Estimating the impact of exchange rate changes on the asset growth of multinational banks

The article develops an empirical model to explain how changes in exchange rates have affected the growth of total assets of a sample of the world's largest banks over the 17-year period of 1972–1989. The model was estimated over a period in which U.S. banks' assets grew less rapidly than the assets of large banks headquartered in other industrial countries. The model provides an estimate of the banks' allocation between home currency and foreign currency assets, which allows a calculation of the estimated impact of exchange rate changes on bank asset growth. The results of the model suggest that no single economic variable explains the faster growth of non-U.S. banks. Changes in real exchange rates were estimated to have had a significant but not overwhelming impact on bank asset growth through their impact on the dollar value of banks' home-currency assets. Other factors, such as faster home-country economic growth, an expanding trade and foreign investment sector, and the ability of large banks to retain their share of domestic intermediation, were also important factors in determining relative rates of bank asset growth.The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the views of the Department of State, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, or its staff.     

从中美经济相互依存看我国高额外汇储备管理

美债危机爆发后,中国作为美国在海外最大的债券持有者仍然不得不继续增持美债,一方面是由于人民币汇率长期与美元挂钩,国际贸易和金融交易主要以美元结算以及我国出口导向型经济增长方式短期内无法改变均导致外汇储备被动积累,另一方面更是因为一旦我国大规模减持美元资产,将引起全球外汇市场对美元的恐慌性抛售,并最终危及我国在美金融资产安全。美债危机表明我国经济对美国高度依赖,并凸显了经济增长方式转变以及对高额外汇储备有效管理的重要性与紧迫性。     

关于人民币汇率弹性增强背景下完善银行资产负债管理的思考

随着我国调节国际收支效果的显现与人民币汇率形成机制市场化程度的不断提高,近年来人民币兑美元即期汇率走势曲折反复,人民币汇率逐渐向均衡水平靠拢,促使企业转变长期以来的汇率预期,着手修复自身资产负债货币错配。这一过程也给商业银行的资产负债货币结构带来显著变化,增加了商业银行本外币流动性管理和资产负债管理难度。对此,商业银行应通过完善自身资产负债管理方式,积极应对这一挑战。     

Portfolio reallocation and exchange rate dynamics

This paper explains exchange rate dynamics by linking financial customers’ foreign exchange order flow with their dynamic portfolio reallocation. For any currency pair in a particular period, one currency has higher assets return than the other and can be considered the high-return-currency (HRC). Financial institutions attempt to hold more HRC assets when they become more risk-loving or the relative return of the assets is expected to increase. Such a portfolio reallocation generates buy order toward the HRC and the currency appreciates. As the HRC changes over time, the direction that the relative return and risk appetite affect the exchange rate varies in different regimes.     

Monetary policy in emerging markets: Can liability dollarization explain contractionary devaluations?

In emerging markets, external debt is denominated almost entirely in large, developed country currencies such as the U.S. dollar. This liability dollarization offers a channel through which exchange rate variation can lead to business cycle instability. When firms' assets are denominated in domestic currency and liabilities are denominated in foreign currency, an exchange rate depreciation worsens firms' balance sheets, which leads to higher capital costs and contractions in capital spending. To illustrate this, I construct a quantitative, sticky price, small open economy model in which a monetary policy induced devaluation leads to a persistent contraction in output. In this model, fixed exchange rates offer greater stability than an interest rule that targets inflation.     

人民币汇率波动背景下的“钟摆效应”探析

2012年以来,人民币对美元汇率继续呈现双向波动趋势,升值和贬值预期交替出现。企业等市场主体根据人民币汇率预期变动,灵活调整外币资产负债配置结构,使财务运作呈现较为明显的“钟摆效应”。“钟摆效应”的出现,反映了国内市场主体对汇率风险意识的增强,也影响到外汇资产在央行和市场主体间配置的变动,增加跨境资金流动的波动性。为更好地适应国内市场主体外币资产配置需求的变化,文章提出相关政策建议。     

Are US-Dollar-Hedged-ETF investors aggressive on exchange rates? A panel VAR approach

Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are a multi-trillion dollar market that epitomizes financialization due to its recent growth. This study examines the behavior of U.S. listed currency hedged ETF investors towards changes in the underlying benchmark and foreign exchange rate from July 2011 to November 2015 using a panel VAR approach. We find that investors are able to anticipate changes in future exchange rates and invest in currency hedged ETFs prior to changes. Granger-causality tests confirm that these investors proactively trade before large real exchange rate movements. These results suggest that the use of financial instruments such as ETFs to hedge against exchange rate volatility may have itself become a source of volatility, which have implications for the further financialization of the ETF industry.     

