to currency exposure such borrowing increases the country's leverage and economic vulnerability. As these countries typically have a narrow economic base with heavy reliance on commodity exports, they are susceptible to the vagaries of commodity price fluctuation. Leverage increases the amplitude of the economy's fluctuation, resulting if not in outright crisis, then, at least in financial distress and depreciating home currency. As a result, when the foreign currency funded project comes on stream, it is burdened with huge accumulated debt which in many cases makes the project unmanageable without further government help through subsidy of operating costs. This further stresses already stretched government budgets and perpetuates indebtedness. This cycle of borrowing, leverage and vulnerability can be broken by innovative use of sukuk. The problem with debt financing is that the servicing requirements are independent of the underlying project's risk or cash flows. This paper presents two sukuk structures based on the risk sharing principles of Islamic finance. Sukuk that have returns linked to the nation's gross domestic product growth if the funded project is non‐revenue generating and linked to earnings of the project if it is revenue generating can avoid the problems above. The pay‐off profile, estimated cost of funds and returns to investors of these sukuk are discussed. When designed in small denomination, such sukuk can enhance financial inclusion, help build domestic capital markets and enable the financing of development without stressing government budgets.     

The road to currency internationalization: Global perspectives and chinese experience

This paper studies international currency use in financial transactions. A currency becomes international when it circulates outside of its issuing country, and advances to vehicle currency status if used by non-residents. With currency information from the SWIFT dataset, we estimate a gravity model to explain the geographical distribution of international currency use. A higher level of economic integration and stable macroeconomic conditions increase the international use of major currencies such as USD and EUR. Merchandise trade and portfolio investment are most helpful in increasing the direct use of currency, while foreign direct investment (FDI) has a stronger effect on promoting vehicle use. Merchandise trade improves the intensity of the global use of the Chinese renminbi (RMB), while FDI increases the number of its users. The policy effect on RMB internationalization is significant only in enhancing the intensity of direct use. Furthermore, the global use of RMB is decreasing by distance, implying that its role is more regional. We recommend outward FDI through the Belt and Road Initiative to further promote RMB internationalization.     

Can leading indicators assess country vulnerability? Evidence from the 2008–09 global financial crisis

We investigate whether leading indicators can help explain the cross-country incidence of the 2008–09 financial crisis. Rather than looking for indicators with specific relevance to the recent crisis, the selection of variables is driven by an extensive review of more than eighty papers from the previous literature on early warning indicators. Our motivation is to address suspicions that indicators found to be useful predictors in one round of crises are typically not useful to predict the next round. The review suggests that central bank reserves and past movements in the real exchange rate were the two leading indicators that had proven the most useful in explaining crisis incidence across different countries and episodes in the past. For the 2008–09 crisis, we use six different variables to measure crisis incidence: drops in GDP and industrial production, currency depreciation, stock market performance, reserve losses, and participation in an IMF program. We find that the level of reserves in 2007 appears as a consistent and statistically significant leading indicator of who got hit by the 2008–09 crisis, in line with the conclusions of the pre-2008 literature. In addition to reserves, recent real appreciation is a statistically significant predictor of devaluation and of a measure of exchange market pressure during the current crisis. We define the period of the global financial shock as running from late 2008 to early 2009, which probably explains why we find stronger results than earlier papers such as Obstfeld et al. (2009, 2010) and Rose and Spiegel (2009a,b, 2010, 2011) which use annual data.