What explains global exchange rate movements during the financial crisis?

A striking and unexpected feature of the financial crisis has been the sharp appreciation of the US dollar against virtually all currencies globally. The paper finds that negative US-specific macroeconomic shocks during the crisis have triggered a significant strengthening of the US dollar, rather than a weakening. Macroeconomic fundamentals and financial exposure of individual countries are found to have played a key role in the transmission process of US shocks: in particular countries with low FX reserves, weak current account positions and high direct financial exposure vis-à-vis the United States have experienced substantially larger currency depreciations during the crisis overall, and to US shocks in particular.     

How did a domestic housing slump turn into a global financial crisis?

The global financial crisis clearly started with problems in the U.S. sub-prime sector and spread across the world from there. But was the direct exposure of foreigners to the U.S. financial system a key driver of the crisis, or did other factors account for its rapid contagion across the world? To answer this question, we assessed whether countries that held large amounts of U.S. mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and were highly dependent on dollar funding experienced a greater degree of financial distress during the crisis. We found little evidence of such direct spillovers from the United States to abroad. Although CDS spreads generally rose higher and bank stocks generally fell lower in countries with more exposure to U.S. MBS and greater dollar funding needs, these correlations were not robust, and they fail to explain the lion’s share of the deterioration in asset prices that took place during the crisis. Accordingly, less tangible channels of contagion may have played a more important role in the global spread of the crisis: a generalized run on global financial institutions, given the opacity of their balance sheets; excessive dependence on short-term funding; vicious cycles of mark-to-market losses driving fire sales of MBS; the realization that financial firms around the world were pursuing similar (flawed) business models; and global swings in risk aversion. The U.S. sub-prime crisis, rather than being a fundamental driver of the global crisis, may have been merely a trigger for a global bank run and for disillusionment with a risky business model that already had spread around the world.     

Is there a bright side to government banks? Evidence from the global financial crisis

Using a sample of banks from 56 countries, this paper investigates the lending behavior of government banks during the crisis of 2008, and its association with bank performance and the economy. Contrary to the traditional wisdom, we find that government banks can play a beneficial role under certain circumstances. Government banks have higher loan growth rates than private banks during the crisis. In countries with low corruption, the increased lending by government banks is associated with better bank performance and more favorable GDP and employment growth in the crisis period. In contrast, the results for countries with high corruption are more consistent with the political view: the increased lending by government banks is associated with underperformance relative to private banks, and creates no beneficial effects on either GDP growth or employment.     

Does stable ownership create value? Evidence from the global financial crisis

We investigate the value of stable ownership for a sample of European firms using the global financial crisis as an exogenous shock and pre-and post-crisis years as benchmark periods. Consistent with the argument that stable ownership allows managers to focus on the creation of long-term value, we find that stable ownership resulted in higher stock returns and a higher market-to-book ratio during the crisis. This positive effect of stable ownership was not reversed after the crisis. Stable institutional blockholdings were more valuable in countries with weaker investor protection. However, the positive effect does not apply to firms in which a family is the largest blockholder. Finally, we also find that ownership stability was associated with a higher level of investments, illustrating that stable ownership affects real corporate decisions.

     

Is there a relation between audit fee cuts during the global financial crisis and banks’ financial reporting quality?

As a result of the global financial crisis (GFC), several audit clients were able to negotiate lower audit fees for the years 2008 and 2009. However, the PCAOB has expressed concern that lower audit fees might lead to lower audit effort and lower audit quality and financial reporting quality. This study examines the relation between audit fee cuts and banks’ financial reporting quality. Specifically, we focus on earnings management via loan loss provisions (LLP), the relation between current period LLP and future loan charge-offs, i.e., LLP validity, and the timely recognition of loan losses. For banks audited by Big 4 auditors, we find that income-increasing abnormal LLP are decreasing in audit fee cuts and LLP validity is increasing in audit fee cuts. For banks audited by non-Big 4 auditors, LLP validity is higher for banks that received a fee cut of more than 25% relative to other banks audited by non-Big 4 auditors. We do not observe an association between timely loan loss recognition and cuts in audit fees except for banks audited by non-Big 4 auditors and exempt from internal control audits where a fee cut of more than 25% is associated with less timely loan loss recognition. Overall, the findings suggest that Big 4 auditors constrained earnings management via LLP in banks that received cuts in audit fees. Our findings have important implications for regulators, investors, and others.     

