监测系统性金融风险——中国金融市场压力指数构建和状态识别

对系统性金融风险进行识别和评估,日益成为各国中央银行的核心关切。囿于数据频率,基于金融机构经营稳健性评估的金融系统性风险监测存在一定的滞后性,不利于中央银行及时进行风险应对,利用金融市场交易数据进行风险监测可极大程度克服滞后性问题。本文根据中国金融市场特点,选取债券市场、股票市场、货币市场和外汇市场17个有代表性的指标,运用经验累积分布函数法分别构造了各子市场的压力指数,以各子市场之间时变的相关关系刻画系统性金融风险的跨市场传染特征,合成金融市场压力指数,并通过建立马尔可夫区制转换模型,对金融市场压力状态进行识别。金融市场压力指数能有效反映样本域内的压力事件,并兼具稳健性、能逐日监测等优点,为监测评估系统性金融风险、选择政策实施窗口和评估政策实施效果等提供了有力工具。     

International reserves for emerging economies: A liquidity approach

The massive stocks of foreign exchange reserves, mostly held in the form of U.S. T-bonds by emerging economies, are still an important puzzle. Why do emerging economies continue to willingly loan to the United States despite the low rates of return? We suggest that a dynamic general equilibrium model incorporating international capital markets, characterized by decentralized trade and U.S. T-bonds as facilitators of trade, can provide one possible resolution to this question. Declining financial frictions in these over-the-counter (OTC) markets would generate rising liquidity premium on U.S. T-bonds, thereby causing low U.S. real interest rates. Meanwhile, the superior liquidity properties of the U.S. T-bonds would induce recipients of foreign investments, namely emerging economies, to hold more liquidity, that is U.S. T-bonds, in equilibrium. The prediction of our model is confirmed by an empirical simultaneous equations approach considering an endogenous relationship between OTC capital inflows and reserve holdings.     

Regime Change and the Role of International Markets on the Stock Returns of Small Open Economies

We examine the influence of US, UK and German macroeconomic and financial variables on the stock returns of two relatively small, open European economies, Ireland and Denmark. Within a nonlinear framework, we allow for time variation via regime switching using a smooth transition regression (STR) model. We find that US (global) and UK and German (regional) stock returns are significant determinants of returns in both markets. Further, global information represented by oil and US asset price movements drive changes between states in each market. Significantly, the role of country‐specific domestic variables is typically confined to a single state while global and regional variables pervade all states.     

Does global liquidity drive commodity prices?

This paper tackles the question of whether a cross-sectional perspective on monetary policy is capable of explaining movements in global commodity prices. In this vein, we contribute to the rich literature on global liquidity in two different ways: on the one hand, to achieve a global series in terms of common monetary policy shocks, we propose a distinction between common and idiosyncratic factors across economies, as proposed by Bai and Ng (2004). Our second innovation stems from the consideration of a Markov-switching vector error correction model when analyzing time-varying short-run dynamics. Having identified the long-run structure which includes a proportional relationship between commodity prices and global liquidity in the first step, our results indeed show that the impact of a global liquidity measure on different commodity prices is significant and varies over time. One regime approximately accounts for times where commodity prices significantly adjust to disequilibria, while the second regime is characterized by either a weak or no commodity price adjustment. The fact that global liquidity also reacts to disequilibria in a specific regime demonstrates the two-way causality between monetary policy and commodity prices.     

International transmission and business-cycle effects of financial stress

We analyze the international transmission of financial stress and its effects on global economic activity. Our analysis is based on country-specific monthly financial stress indices (FSIs) over the sample period 1970–2012 for 20 major economies. First, we show that co-movement between the FSIs increases during major financial crises and towards the end of our sample period. Second, we show that the risk of large financial stress spillovers to an economy increases with its level of economic openness. Third, we show – using a global VAR (GVAR) model – that (i) a financial stress shock in the US quickly transmits internationally, (ii) financial stress shocks have lagged but persistent negative effects on economic activity, and (iii) that a negative US demand shock induces only limited financial stress on a global scale. Finally, we show that spillovers of financial stress run mainly from advanced to emerging economies and not in the opposite direction.     