Macroeconomic Shocks and Banks' Foreign Assets

Recent developments in international financial markets have highlighted the role of banks in the transmission of shocks across borders. We employ dynamic panel methods for a sample of OECD countries to analyze whether banks' foreign assets react to macroeconomic shocks at home and abroad. We find that banks reduce their foreign assets in response to a relative increase in domestic interest rates, and they increase their foreign assets when the growth rate of world energy prices rises. The responses are characterized by a temporal overshooting and a dynamic adjustment process that extends over several quarters.     

Exchange rate exposure in the Asian emerging markets

This paper investigates the impact of foreign exchange rate change on stock returns in the Asian emerging markets. The asymmetric exchange exposure framework and real exchange rates are used in this paper to capture the different exposures between currency appreciation and depreciation and the high inflation effect in the emerging markets. My empirical results show that there did exist extensive exchange rate exposure in the Asian emerging markets from 1997 to 2010. Moreover, foreign exchange exposure became more significant or greater during the 1997 Asian crisis and the 2008 global crisis periods, despite the frequent central banks’ interventions during these periods. The greater exchange exposure during the crisis periods can be attributable to net exporters or firms with dollar assets, implying that firms can reduce exchange exposures by decreasing their export ratio or dollar assets holding during times of crisis.     

State owned banking: gaining policy support and investor interest

State owned banking has staged a major comeback. Finding a place among the top 25 banks in the world in terms of market cap and assets apart, state owned banks have emerged as hot stocks for domestic and international investors. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, privatization of the financial sector, which has been the major policy thrust evident in numerous countries, took a backseat with governments taking over banking institutions and providing various forms of support ranging from capital injections to outright nationalization of the global banks adversely affected by the crisis. The current crisis also may encourage governments to keep their stakeholding in the public banks in view of the need to support the vital sectors of the economy and also pursue financial inclusion that emerged as a major policy priority. This article presents a brief perspective on the comeback of the state owned banking, and also its own transformation that led to its growing acceptance and endorsements from policymakers investors and customers.     

Why do central banks intervene?

Intervention by central banks, in terms of buying and selling foreign currency, has been a major activity in recent years. This paper investigates the motivations for such policy and the evidence for its effectiveness. We use high quality daily data on the dollar amounts of intervention by the central banks of the US and Germany. We also use information on agreed G7 target levels for the $/DM and $/Yen nominal exchange rates. Daily, nominal dollar exchange rate returns are well described as a Martingale-GARCH process, and we find little evidence that the different types of intervention have had much effect on the conditional mean of exchange rate returns. There is some evidence that intervention is associated with slight increases in the volatility of exchange rate returns. While little evidence is found for the effectiveness of intervention, the motivations are more clear. In particular, from the application of probit analysis we find that the probability of intervention is determined by the magnitude of the deviation of the nominal exchange rate from the agreed target level and, to a lesser extent, by the current volatility of exchange rates.     

跨境金融:驱动因素、结构特征与未来路径

跨境金融的驱动因素和结构特征是理论界和实务界关注的重要话题。在当前复杂的国际经济金融形势下,厘清全球跨境金融的规律特征,对我国更好地利用“两个市场、两种资源”,防范外部金融风险具有重要意义。2008年国际金融危机以来,在经济周期、全球流动性、金融结构和监管政策等驱动因素的影响下,全球跨境金融活动呈现规模下降、结构调整、流向分化、主体切换和风险变化等特征。同时,银行跨境业务呈现综合化趋势,数字化转型提速,经营稳健性明显增强。我国跨境金融规模稳步增长,对国际收支的影响持续增强,在全球资金循环中的份额不断提高。未来,随着我国经济转型和对外开放步伐的加快,跨境金融的规模和结构还将发生深刻变化,风险日趋复杂。应引导形成与我国经济金融发展特征相匹配的跨境资金结构,平衡扩大开放与风险防控的关系,充分发挥银行业在跨境金融领域的“比较优势”。     

国有商业银行不良资产处置损失补偿方式研究

从目前情况看,不良资产问题是国有商业银行改革与发展中的最大障碍.根据国际经验,对不良资产处置损失补偿的方式主要有国家财政承担、中央银行承担、商业银行自身承担、第三方资金注入及发行货币,其中政府资金是主要来源.本文在借鉴国际经验的基础上,综合考虑现有国家财政能力、中央银行外汇储备实力、商业银行自身财务能力以及社会投资趋势的情况下,提出国有商业银行不良资产损失补偿要采取合理分担、多种渠道实施的方式来进行,即通过增发国债、中央银行动用外汇储备、商业银行自身消化、引入社会资金等多种方式共同承担不良资产处置损失,为其进一步的改革与发展铺平道路.     

