中央银行再贷款政策及转型研究

再贷款是指中央银行对金融机构发放的贷款,是中央银行体制形成以来的重要的货币政策手段,也是中央银行作为最后贷款人的政策工具。基于对央行再贷款政策三次转型历程的分析,针对当前再贷款存在的问题,我国再贷款政策需要进行第四次转型。转型目标是再贷款作为“最后贷款人”的调控手段,并建立存款保险制度作为转型的制度保障。     

Ben Bernanke and Bagehot's Rules

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has claimed that the Fed's bank bailouts during the 2008 financial crisis were consistent with Walter Bagehot's rules for a lender of last resort. This paper demonstrates Bernanke's claims to be mistaken. First, we outline Bagehot's doctrine for a classical lender of last resort. Next, we discuss Bernanke's theory of bank bailouts and his statements regarding the Fed's role in the 2008 bank bailouts. Finally, we examine the bailouts and demonstrate that, contrary to Bernanke's claims, the Fed's actions were not consistent with Bagehot's rules for a lender of last resort.     

The lender of last resort and the federal safety net

Under the aegis to the New Deal, the government established a safety net consisting of deposit insurance, a lender of last resort, and regulation. In the postwar period when the inflation rate was low, the economy stable, and the bank failure rate low, the safety net appeared to be an effective instrument to deliver financial stability. In the unstable economy since the 1970s, the functioning of each element of the safety net has been questioned. A reconsideration of the role assigned to each constituent is timely. I begin with a review that brings up to date since 1933, first, the role of regulation, second, deposit insurance, and third, the lender of last resort. Finally, I discuss how each of these might be reshaped in light of the changes since the 1970s.This paper was prepared for a conference in memory of Michael J. Hamburger at the Graduate School of Business Administration, New York University, March 12, 1987.     

推进利率市场化进程亟待完善金融安全网建设

“十二五”规划明确指出,我国将稳步推进利率市场化改革。关系金融稳定的金融安全网三道防线一审慎监管、最后贷款人制度、存款保险制度的建立与完善,成为深化利率市场化改革的重要保证。文章指出,应从完善宏观审慎管理框架、明确央行最后贷款人职责和加快建立存款保险制度这三个方面完善金融安全网建设,有规划、有步骤、坚定不移地推进利率市场化改革。     

Systemic banks and the lender of last resort

We propose a model where systemic and non-systemic banks are exposed to liquidity shortfalls so that a lender of last resort policy is required. We find that it is socially optimal to override the decision of the central bank by the unconditional provision of liquidity support when the shortfall is large enough, i.e. in crisis times. The existence of systemic banks provides a rationale for the central bank to act as lender of last resort for non-systemic banks in a larger range of their liquidity shortfalls. However, the impact of systemic risk on the optimal allocation of the lender of last resort responsibilities for systemic banks depends on the relative size of counteracting effects.     

金融调控中的物价稳定与金融稳定:从分离到融合的逻辑演进

从历史上考察,中央银行实施货币政策和充当最后贷款人,客观上使其具有了保持物价稳定和维护金融稳定的职能。20世纪80年代以后,许多国家的金融调控出现了明显变化,逐步向稳定物价的单一目标方向发展,金融监管则出现了"去央行化"的趋势,使中央银行失去了维护金融稳定的能力和手段。经济全球化产生了很多影响物价稳定与金融稳定的新因素,要求中央银行在保持物价稳定的同时,对金融稳定给予更多关注。全球金融危机后,国际社会和主要经济体加快了宏观审慎管理体系的构建,这为解决物价稳定与金融稳定的协调配合提供了新思路。如果将物价稳定与金融稳定纳入到宏观审慎管理的视野,就有可能在金融调控中二者兼顾,建立起新的金融调控范式。     

Aggregate liquidity shortages, idiosyncratic liquidity smoothing and banking regulation

This paper develops a model of banking fragility driven by aggregate liquidity shortages. Inefficiencies arise from a failure of the interbank market to smooth the available liquidity in such a shortage. We find that a standard lender of last resort policy is ineffective in restoring efficiency as it leads to offsetting changes in the banks’ supply of liquidity. In contrast, subsidizing the purchase of assets from troubled banks increases welfare by improving the banks’ liquidity holdings. The first best, however, is achieved by redistributing existing liquidity from healthy to troubled banks in a crisis.     

Do Lender of Last Resort Policies Matter? The Effects of Reconstruction Finance Corporation Assistance to Banks During the Great Depression

The paper uses a unique set of Depression-era bank financial data in a two-step system of equations with instrumental variables to estimate the effectiveness of lender of last resort (LOLR) strategies in a survival model with self-selection bias. Decreasing RFC loan collateral requirements over 1932–1933 facilitate the analysis of a relationship between LOLR collateral and survival. The results suggest that the RFC's practice of subordinating depositors' and investors' interests through senior claims on banks' best assets may have caused banks to fail. Although recapitalization after March 1933 helped banks survive the Great Depression, recapitalization is not a typical LOLR strategy.     

Recent trends in international banking

The paper defines ‘international banking’ more as a geographical expression than as a particular type of activity and points out that the internationalization of the world's major banking systems was in many cases an evolutionary phenomenon governed by market or institutional developments. It analyses both the development of international banking structures, stressing the process that brought banks to prefer international retail activity rather than wholesale, and the relationship between domestic and international banking. Finally, the paper deals with the not easy to resolve problem of the establishment of lender of last resort facilities in international banking.     