Determinants of financial stress in emerging market economies

The global financial crisis of 2008–2009 illustrates how financial turmoil in advanced economies could trigger severe financial stress in emerging markets. Previous studies dealing with financial crises and contagion show the linkages through which financial stress are transmitted from advanced to emerging markets. This paper extends the existing literature on the use of financial stress index (FSI) in understanding the channels of financial transmission in emerging market economies. Using FSI of 25 emerging markets, our panel regression estimates show that not only advanced economies FSI, but also regional and nonregional emerging market FSIs significantly increase domestic financial stress. Our findings also suggest that there is a common regional factor significantly affecting domestic FSI in emerging Asia and emerging Europe. Furthermore, the results from a structural vector autoregression model with contemporaneous restrictions indicate that although a domestic financial shock still accounts for most of the variation in domestic FSI, regional shocks play an important role in emerging Asia.     

中国金融状况指数的构建及其时间演化特征

通过选取利率、汇率、房价和股价等方面的指标,利用VAR广义脉冲响应模型赋权来构建中国金融状况指数,并运用马尔科夫区制转移模型对其进行时间演化特征分析。结果表明:中国金融状况指数具有非线性、周期性和两阶段动态变化特征,且在扩张阶段和紧缩阶段表现出相互变迁的结构性突变。同时,中国金融状况指数在各区制内的平滑概率值较大,均接近于1,说明各区制具有一定的持续性。     

Asset market linkages: Evidence from financial, commodity and real estate assets

We use a general Markov switching model to examine the relationships between returns over three different asset classes: financial assets (US stocks and Treasury bonds), commodities (oil and gold) and real estate assets (US Case-Shiller index). We confirm the existence of two distinct regimes: a “tranquil” regime with periods of economic expansion and a “crisis” regime with periods of economic decline. The tranquil regime is characterized by lower volatility and significantly positive stock returns. During these periods, there is also evidence of a flight from quality - from gold to stocks. By contrast, the crisis regime is characterized by higher volatility and sharply negative stock returns, along with evidence of contagion between stocks, oil and real estate. Furthermore, during these periods, there is strong evidence of a flight to quality - from stocks to Treasury bonds.     

Monetary policy spillovers and the trilemma in the new normal: Periphery country sensitivity to core country conditions

We investigate why and how the financial conditions of developing and emerging market countries (peripheral countries) can be affected by the movements in the center economies – the U.S., Japan, the Eurozone, and China. We apply a two-step approach. First, we estimate the sensitivity of countries' financial variables to the center economies [policy interest rate, stock market prices, and the real effective exchange rates (REER)] while controlling for global and domestic factors. Next, we examine the association of the estimated sensitivity coefficients with the macroeconomic conditions, policies, real and financial linkages with the center economies, and the level of institutional development. In the last two decades, for most financial variables, the strength of the links with the center economies have been the dominant factor while the movements of policy interest rate also appear sensitive to global financial shocks around the emerging market crises of the late 1990s and since the global financial crisis of 2008. While certain macroeconomic and institutional variables are important, the arrangement of open macropolicies such as the exchange rate regime and financial openness are also found to have direct influence on the sensitivity to the center economies. An economy that pursues greater exchange rate stability and financial openness faces a stronger link with the center economies through policy interest rates and real effective exchange rate (REER) movements. We also find that exchange market pressure (EMP) in peripheral economies is sensitive to the movements of the center economies' REER and EMP during and after the global financial crisis. Open macro policy arrangements, especially exchange rate regimes, also have indirect effects on the strength of financial linkages, interacting with other macroeconomic conditions. Thus, trilemma policy arrangements, including exchange rate flexibility, continue to affect the sensitivity of developing countries to policy changes and shocks in the center economies.     

Interbank liquidity risk transmission to large emerging markets in crisis periods

In this paper, we conduct two investigations regarding funding liquidity risk in large emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — BRICS. In the first, we track the relevance of monetary policy decisions originating in developed economies for interbank funding liquidity risk in BRICS economies during crisis periods by applying a time-varying parameter model in a Bayesian framework. The results indicate weak associations between interbank credit market and US monetary policy and market conditions. In contrast, the Federal Reserve's National Financial Conditions Index (NFCI) — a representative of the health of both real and financial sectors in the US — matters more. The temporal patterns of the results imply that key central banking decisions precede or coincide with low degrees of associations. In the second, we examine whether interbank credit crunch exerts an influence on market liquidity risk in BRICS economies using a Granger causality approach. The results reveal that interbank credit crunch depresses market liquidity in the corresponding domestic market and that the state of fear and credit market conditions in the US exert some influence in this regard. Overall, our findings hint at judicious market intervention and liquidity management by BRICS central banks.