Why are crude oil prices high when global activity is weak?

There have been substantial increases in liquidity in recent years and real oil prices have almost returned to the high levels achieved before the global financial crisis. Unanticipated increases in global real M2 led to statistically significant increases in real oil prices. The historical impact of global real M2 on the real price of crude oil is important in the recovery of oil prices over 2009 to 2011.     

Revisiting global economic activity and crude oil prices: A wavelet analysis

Based on the wavelet analysis approach, this paper firstly examines the dynamic relationship between global economic activity (proxied by the Kilian economic index) and crude oil prices in both time- and frequency-domains. Our empirical results demonstrate significant correlation between crude oil prices and global economic activity at high frequencies (in the short run) during the entire sample period; however, the co-movement between the two at low frequencies (in the long run) is weaker and exists only during certain proportions of the sample period. We also document evidence that global economic activity and oil price are positively correlated, with dynamic lead-lag relationships across time. Our findings are robust to alternative choices of oil price indexes and controlling for other confounding factors such as geopolitical risk, armed conflicts, economic policy uncertainty and equity market uncertainty. The current study provides valuable implications for oil market investors based on the information of global economic situation and its dynamic relationships with oil prices.     

Global Liquidity and Commodity Prices

While monetary easing and increasing participation of financial institutions in commodity trading have enhanced the financialization of commodity markets, this paper investigates empirically whether the impact of global liquidity on commodity prices has grown since the crisis. For each commodity group, this paper uses a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model to address the short‐run relationship between global liquidity and commodity prices. The key finding is that the effect of global liquidity on commodity prices becomes more salient since the global financial crisis. This paper also suggests a price‐based liquidity indicator has a greater explanatory power for the commodity price dynamics than monetary aggregates.     

BANK COMPETITION AND FINANCIAL STABILITY: LIQUIDITY RISK PERSPECTIVE

We study whether competition affects banks' liquidity risk‐taking, which was at the heart of the 2008 financial crisis. We find that banks with greater market power take more liquidity risk, implying that decreased competition leads to financial fragility. During a financial crisis, however, the effect of market power on liquidity risk varies across bank size. Small banks with greater market power reduce liquidity risk while large banks with greater market power do not change their liquidity risk‐taking behavior. This suggests that enhanced charter values due to reduced competition lowers small banks' risk‐shifting incentives when their default risk significantly increases during a crisis. (JEL G21, G28)     

The transmission of financial shocks in an estimated DSGE model with housing and banking

We develop a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with housing and banking to study the transmission of financial shocks between the financial and real sectors. A deterioration in the bank's balance sheet induced by financial shocks could have amplified and persistent impacts on real activities. The amplification of the shocks are originated from financial frictions tied to households and banks. We find that a disruption in bank net worth initiated by capital quality shocks generates a decline in household loans, house prices and output. Bank liquidity shocks also have negative effects on these variables. Housing preference shocks could generate a positive comovement between house prices and output. All these findings are qualitatively consistent with empirical evidence, suggesting that these financial shocks are critical to the dynamics of house prices and other macroeconomic variables.     

Equilibrium asset pricing with systemic risk

We provide an equilibrium multi-asset pricing model with micro- founded systemic risk and heterogeneous investors. Systemic risk arises due to excessive leverage and risk taking induced by free-riding externalities. Global risk-sensitive financial regulations are introduced with a view of tackling systemic risk, with Value-at-Risk a key component. The model suggests that risk-sensitive regulation can lower systemic risk in equilibrium, at the expense of poor risk-sharing, an increase in risk premia, higher and asymmetric asset volatility, lower liquidity, more comovement in prices, and the chance that markets may not clear. We thank Michel Habib, José Scheinkman, Hyun Shin and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments. Jean-Pierre Zigrand is a lecturer in Finance at the LSE, and is the corresponding author. The authors would like to acknowledge financial support under the EPSRC Grant GR/S83975/01 at the Financial Markets Group, London School of Economics.     

Cross market predictions for commodity prices

This paper shows that commodity prices can be predicted from cross-market information by establishing long-run cross-market commodity price equilibrium models, which are characterized by a linear relation between prices across different markets. Using data from five representative commodity markets (oil, copper, gold, corn, and cattle) during the period 2005–2018, we demonstrate that oil and industrial metal markets have formed a long-run price equilibrium with other markets across different commodity families. However, agriculture and gold markets do not tend to have long-run price equilibrium relations with other commodity markets. Furthermore, we show that the absence of a price equilibrium is due to the cross-market liquidity interference effect. After we control for the liquidity effect, long-run cross-market commodity price equilibrium relations are reestablished for agriculture and gold markets. These results can aid in demonstrating that liquidity can capture most of the missing information that is not reflected in price dynamics in less liquid markets, such as agriculture and gold markets. Therefore, less liquid commodity price predictions require both prices and liquidity levels from cross-markets, while liquid commodity prices (oil and metal) can be predicted based solely on cross-market prices.     

