Global Imbalances and the Financial Crisis: Reassessing the Role of International Finance

Global current account imbalances have recently been singled out by many as a key factor contributing to the global financial crisis. Current account surpluses in several emerging market economies are said to have put significant downward pressure on world interest rates, thereby fueling a credit boom and risk taking in major advanced economies with current account deficits (the “excess saving” view). We argue that this perspective on global imbalances bears reconsideration. We highlight two conceptual problems: (i) explaining market interest rates through the saving-investment framework; and (ii) drawing inferences about a country's cross-border financing activity based on observations of net capital flows. We trace the shortcomings of this perspective to a failure to consider the distinguishing characteristics of a monetary (credit) economy. We conjecture that the main macroeconomic cause of the financial crisis was not “excess saving” but the “excess elasticity” of the international monetary and financial system.     

The Impact of a Disorderly Resolution of Global Imbalances on Global Wealth

Partly reflecting structural advantages such as liquidity and strong investor protection, foreigners have built up extremely large positions in US (as well as other dollar‐denominated) financial assets. This paper describes the impact on global wealth of an unanticipated shock to US financial markets. For every 10 per cent decline in the dollar, US equity markets, and US bond markets, total wealth losses to foreigners could amount to about 5 percentage points of foreign GDP. Four stylized facts emerge: (i) foreign countries, particularly emerging markets, are more exposed to US bonds than to US equities; (ii) over time US exposure has increased for most countries; (iii) on average, US asset holdings of developed countries and emerging markets (scaled by GDP) are very similar; and (iv) based on their reserves position alone, wealth losses of emerging market governments could on average amount to about 2¾ percentage points of their GDP.     

The Intertemporal Equilibrium Modeling of Intra-EMU and Global Trade Imbalances

The intertemporal equilibrium approach to current accounts analyzed the impacts of respective intra-European Monetary Union (intra-EMU) and Asian-U.S. financial integration between 1999 and 2007 on the intra-EMU current account and global trade imbalances. Moreover, Farmer and Ban (2014) find in a three-country, two-region overlapping generations model that financial integration between both the EMU core and periphery and between Asia and the U.S. induce trade surpluses in the EMU core and Asia, while in the EMU periphery and in the U.S., trade balances become negative when the global economy is dynamically inefficient. In this paper, we first show that in a numerically specified Farmer-Ban model, steady-state trade balance to gross domestic product ratios are too low compared to the empirically observed counterparts. We suggest avenues to ameliorate this problem.     

全球经常项目失衡的影响因素——基于跨国数据的实证分析

全球经常项目失衡是影响当前世界经济健康发展的一个不确定性因素,经过多年累积,它已经发展成为威胁全球经济活力的重要隐患.借助于全球范围内56个国家或地区1980-2005年的经济数据,针对影响经常项目失衡的多种因素进行实证检验,结果表明,当前全球经常项目失衡与各国政府的财政收支状况密切相关.政府财政收支对经常项目收支具有显著的正效应;相对劳动生产率对于发达国家经常项目收支影响作用相对突出;金融开放度对经常项目收支具有显著的负效应,但金融深化对经常项目收支的影响作用却没有得到明显的经验证据.因此,在世界经济增速放缓以及全球经济正在进入新的不稳定地带的情况下,只有通过有效的国际经济政策协调,才能促进当前全球经常项目失衡问题的有序解决.     

Global Current Account Imbalances: American Fiscal Policy versus East Asian Savings*

We consider the origins of global current account imbalances. We first discuss how the expansion of the US current account deficit and the decrease in global real interest rates can be reconciled with the widespread view that American expansionary fiscal policy is partly the source of current trends. We then investigate empirically the medium‐term determinants of the current account using a model that controls for factors related to institutional development. In addition to the conventional macroeconomic factors, we examine a series of environmental factors, including the degree of financial openness and the extent of legal development. We find that for industrial countries, the government budget balance is an important determinant of the current account balance; the budget balance coefficient is 0.10 to 0.49 depending on model specifications. These varying estimates lead us to conclude that fiscal factors might be as important as excess savings arising from East Asia.     

