Political Stability and the Effectiveness of Currency Based Macro Prudential Measures

The use of multiple currency based macroprudential tools by Reserve Bank of India, India’s central bank, has helped create resilience in the economy, especially during financial turmoil. However, in a democratic set-up like India, the analysis of capital based macroprudential reforms needs to incorporate the political stability, as there is increasing evidence that macroprudential policy effectiveness is closely linked to political conditions. This study incorporates the role of political stability is understanding the effectiveness of currency based macroprudential policies, by using the years of election as a proxy for political uncertainty. I develop an index of capital based macroprudential policies (CMPP) using the notifications on capital flows and risk management guidelines on foreign exchange exposures from Reserve Bank of India. Using a GARCH model, the impact of CMPP on the net capital inflows is analyzed for the period from January, 1997 to March, 2018. I find that while the presence of CMPP leads to a fall in capital flow volatility, such policies in the years of election are ineffective in curbing capital flow volatility. The paper adds to the increasing evidence coming in recent years of the link between political cycles, interest groups and macroprudential policies.

     

The determinants of private capital flow volatility in Sub-Saharan African countries

The study investigates the underlying factors of patterns of volatility for FDI, portfolio equity and cross-border bank lending inflows for sub-Saharan African countries using a panel framework with data from 1990 to 2011. No other study has focussed exclusively on sub-Saharan Africa when investigating the determinants of private capital flow volatility. This study is further unique in that it employs clearly-delineated cross-border bank lending data from the Bank of International Settlements’ (BIS) Locational Banking Statistics that has not been used by similar prior studies. The findings of the study are as follows: (1) global liquidity lowers FDI volatility while private sector credit increases volatility; (2) global liquidity increases portfolio equity volatility with growth and the quality of macroeconomic policies found to be important pull factors in lowering volatility; and (3) the quality of macroeconomic policies and trade openness are important pull factors in lowering cross-border bank lending volatility while financial openness increases volatility.     

住房价格、金融稳定与宏观审慎政策

本文通过建立包含异质性家庭、异质性厂商和金融机构的DSGE模型,分析对预期房价作出反应的货币政策和宏观审慎政策的传导机制和政策效果,研究不同政策的选择和协调问题。研究发现,首先,由于政策的作用范围不同,不同政策会对金融稳定和经济稳定产生不同影响。对预期房价作出反应的货币政策能够抑制住房需求和信贷供给,但也会抑制消费需求和产出;而对预期房价作出反应的逆周期LTV政策和逆周期资本充足率政策在应对房价波动导致的金融稳定问题时更加有的放矢。其次,外生冲击的来源会影响政策的选择和协调——当经济波动来源于需求冲击时,固定LTV政策搭配逆周期资本充足率的宏观审慎政策、不对预期房价作出反应的货币政策表现最优;当经济波动来源于供给冲击时,固定LTV政策搭配逆周期资本充足率的宏观审慎政策、对预期房价作出反应的货币政策表现最优。     

Exchange rate volatility across financial crises

This paper studies the impact of global financial turmoil on the exchange rate policies in emerging countries. Spillovers from advanced financial markets to currencies in emerging countries are likely to be exacerbated during crisis periods. To test this hypothesis, we assess the exchange rate policies by currencies’ volatility and investigate their relationship to a global financial stress indicator, measured by the volatility on global markets. We introduce the possibility of nonlinearities by running smooth transition regressions over a sample of 21 emerging countries from January 1994 to September 2009. The results confirm that exchange rate volatility does increase more than proportionally with the global financial stress, for most countries in the sample. We also evidence regional contagion effects spreading from one emerging currency to other currencies in the neighboring area.     

Volatility spillover in the foreign exchange market: the Indian experience

We find evidence of significant volatility co-movements and/or spillover from different financial markets to the forex market in India. Among a large number of variables examined, volatility spillovers from domestic stock, government securities, overnight index swap, Ted spread and international crude oil markets to the foreign exchange market are found to be significant. There is evidence of asymmetric reactions in the forex market volatility. Comparisons between pre-crisis and post-crisis volatility indicate that the reform measures and changes in financial markets microstructure during the crisis period had significant impact on volatility spillover. During the post-crisis period, the lagged volatility component that represents persistent or fundamental changes had significant spillover effect on forex volatility, rather than the temporary shocks component. There is evidence of a decline in the asymmetric response in the forex volatility during the post-crisis period in India.     