How resilient and countercyclical were emerging economies during the global financial crisis?

By studying the cross-country incidence of the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, we document a structural break in the way emerging economies responded to the global shock. Contrary to popular perceptions, emerging economies suffered growth collapses (relative to the pre-crisis levels) comparable to those experienced by developed economies, even when they continued growing. Afterwards, most economies returned to their pre-crisis growth rates. Although emerging economies were not able to avoid the collapse originated in the U.S. and then transmitted across countries, they were more resilient during the global crisis than during past crises. Namely, they resumed their higher growth rates earlier and converged more quickly to their pre-crisis growth trend. Moreover, breaking with the past, emerging economies did not fall more than developed economies during the global crisis and were able to conduct countercyclical policies, thus becoming more similar to developed economies.     

Are short sellers positive feedback traders? Evidence from the global financial crisis

Short sellers are routinely blamed for destabilizing stock markets by exacerbating deviations from fundamental values. In response, regulators periodically impose short sale constraints aimed at preventing excessive stock market declines. One explanation is that policy makers regard short sellers as behaving like positive feedback traders. Relying on the theoretical model put forward by Sentana and Wadhwani (1992), which stresses the conditional nature of returns’ persistence, bans on selected financial stocks in six countries during the 2008/2009 global financial crisis are examined. These provide us with a setting to analyze the impact of short sale restrictions on feedback trading. Our findings suggest that, in the majority of markets examined, restrictions of this kind amplify positive feedback trading during periods of high volatility and, hence, contribute to stock market downturns. On balance then, short selling bans do not contribute to enhancing financial stability.     

Does inequality lead to a financial crisis?

The recent global crisis has sparked interest in the relationship between income inequality, credit booms, and financial crises. Rajan (2010) and Kumhof and Rancière (2011) propose that rising inequality led to a credit boom and eventually to a financial crisis in the US in the first decade of the 21st century as it did in the 1920s. Data from 14 advanced countries between 1920 and 2000 suggest these are not general relationships. Credit booms heighten the probability of a banking crisis, but we find no evidence that a rise in top income shares leads to credit booms. Instead, low interest rates and economic expansions are the only two robust determinants of credit booms in our data set. Anecdotal evidence from US experience in the 1920s and in the years up to 2007 and from other countries does not support the inequality, credit, crisis nexus. Rather, it points back to a familiar boom-bust pattern of declines in interest rates, strong growth, rising credit, asset price booms and crises.     

The cost of firms’ debt financing and the global financial crisis

We provide an assessment of the determinants of the risk premium paid by non-financial corporations on long-term bonds. By looking at 5500 issues over the period 2005–2012, we find that in recent years the sovereign debt market turbulence has been a major driver of corporate risk. Compared with the three-year period 2005–2007 before the global financial crisis, in the years 2010–2012 Italian, Spanish and Portuguese firms paid on average between 70 and 120 basis points of additional premium due to the negative spillovers from the sovereign debt crisis, while German firms received a discount of 40 basis points.     

The long-term effects of bank recapitalization: Evidence from Indonesia

Do government-sponsored bank recapitalization programs spur lending and reduce risk? This paper assesses the impact of Indonesia’s bank recapitalization program on lending and bank risk following the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Using unique bank-level data, difference-in-differences estimates suggest that recapitalization increased lending (and more so for larger banks), but also boosted bank risk in the long term. Results remain robust to considerations of (1) bank-level differences in political connections, business group affiliation, ownership type, and (2) changes in macroeconomic conditions, capital requirements, accounting regulations, and public credit registry availability.     