Financial Integration in Emerging Asia: Challenges and Prospects

Using both quantity‐ and price‐based measures of financial integration, the paper shows an increasing degree of financial openness and integration in emerging Asia. Assessing the impact of a regional shock relative to a global shock on local equity and bond markets, the findings suggest that the region's equity markets are integrated more globally than regionally, although the degrees of both regional and global integration have increased significantly since the 1997/1998 Asian financial crisis. However, emerging Asia's local currency bond markets remain generally segmented, being neither regionally nor globally integrated. There are potential benefits from increased regional integration of financial markets. Financial integration at the regional level allows for the region's economies to benefit from allocation efficiency and risk diversification. Policymakers in the region must strike the right balance between maximizing the net benefits from regional and global financial openness, and minimizing the potential costs of financial contagion and crisis.     

Reverse Causality in Global and Intra‐European Imbalances

The paper discusses global current account imbalances in the context of an asymmetric world monetary system. It identifies the USA and Germany as center countries with rising/high current account deficits (USA) and surpluses (Germany). These are matched by current account surpluses of countries stabilizing their exchange rates against the dollar (dollar periphery) and current account deficits of countries stabilizing their exchange rates against the euro or members of the euro area (euro periphery). The paper finds that changes of world current account positions are closely linked to the monetary policy decision patterns both in the centers and peripheries. Whereas in the centers current account positions are affected by monetary policies, in the peripheries exchange rate stabilization cum sterilization matters. In specific, monetary expansion in the USA as well as exchange rate stabilization and sterilization policies in the dollar periphery are found to have contributed to global imbalances.     

Capital Flows to Asia: The Role of Monetary Policy

Monetary policy played an important role in the Asian experience with capital inflows. Central banks used monetary policy to contain the threat of overheating, but the resulting increases in interest rates attracted additional inflows. Empirical measurement of these links shows that tight monetary policy was an important source of inflows to Indonesia and Thailand in recent years, and that the independence of monetary policy decreased during the inflow period.     

Reserves,Sovereign Wealth Funds and the Resilience of Global Imbalances

Reserves and sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) assets should be jointly considered for the assessment of global imbalances, hence their denomination as sovereign external assets (SEAs): both are public capital outflows from developing to developed countries, both hinder adjustment in current account surplus and deficit countries and, therefore, both contribute to sustain global imbalances. They represented 135 per cent and 50 per cent of net and gross US financing needs, respectively, in 2007. Reserves contribute 80 per cent and SWFs 20 per cent. They will go on providing resilience to the global imbalances, and the relative importance of SWFs is set to increase if commodity prices stay high.     

Macroeconomic Policy Making,Exchange Rate Adjustment and Current Account Imbalances in Emerging Markets

Given a series of crisis events after 2007 the discussion about the adjustment channels of current account imbalances has been revived. We examine the role of exchange rates vs macroeconomic policies as determinants of current accounts for a set of 86 mainly emerging market economies between 1990 and 2013 to identify adjustment channels for global imbalances. We find that nominal exchange rates are not the main determinant of current account positions. Instead, depending on the region, monetary and/or fiscal policies are identified as the main driving force of current accounts. For East Asia and the oil exporting countries sterilization policies, i.e. relatively tight monetary policies, are the main determinants. In contrast for many European periphery countries fiscal policy stances are at the core of current account positions. Only for the Latin American countries does the exchange rate play a significant role as determinant of current account positions.     

The “Impossible Trinity” Hypothesis in an Era of Global Imbalances: Measurement and Testing

We outline new metrics for measuring the trilemma aspects: exchange rate flexibility, monetary independence, and capital account openness, taking into account substantial international reserve accumulation that has taken place since the 2000s. Since 1990, the trilemma variables in emerging markets have converged towards intermediate levels, characterizing by managed flexibility, using sizable international reserves as a buffer while retaining some degree of monetary autonomy. We test the linearity of the trilemma, and find that the weighted sum of the three trilemma variables adds up to a constant. Thus, a rise in one trilemma variable should be traded‐off with a drop of the weighted sum of the other two.     

东亚新兴债券市场发展比较

积极发展和培育债券市场乃是金融危机后东亚新兴市场经济体调整金融结构的重中之重。本文就东亚新兴债券市场的市场规模、债券期限结构、二级市场流动性、债券投资者基础以及债券市场的基础设施建设等进行了比较。虽然都属于新兴债券市场,但所处的发展水平并不是整齐划一的。     

Do Differences in Financial Development Explain the Global Pattern of Current Account Imbalances?