Two Naked Emperors?* Concerns about the Stability & Growth Pact and Second Thoughts about Central Bank Independence

This paper addresses two sets of issues relevant to current and prospective future E(M)U members: the consequences of the Stability & Growth Pact for fiscal‐financial sustainability and macroeconomic stability, and some risks associated with operational independence of the central bank. To be effective as a lender of last resort or to stabilise demand when short nominal interest rates are close to their zero lower bound, the central bank must coordinate and cooperate with the fiscal authorities. Central bank independence is unlikely to survive if such coordination and cooperation are not forthcoming.     

央行资本盒与货币政策的有效性

2007年次贷危机后,各国央行都承担起“最后贷款人”的职责,救助金融机构,央行自身资产负债表的质量不断恶化,引发对中央银行资本金的关注。央行在履行维持物价稳定和一些“准财政”职能时,资本金可能遭受损失,资本金的损失会影响到央行的公信力和独立性,以及货币政策的有效性。充足的央行资本金对于货币政策的有效执行来说是一种有力的保障。     

Sound Money and Sound Financial Policy

Anna Schwartz has long promoted a policy of stable money. She also has advocated sound financial policy. The financial environment, according to her work, is strongly influenced by the degree of aggregate price stability. In this article historical evidence for the U.S. is presented that shows a strong association between aggregate price movements and measures of financial distress. Even in an environment of aggregate price stability in the face of shocks, however, a monetary authority should follow the financial policies of a lender of last resort as advocated over a century ago by Walter Bagehot—to promote adequate funds to allay the public's demand for means of payment in the face of a real financial crisis. Other circumstances involving asset market reversals that Schwartz calls pseudo crises should not be the subject of the monetary authorities' actions.     

美英央行对受困金融机构的救助方式评鉴

中央银行在危机救助中应该扮演怎样的角色,各国并无统一定论.本文通过深入研究美英央行在金融危机中对受困金融机构采取的救助手段及其履职效果,论证了央行在危机救助中发挥投资功能对平衡金融稳定职责和价格稳定职责具有重要意义,同时也是中央银行最终贷款人职能的必然延伸,可以有效填补央行与财政部门在金融稳定职责方面的模糊地带.     

Deposit Insurance and the Discount Window: Pricing under Asymmetric Information

The risk-sensitive pricing of deposit insurance and the discount window is determined in an environment where banks have private information concerning their financial conditions. The two facilities are managed jointly; an incentive-compatible policy is designed such that banks' choice of terms at which they can obtain insurance and access to discount window credit will reveal their asset quality. The function of the discount window is to be a risk-neutral “lender of last resort” to banks in a market dominated by risk-averse depositors.     

Funding money-creating banks: Cash funding,balance sheet funding and the moral hazard of currency elasticity

Once banks are viewed as money creators rather than financial intermediaries, a distinction between their cash funding and balance sheet funding can be made. This distinction opens up various insights. It allows for a fuller explanation of the cash needs of banks with reference to the pattern of their cash gains and losses. It facilitates an understanding of the central bank as not only a cash lender of last resort (LOLR) for some banks some of the time, but also as a cash lender of continual and only resort (LOCOR) for all banks all of the time. It leads to novel insights into the sources of banks' balance sheet funding. The paper investigates the various implications of the central bank's elastic currency policy in its role as LOCOR, particularly how it thereby incites considerably more moral hazard than conventionally acknowledged. This realisation opens up a better understanding of the banking sector's proneness to excess and the economy's susceptibility to financial cycles. The paper concludes by weighing the merits of the only two policy strategies by which banking excess can be checked.     

Lender of last resort policy: What reforms are necessary?

The Northern Rock bailout has raised concerns about the ability of current supervisory arrangements to deal with banking crises. This paper uses a formal model of a lender of last resort to derive policy implications regarding the optimal allocation of decision-making authority. Thereby, it contributes to the policy debate in the United Kingdom by proposing reforms to the current supervisory arrangements.     

Lender of last resort: A contemporary perspective

This article re-examines the role of the central bank's lender of last resort (LLR) function in the current economic environment. It argues that the traditional role of protecting the money supply from collapse is no longer valid. LLR intervention is appropriate to offset temporary liquidity strains that are likely to depress asset prices and aggregate real income below their equilibrium levels. However, such support should be provided only rarely and through open market operations rather than the discount window.This article was started while the author was visiting the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The article was improved by constructive suggestions received from Douglas Evanoff, Gillian Garcia, Robert Laurent, Gerald O'Driscoll, Anna Schwartz, and an anonymous referee.     

Regulation of systemic liquidity risk

This paper provides a baseline model for regulatory analysis of systemic liquidity shocks. We show that banks may have an incentive to invest excessively in illiquid long-term projects. In the prevailing mixed-strategy equilibrium, the allocation is inferior from the investor’s point of view since some banks free ride on the liquidity provision due to their limited liability. The paper compares different regulatory mechanisms to cope with the externalities. We show that a combination of liquidity regulation ex ante and lender of last resort policy ex post can maximize investor payoff. In contrast, both “narrow banking” and imposing equity requirements as a buffer are inferior mechanisms for coping with systemic liquidity risk.     

Lender of Last Resort: What Have We Learned Since Bagehot?

The maintenance of financial stability is facilitated by well-designed safety-net arrangements aimed at limiting the risk of disruption in the financial system (crisis prevention) and the consequences of disruption if it arises (crisis management). An important element of crisis management is the lender of last resort (LOLR) function. This article reviews the main ideas on LOLR reflected in the academic literature, going back to Henry Thornton almost 200 years ago.     

Macroeconomic shocks and banking supervision

We build a simple model of banking in the presence of macroeconomic shocks where the comparative roles of private and public monitors can be analyzed. This model provides endogenous justifications for prudential regulation (capital requirements) and emergency liquidity assistance by the Central Bank (lender of last resort). We show that market discipline can be helpful, but does not solve the fundamental problem of regulatory forbearance. We propose some directions of reform of the regulatory system that could improve the management of banking crises.