进一步完善我国出口退税政策的建议

本文首先梳理了国际金融危机爆发后我国对出口退税政策进行的历次调整,并对调整的效果进行了评价。之后,详细分析了我国现行出口退税政策存在的不足之处,对进一步完善出口退税政策提出了建议。     

Foreign Ownership and Volatility Dynamics of Indonesian Stocks

This note explores how foreign ownership and participation affect the volatility dynamics of individual stocks in Indonesia. After controlling for size and turnover, we show that stocks with high foreign holdings have greater volatility persistence and lead other stocks in the daily volatility changes. The finding holds during and after the Asian financial crisis, and is consistent with domestic investors mimicking foreign trading.      

基于FSI的中国金融安全实证分析

随着我国加入WTO后金融自由化进程不断加快,建立金融安全预警机制,及时掌握金融安全动态,对防止金融危机的爆发至关重要.本文首先在相关文献研究的基础上,依据"三性原则"筛选出能够反映我国金融安全运行状况的20个指标,其次参照国际标准和中国具体实际确定了临界值或区间值,最后经计算得出反映我国金融安全程度的指数--FSI(Financial Security Index),并运用FSI对我国1992～2005年间的金融安全状况进行了评判.通过研究得出结论认为:1992～2005年我国的金融安全总体趋势是逐渐变好,加入WTO虽然并未使我国的金融安全状况变差,但是在目前金融业逐渐开放的条件下仍然需要高度关注金融风险.     

基于FSI的中国金融安全实证分析

随着我国加入WTO后金融自由化进程不断加快,建立金融安全预警机制,及时掌握金融安全动态,对防止金融危机的爆发至关重要。本文首先在相关文献研究的基础上,依据“三性原则”筛选出能够反映我国金融安全运行状况的20个指标,其次参照国际标准和中国具体实际确定了临界值或区间值,最后经计算得出反映我国金融安全程度的指数——FSI（Financial Security Index）,并运用FSI对我国1992～2005年间的金融安全状况进行了评判。通过研究得出结论认为：1992～2005年我国的金融安全总体趋势是逐渐变好,加入WTO虽然并未使我国的金融安全状况变差,但是在目前金融业逐渐开放的条件下仍然需要高度关注金融风险。     

Sovereign Risk Contagion in East Asia: A Mixture of Time-Varying Copulas Approach

This study analyzes sovereign risk contagion between four East Asian economies (China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea) and its structural changes through the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the European Debt Crisis (EDC) by applying the mixture of time-varying copulas to those economies’ credit default swap (CDS) spreads.

This article first finds a strong contagion from the US and PIIGS economies to the East Asian sovereign CDS markets and intraregional contagion within the East Asian markets. Second, the impact of contagion is different according to whether it is measured by the linear (Gaussian) or the upper tail dependence. Third, Japan plays an important role in increasing the linear dependence whereas China and Korea are crucial in terms of the upper tail dependence. Lastly, the GFC has structurally increased the linear dependence but not the upper tail dependence between the East Asian sovereign CDS markets.     

经济开放进程中金融危机冲击比较研究

亚洲金融危机和美国次贷危机对中国经济产生了明显的影响,但在经济开放进程中这两次危机冲击特点和结果均有所不同。本文对开放进程中金融危机向国内传导的渠道进行分析,利用指标对比分析法、干扰模型、脉冲响应以及方差分解技术分析比较了两次金融危机对我国冲击的不同影响机制。研究结论表明,在经济开放进程中,美国次贷危机对国内经济的冲击要远超于亚洲金融危机;在资本项目没有完全开放条件下,国际贸易渠道越来越成为国际金融危机冲击向国内传导的重要渠道;尽管经济开放增加了金融风险,但良好的制度设计和金融风险管理手段的加强,使金融危机通过金融渠道传导而产生的冲击波有所降低。