波动溢出网络视角的金融风险传染研究

当前各类经济风险交叉关联,金融系统的风险溢出效应备受关注,为刻画我国金融系统性风险传染的路径特征,本文从波动溢出网络的视角分析金融系统内部的风险传染机制。首先使用广义动态因子模型对收益波动的共同波动率成分和特质性波动率成分进行区分。然后,根据货币市场、资本市场、大宗商品交易市场、外汇市场、房地产市场和黄金市场之间的特质性波动溢出效应,利用基于TVP-VAR模型的方差分解溢出指数分析金融系统波动溢出的动态联动性和风险传递机制。在分析方向性波动溢出效应的基础上,采用方差分解网络方法构建起信息溢出复杂网络,从网络视角分析金融系统内部的风险传染特征。实证研究发现,房地产市场和外汇市场的净溢出效应绝对值相较于其他市场更大,其受其他市场风险冲击的影响强于对外风险溢出效应,而股票市场的单向对外风险溢出效应强度最大。在波动溢出的基础上,进一步考虑股市波动率指数与其他市场波动率指数进行投资组合的资产配置权重,计算了波动率指数投资组合的最优组合权重和对冲策略。研究结论有助于更好地理解我国金融系统的风险传染机制,对监管机构加强宏观审慎监管、投资者规避投资风险具有重要意义。     

Financial Sector transparency and net interest margins: Should the private or public Sector lead financial Sector transparency?

This study examines the effect of private and public sector led financial sector transparency on bank interest margins across eighty-six economies. Using a two-step dynamic system generalized method of moments, least square dummy variables, fixed effects and bootstrap quantile panel models between 2005 and 2016, the findings of the two-step GMM are reported as follows. First, results reveal that financial sector transparency whether led by private or public sector reduces interest margins. Second, while no statistical evidence was found on which of the two (private or public sector led transparency) is more effective in dealing with bank interest margins, public sector-led financial transparency is found to be more consistent in reducing bank interest margins across many more economies. Third, the study shows that the effect of financial sector transparency is visible at lower and middle levels of bank interest margins implying that economies with lower and moderately high bank interest margin level can benefit more from policies targeted at improving transparency in the financial sector. These findings imply that the sampled countries must enact policies and laws that deepen and expand financial sector transparency in order to potentially reduce bank interest margins for the good of banking market participants and society at large.     

Oil shocks and stock market volatility of the BRICS: A GARCH-MIDAS approach

In this study, we employ the GARCH–MIDAS (Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity variant of Mixed Data Sampling) model to investigate the response of stock market volatility of the BRICS group of countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) to oil shocks. We utilise the recent datasets of Baumeister & Hamilton (2019), where oil shocks are decomposed into four variants: oil supply shocks, economic activity shocks, oil consumption shocks, and oil inventory shocks. We further decompose each of these shocks into positive and negative shocks, and our findings show heterogeneous response of stock market volatility of the BRICS countries to the alternative oil shocks, including positive and negative shocks. The differing responses across the BRICS countries could be attributed to differences in the economic size, oil production, and consumption profile of the countries, market share distribution across firms, and financial system and regulation efficiency.     

Information-Based Trading in the Treasury Note Interdealer Broker Market

Despite its pervasive presence in world financial markets, there are few studies of interdealer broker markets. This paper examines the trading behavior of primary dealers in the 5-year Treasury note interdealer broker market. The analysis examines trading patterns, announcement effects, and volatility–volume relations. The results show that trading frequency is consistent with activity motivated by public information or dealer's private knowledge of inventory or order flow information. Additionally, although the interdealer broker market is an anonymous electronic compilation and matching system without designated market makers, trade size does not appear to have any information content. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C22, G14.     

Detecting volatility persistence in GARCH models in the presence of the leverage effect

Most asset prices are subject to significant volatility. The arrival of new information is viewed as the main source of volatility. As new information is continually released, financial asset prices exhibit volatility persistence, which affects financial risk analysis and risk management strategies. This paper proposes a nonlinear regime-switching threshold generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model which can be used to analyse financial data. The empirical results based on quasi-maximum likelihood estimation presented in this paper suggest that the proposed model is capable of extracting information about the sources of volatility persistence in the presence of the leverage effect.