Building on the panel-regression approach of Chinn and Prasad (2003 ) and Gruber and Kamin (2007 ), we assess whether differences in financial development can explain the large developing-country surpluses or large US deficits. We find little evidence to support these hypotheses. We also assess whether differences in asset returns, an alternative measure of the attractiveness of financial assets, can explain the international pattern of capital flows. Lower bond yields have been generally associated with larger current account deficits in industrial countries. However, US bond yields have not been significantly lower than those in other industrial economies, suggesting that US financial assets have not been unusually attractive. We consider an alternative hypothesis that spending in the United States was uniquely responsive to lower costs of capital. However, we found this hypothesis also to be weak, as household saving rates have declined throughout the industrial economies.     

Asia and the Reform of Global Governance

Asia's growing economic weight in the world economy is unlikely to produce substantial changes in global economic governance. National economic capabilities are not easily translated into influence over governance outcomes or institutions. Governments must deploy strategies of engagement with key institutions; incumbent powers will attempt counterstrategies. Coalition-building within and outside the region confronts substantial obstacles that reduce Asia's bargaining leverage. Asian preferences over institutional design and policies are unlikely to diverge from the status quo. A more pessimistic scenario includes resistance to global surveillance, spillover from other issue-areas, and defensive regionalism that undermines global institutions.     

新兴经济体参与全球价值链的生产率效应

对于新兴经济体来说,参与全球价值链分工的成效是否与发达国家的经验一致?什么类型的国家(经济体)才能从参与全球价值链中获益?文章在区分不同新兴经济体类型和不同GVC参与方式的基础上,深入细致地研究了不同类型的新兴经济体如何通过参与GVC来提高全要素生产率(TFP).研究发现:(1)GVC总体参与度的增加能显著提高中等发达新兴经济体及中国的TFP,但不能提高新兴经济体全样本和发展中新兴经济体的TFP,表明参与GVC的生产率效应取决于新兴经济体的发展程度及在GVC中的位置.(2)来自不同发展程度国家的国外增加值对TFP的影响不同,其中来自发达国家的国外增加值对各类型新兴经济体的TFP都有促进作用,说明与发达国家的GVC关联对新兴经济体TFP的增长更有效.(3)进入国界不同次数的国外增加值对TFP的影响不同,其中进入国界仅一次的国外增加值对TFP没有显著提升作用,进入国界多次的国外增加值才有生产率提高效应,说明只有深度参与型的GVC参与方式才能提高新兴经济体的TFP.文章为中国参与GVC过程中如何适应国情以及适当调整参与方式来提高自身的TFP提供了经验借鉴.     

Applying the Lessons of Asia: The IMF's Crisis Management Strategy following the Global Financial Crisis

ABSTRACT

The paper reviews the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) non-concessional lending programs following the global financial crisis, with a view to understanding how the IMF applied the lessons of the Asian crisis in designing its approach to crisis management. For this purpose, the paper focuses on the 2008 programs in Hungary, Iceland, Latvia and Ukraine – the first of its kind since the early 2000s – and compares them with the 1997 programs in Indonesia, Korea and Thailand. Our analysis finds the European programs better funded and their structural conditionality more focused. Other than these, the overall thrust of the programs was similar: fiscal and monetary tightening, coupled with banking reforms. The real difference was not so much about content but about philosophy. Relative to the Asian programs, the European programs were characterized by more emphasis on ownership, greater collaboration among stakeholders, more realistic assumptions and greater transparency about the risks and the logic of policy actions, and more built-in flexibility of targets and policy options. This approach to crisis management incorporated the changes that had been made since the Asian crisis in the IMF's policies and procedures to manage capital account crises more effectively.     

Emerging and Near Future Challenges of Higher Education in East Asia

Continuing the advances made in the later parts of the 20th century, East Asian economies and their higher education systems rapidly evolved in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Most East Asian countries are categorized as advanced economies with developed societies; however, issues such as aging populations, debt levels, and decreasing salary premiums for education are becoming increasingly apparent. Many of the higher education systems have reached or will soon reach a peak of massification, and a new set of challenges may emerge. In addition to ongoing challenges, for example, the need to foster further equity and internationalization, this study identifies three emergent or near future challenges for policymakers and higher education institution strategists to reflect on: the need to consolidate the system in view of decreasing enrollments; the need to reform higher education institutions to cope with potentially decreasing resources and the emergence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and automation; and the need to realign academic research systems to ensure that the knowledge produced is more sustainable, collaborative, and meaningful.