Excessive Dollar Debt: Financial Development and Underinsurance

We propose that the limited financial development of emerging markets is a significant factor behind the large share of dollar-denominated external debt present in these markets. We show that when financial constraints affect borrowing and lending between domestic agents, agents undervalue insuring against an exchange rate depreciation. Since more of this insurance is present when external debt is denominated in domestic currency rather than in dollars, this result implies that domestic agents choose excessive dollar debt. We also show that limited financial development reduces the incentives for foreign lenders to enter emerging markets. The retarded entry reinforces the underinsurance problem.     

Forecasting exchange rates: Do banks know better?

We first evaluate the performance of major commercial banks in forecasting future spot exchange rates, using the random-walk model as the benchmark. We then investigate the sources of forecast errors, and the forecasting tendencies of banks. Our analysis is based on the forecasts made for the US dollar exchange rates of the British pound (BP), German mark (DM), Swiss franc (SF), and Japanese yen (JY), over 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month forecast horizons. Key findings include: first, a majority of banks shows some evidence of outperforming the random-walk model for the three currencies other than the JY. Second, the imperfect correlation between predicted and actual exchange rate changes is the dominant source of prediction errors of banks. Third, the home-country bank generally forecasts the country's currency rate more accurately than the other banks, suggesting a degree of information asymmetry. Fourth, the forecasts of a majority of banks exhibit a bandwagon type effect. That is, most banks are momentum forecasters, tending to extrapolate the recent currency changes. Interestingly, a “contrarian” bank is found to outperform the other banks.     

我国中外资银行私人银行业务的比较分析及启示

目前,我国私人银行业务的发展正处在起步阶段。本文对国内中资银行和外资银行在组织结构模式、品牌忠诚度、产品与服务以及专业化水平的竞争力进行对比,分析中资银行在发展私人银行业务中的不足,进而提出中资银行在发展私人银行业务的过程中应不断完善自身财富资产管理能力和服务团队的建设,既要加强与外资金融机构的合作,也要注重金融产品创新、建立高端的专业化人才队伍以及注重私人银行离岸业务的发展。     

Monetary policy, ‘dollarization,’ and parallel market exchange rates: The case of the Dominican Republic

Excessive money creation may give rise to inflation tax revenues and to a depreciation of the domestic currency. this in turn leads to a shift away from the domestic currency into a foreign currency (e.g., the US dollar, hence the term ‘dollarization’). From the domestic monetary authority's point of view, ‘dollarization’ is an unwelcomed phenomenomn, thus the monetary authorities will attempt to arrest the ‘dollarization’ phenomenon while maintaining the excessive money growth. This paper develops and tests a model which analyzes the effects of monetary policy on dollarization and the ‘parallel’ market exchange rates.     

Financial liberalization and the stability of currency pegs

This paper analyzes how the strategies of domestic firms borrowing abroad complicate the interaction between central banks and foreign exchange short sellers. If we define financial liberalization as the degree of freedom given to domestic firms to borrow abroad, we find that, in the early stages of financial liberalization, foreign borrowing does not affect the stability of the currency peg, but, in the advanced stages of financial liberalization, foreign borrowing destabilizes currency pegs. When this happens, we show that policies to curb currency short sellers have no effect. The paper thus formalizes the critical juncture where financial liberalization and currency pegs become incompatible policy goals.     

Banking and Capital Market Activity in Dublin: Recent Developments and Future Prospects under the Euro

The introduction of Europe's single currency will have an immediate effect on the financial sectors of participating economies. While research in this area has focused on the broad implications for Europe's banking structure, this has been at the neglect of the smaller European financial centres which, while peripheral, make important contributions to their domestic economies. As a representative study, this paper examines how the recent developments in Ireland's financial sector will be affected by the introduction of the euro. It focuses on the probable contraction of Dublin's financial markets and assesses the threat of foreign acquisition facing its main domestic clearing banks.