I (Could Have) Told You! Early warning indicators and crisis performance of the 12 “old” Euro-countries under the economic crisis 2008–09

The impact of the economic crisis 2008-09 was remarkably different in the 12 “old” member states in the Euro-zone. Five of them were hit especially badly; four of them even had to be bailed out by the rest in one way or another. This paper asks if one could have foretold, based solely on information available prior to 1999, which of the countries then about to enter the Euro-zone would run into economic trouble once a serious economic crisis occurred. The focus is on the (post)predictive power of three kinds of leading indicators: economic indicators, political indicators (indicating quality of governance), and indicators derived from the theory of optimal currency areas (OCA). Since there are more indicators than cases, PLS-regression is used to gauge the (post)predictive strength of the indicators examined. The results show that political indicators have quite some (post)predictive power in this case, whereas indicators derived from OCA-theory do not do too well. Economic indicators perform better than indicators derived from OCA-theory, but generally less well than the political indicators. Thus, the experience from the latest economic crisis in the Euro-zone suggests that more emphasis should be placed on the quality of governance record of a country when deciding if it should be deemed fit to become a member.     

欧元区统一货币政策绩效及其对中国的启示

欧元产生以来,欧洲中央银行在统一货币政策的框架下较好的实现了物价稳定的首要任务,却未能有效促进欧元区的经济增长、充分就业和国际收支平衡,主要原因在于:成员国经济基本面的差异使统一货币政策产生了巴拉萨-萨缪尔森效应。由此给当前正致力于货币合作的东亚地区带来了一个重要启示:应不断加强各国间的政策协调,确保主要经济指标高度趋同,为将来单一货币的实行奠定重要基础。     

Downside risk and portfolio diversification in the euro-zone equity markets with special consideration of the crisis period

This study examines the Value-at-Risk for ten euro-zone equity markets individually and also divided into two groups: PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) and the Core (Austria, Finland, France, Germany and the Netherlands), employing four VaR estimation and evaluation methods considered over the full period and the pre- and post-global crisis subperiods 1 and 2. The backtesting results are also evaluated according to the Basel capital requirements. The results demonstrate that the CEVT methods meet all the statistical criteria the best for most individual equity indices over the full period, but these results over the two subperiods for those two methods are mixed, compared to those the DPOT methods. Moreover, the two optimal group portfolios of the PIIGS and the Core as well as the grand portfolio that combines the ten indices do not show much diversification benefits. The PIIGS portfolio selects Spain's IBEX only, while that of the Core opts for Austria's ATX only in the full period and subperiod 1. However, Germany's DAX overwhelmingly dominates both the Core and the Grand portfolios in subperiod 2.     

欧元区银行间清算体系的演进与特征

欧元区各清算系统经历了不断的重组、整合、更新与完善,逐步形成了以欧洲中央银行操作的TARGET和欧洲银行业协会操作的非官方EURO1系统为支柱的二元结构。TARGET作为欧元区银行间清算体系的主渠道,其在运行时间、运行速度、可靠性与服务层次等方面都存在着明显的比较优势,为欧元区单一货币政策的实施提供了便利,也降低了货币支付与转账业务中存在的系统性风险。同时,TARGET系统作为货币市场的基础设施,又为货币区金融经济一体化程度的进一步加深创造了必要的条件,是加速一体化进程的催化剂。