Systemic Characteristics of Financial Instability

I describe how in the new paradigm of a Competitive, Efficient, and Frictionless Economy (CEFE), introduced in Falahati (2019), macroeconomic imbalances with fluctuating levels of liquidity emerge endogenously. This provides a solid foundation for studying Minsky’s views on financial instability in an economy with a banking and risk-underwriting system. I identify an inverse relationship between liquidity premia and risk premia, which leads to endogenous risk-premium rating cycles, including credit-risk-premium rating cycles, and macroeconomic swings. Ceteris paribus, lower liquidity increases the prices of contracts covering risks (e.g., credit default swaps), whist it decreases prices of all other assets. The opposite occurs with higher liquidity. I analyze operations of banks, risk-underwriters, and the State/Central Bank, and present a new theory of banking which improves current understandings. This theory explains how a banking system uses the floating capital of the economy more efficiently, while it also generates greater systemic risks, compared to an economy without banks. I show how the banking system can induce macroeconomic booms and busts and generate endogenous asset price bubbles and bursts. I highlight other systemic problems of the economy and derive their implications for improving the financial management of the economy and its institutions.     

Compensation schemes,liquidity provision,and asset prices: an experimental analysis

In an experimental setting in which investors can entrust their money to traders, we investigate how compensation schemes affect liquidity provision and asset prices, two outcomes that are important for financial stability. Compensation schemes can drive a wedge between how investors and traders value the asset. Limited liability makes traders value the asset more than investors. To limit losses, investors should thus restrict liquidity provision to force traders to trade at a lower price. By contrast, bonus caps make traders value the asset less than investors. This should encourage liquidity provision and increase prices. In contrast to these predictions, we find that under limited liability investors increase liquidity provision and asset price bubbles are larger. Bonus caps have no clear effect on liquidity provision and they fail to tame bubbles. Overall, giving traders skin in the game fosters financial stability.     

冲击世界未来的能源问题：油价低迷走势及其对国际关系的影响

本文介绍了非政府机构美国外交关系委员会亚洲能源和安全研究项目组关于世界未来2 0年石油供应将持续保持低价的论点 ,这对世界石油供应短缺的预测提出了挑战。该项研究认为 ,这对美国对外关系政策和国家安全政策也构成了严峻的挑战     

Liquidity risk and financial competition: Implications for asset prices and monetary policy

This paper studies the implications of banking competition for capital markets and monetary policy. In particular, I develop a two-sector monetary growth model in which a group of agents is exposed to liquidity shocks and money is essential. Banks insure depositors against such risk and invest in the economy's assets. In this setting, I compare an economy with a perfectly competitive banking sector to an economy with a fully concentrated financial sector. Unlike previous work, banks can have market power in both deposits and capital markets. Compared to a perfectly competitive financial sector, I demonstrate that a monopolistic banking system can have substantial adverse consequences on capital formation, assets prices, and the degree of risk sharing. Furthermore, multiple steady-states can emerge and the economy becomes subject to poverty traps. More importantly, market power in financial markets may overturn the Tobin effect present under a perfectly competitive financial sector. This necessarily happens in economies with high degrees of liquidity risk and low levels of capital formation.     

Asset Markets and Endogenous Liquidity

In financial markets characterized by imperfect depth, speculative trading will have transitory effects on the market price as market makers must be compensated for the risk of holding the asset. The number of people providing liquidity to a market will generally be endogenously determined by the quantity of liquidity demanded. This paper looks for evidence of endogenous liquidity provision in several international stock and bond markets. Evidence shows strong support for these speculative dynamics in the stock markets. The evidence for these dynamics is less striking with fixed‐income prices, consistent with the less speculative nature of these markets.     

Real estate prices and systemic banking crises

The collapse of real estate prices has historically jeopardized banking stability and triggered systemic banking crises. This paper studies risk contagion in a banking system in real estate price shock by adopting complex network theory. Modelling the real estate-related asset as a common exposure of banks to the real estate market, we propose a model that incorporates two main risk contagion channels, i.e., the financial network and asset fire sales, and reveal how the real estate price shock is transmitted and propagated across banks. We demonstrate that banking stability is highly sensitive to the real estate price shock. Moreover, due to the particularly low liquidity of the real estate market, the asset fire-sales of real estate assets overwhelms the financial network, playing the dominant role in risk contagion. Our model can be adopted by regulators to conduct stress testing and to forge effective risk management strategies.     

A wavelet decomposition approach to crude oil price and exchange rate dependence

This paper studies the relationship between oil prices and US dollar exchange rates using wavelet multi-resolution analysis. We characterized the oil price–exchange rate relationship for different timescales in an attempt to disentangle the possible existence of contagion and interdependence during the global financial crisis and analyze possible lead and lag effects. For crude oil prices and a range of currencies, we show that oil prices and exchange rates were not dependent in the pre-crisis period; however, we did find evidence of contagion and negative dependence after the onset of the crisis. Additionally, we found that oil prices led exchange rates and vice versa in the crisis period but not in the pre-crisis period. These findings have important implications for risk management, monetary policies to control oil inflationary pressures and fiscal policy in oil-exporting countries.     

货币流动性对中国资产市场的冲击效应研究——来自1997—2010年的经验证据

金融危机后,中国实施了积极的财政政策和适度宽松的货币政策,虽然经济实现了快速复苏,但资产价格上涨的压力也再度显现。实证研究结果表明,货币流动性与我国资产价格之间存在单向的格兰杰因果关系,脉冲响应函数结果也显示,流动性过剩后一般会出现资产价格上涨,尤以房地产市场和股票市场的脉冲响应较为明显,债券市场的脉冲响应相对不太显著。     

流动性约束与货币政策的资产价格效应

本文在新凯恩斯主义分析框架下,基于一个动态随机模型探讨了代理人消费流动性约束下的货币政策的资产价格效应,得到下列结论：资产价格波动通过财富效应影响代理人的消费。以利率为操作目标的最优货币政策应对股价、房价等资产价格波动做出反应,而其反应强度依赖于受流动性约束的代理人所占的比重。由于资产价格波动导致了流动性约束的时变性,最优利率规则对股价、房价等资产价格波动的最优权重也具有时变性。本文的实证分析表明,我国央行对房价和股价波动的利率调整具有时变性,以及此次金融危机爆发期间显现的这种时变性特征,与本文理论分析结果相吻合。     

A key determinant of commodity price Co-movement: The role of daily market liquidity

Daily price co-movement across different commodity classes and its key determinant are investigated in this paper. Using co-integration and Granger causality analysis, we identify a common liquidity factor which drives prices of five commodities (oil, silver, gold, corn, live cattle) to move along a common trend. When the market becomes more (less) liquid, all commodity prices tend to move up (down) in the same direction. As a result, such liquidity-driven price co-movement across different commodity classes is likely to generate aggregate price shocks and amplify inflation volatility. As a practical implication of our findings, policy makers ought to be able to draw valuable lessons from monitoring daily commodity liquidity dynamics as a timely bellwether for incipient inflation and to more effectively control inflation risk.     

Determinants of corporate default risk in China: The role of financial constraints

Corporate default risk can affect financial stability and the macroeconomy. However, the determinants of corporate default risk in China are not well defined in the literature. We address this issue by using a rich credit event dataset of 981 Chinese listed firms over the period 1998–2013 and study the factors that affect default risk. We demonstrate that leverage, liquidity, firm size are the key firm-specific factors in determining default risk in China, along with macroeconomic factors like interest rate and stock return. Moreover, ‘Too big to fail’ only applies to non-SOEs, as default risk of SOEs is not affected by the firm size. We further find that high liquidity fails to reduce firms default risk, because small-sized firms which are financially constrained have limited cash to prevent financial distress, whereas large firms with greater cash holdings are able to mitigate their default risk as they are unconstrained.     

我国证券市场流动性溢出效应的实证研究

2008年金融危机中的一个重要金融现象是流动性溢出效应.本文以我国沪深两市交易的国债和股票为样本,利用VAR技术分析了股票市场与债券市场之间的流动性溢出效应问题.由于我国股票市场的规模远大于交易所交易债券,我们发现存在显著的股市流向债市的流动性溢出效应,而债市流向股市的流动性溢出效应统计上却不显著.同时我们发现各个市场自身的收益率和波动率对其流动性也有着显著的影响.最后我们还发现两市自身的流动性存在着很强的自相关性.证据表明当我国资本市场出现流动性不足时,尤其要加强对股票市场流动性风险的防范和监管.同时也反映出我国要大力发展债券市场的必要,使股市和债市的流动性相互影响相得益彰.     

Farm Labor in the United States

The mainstream blames the global savings glut for causing the 2008 global financial crisis and proposes currency realignment to restore balance. However, this view fails to provide solid theoretical and empirical support to the claim that net inflows of foreign savings reduced U.S. long-term real interest rates and inflated asset prices. It also ignores the role of the global financial system in shaping the development strategy and macroeconomic imbalances in emerging Asian economies. Furthermore, forcing currency revaluation in China and other surplus countries may risk reducing global demand instead of shifting demand from the United States to surplus countries. The paper argues that an overhaul of the defunct global financial system lies at the root of global rebalancing; whereas in the short run, the United States should actively pursue demand-enhancing policies to strengthen global economic recovery.