Interest rate policy and interbank market breakdown

Using a DSGE-model with interbank market frictions, calibrated to match the frequency of financial crises, I investigate central banks' ability to prevent credit-related recessions by following an interest rate rule which accounts for financial conditions —an approach called ‘leaning against the wind’. The model's key feature is that boom-bust cycles emerge as a result of a savings glut and moral hazard in the banking sector. Although financial conditions predict crises, the policy maker cannot break the boom-bust cycle and reduce the crisis-frequency. When crises become more likely, low inflation forces the central bank to decrease the interest rate despite its intention to do otherwise. Responding to crisis-predictors eventually dilutes the primary objective of stabilizing inflation and leads to higher inflation volatility. The results suggest that central banks should refrain from leaning against the wind.     

The political economy of the G20 agenda on financial regulation

The paper empirically examines the implementation record of international financial regulation of the banking sector. The study finds that the size of the banking sector and the presence of global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) are positively associated with a stronger implementation record. These results suggest that cooperative motives of internalising externalities, creating a level playing field and preserving financial stability play a role in explaining the implementation record. We find evidence that this cooperative behaviour may be driven by the self-interest of global players as the positive record is particularly strong in countries where large banking sectors and big banks are both present, and where regulation only applies to large players. Sectoral concentration, bank health and the share of foreign ownership yield more mixed results as regards their impact on implementation.     

Financial reforms,product differentiation,and trade

We hypothesize that exports of differentiated products, which entail greater upfront costs, increase more as financial reforms take place. We find strong and robust empirical support of this hypothesis with a comprehensive set of measures of reforms encompassing the banking sector, interest rates, equity and international capital markets.     

The 2014–15 Financial Crisis in Russia and the Foundations of Weak Monetary Power Autonomy in the International Political Economy

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to international political economy debates about the monetary power autonomy (MPA) of emerging market and developing countries (EMDs). The 2014–15 Russian financial crisis is used as a case study to explore why an accumulation of large international reserves does not provide protection against currency crises and macroeconomic adjustments in EMDs. The analysis centres on the interplay between two dimensions of MPA: the Power to Delay and the Power to Deflect adjustment costs. Two structural factors condition Russia’s low MPA. First, the country’s subordinated integration in global financial markets increases its financial vulnerability. The composition of external assets and liabilities, combined with cross-border capital flows, restrict the use of international reserves to delay currency crises. Second, the choice of a particular macroeconomic policy regime embraced the financialisation of the – mainly state-owned – Russian banking sector, thus making it difficult to transform liquidity inflows into credits for enterprises. Russia’s main comparative advantage, hydrocarbon export revenues, is not exploited. The type of economy created due to the post-Communist transition means that provided ‘excessive’ liquidity remains in the financial system and is channelled into currency arbitrage. This factor increases exchange rate vulnerability and undermines Russia’s MPA.     

The propagation of U.S. shocks to Canada: Understanding the role of real financial linkages

This paper examines the role of financial frictions in affecting the transmission of U.S. real and financial shocks to Canada using a dynamic stochastic general‐equilibrium model with an active banking sector and financial frictions. We find that the U.S. banking and interbank markets can be a potentially important source of variability of Canadian output and inflation—consistent with the financial crisis. The presence of both the demand and the real supply sides of credit in the model help to capture the stylized facts of both the domestic and the international business cycles.     

The political economy of post-crisis international standards for resolving financial institutions

The development of post-crisis international standards for resolving financial institutions highlights an intriguing puzzle: the European Union (EU), which is often considered as a ‘great financial power’, had a marginal influence in the standard-setting process, which was led by the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK). Why? This paper brings together and further develops the concepts of cross-border externalities derived from the hierarchical network structure of the international financial system and domestic regulatory capacity. The US and the UK had the incentives (externalities) to promote and the domestic capacity to shape international standards. By contrast, the EU was mainly exposed to regional (intra-EU) cross-border externalities and lacked regulatory capacity on the matter. Paradoxically, international standards contributed to developing EU resolution capacity by facilitating an agreement on EU (and later on, euro area) rules.     

Whither the Balance of Payments?

This article sets out the analytical framework of the 'new' approach to the balance of payments under the conditions of 'international financial laissez faire' characterised by financial deregulation, floating exchange rates, and high international capital mobility. It is argued that much of the reasoning underlying the new approach derives from the modus operandi of regional payments systems. The fundamental differences between the benchmark model of regional financing and the current international financial laissez faire are explored, and the extent to which the presence of exchange risk may interfere with the 'optimal' debt/borrowing processes posited by the new approach is discussed. The possibility of a transfer problem arising from Australia's rapid accumulation of short-term foreign debt is considered.
While developments in international banking, together with the liberalisation and globalisation of world securities markets, have considerably narrowed the differences between the new global financial environment and regional payments systems, the conclusion of the article is that there are substantial externalities in the international case which are intrinsic to the debt/borrowing process and which are likely to remain a source of continued policy concern.     

Inter-linkages between competition and stabilisation policies in the banking sector and stock market development in Europe

The banking sector and the stock market in Europe have been adversely impacted by a series of global financial crises over the last two decades. Major financial reforms were implemented to enhance the stability and competition within the banking sector. Measures were also implemented to create a vibrant stock market in Europe to stimulate economic growth in Europe. This study examines the interactions between stock market development, banking competition, and banking stability in European countries from 1996 to 2016. The purpose of the study is to understand the inter-linkages between these variables to ascertain the spillover impact of policy reforms in the banking sector on the stock market and vice-versa. Using a vector error-correction model, the study finds long-run and short-run inter-linkages between banking competition, banking stability, and stock market development in European countries. The study’s most robust result is that banking competition and banking stability stimulate stock market development in the long run. There is also some evidence that healthy competition in the banking sector and stock market development instils greater stability in the banking sector. The results suggest that policy measures put in place to create a vibrant stock market must include elevating banking competition and banking stability, with policymakers being cognizant that causality may be bidirectional.     

CHINA'S ECONOMIC REFORM: THE NEXT STEP

China's economic reforms succeeded in decentralizing decision making power down to the local and enterprise level. This decentralization has permitted a vibrant non-state sector to emerge alongside the state sector. Growing out of the state plan accounts for much of China's spectacular economic growth. However, productivity in the state sector has experienced little improvement. One can trace recurrent macroeconomic imbalances and inflation to the state policy to provide cheap credit to cover the huge losses sustained by state-owned enterprises. Attempts to reimpose controls to cool down an overheated economy repeatedly have halted the momentum for economic reform. Failure to introduce banking and financial reforms threatens future growth of the non-state sector. The success of such reforms depends critically on efforts to restructure and privatize state-owned enterprises. Growing out of the state plan requires officials to adopt an explicit policy to stop supporting the losses in the state owned enterprises.     

Fixed Exchange Rates and Banking Crises: When Does the Former Prevent the Latter?

Because monetary policy is constrained in fixed exchange rate regimes, banks should expect fewer money‐financed bailouts and therefore manage their risks more carefully when exchange rates are fixed than when they are flexible. It follows that we should observe fewer banking crises in countries with formal currency pegs. The 1990s however are littered with occurrences of banking crises in countries with fixed exchange rates. This paper asks whether banks in those countries could have adopted excess risk expecting money‐financed bailouts or whether their pegs discouraged such moral hazard‐type risks.     

Financial market development,global financial crisis and economic growth: evidence from developing nations

Emerging and frontier markets in Africa have witnessed various economic and financial reforms aimed at integrating the domestic markets into the global financial market to attract investment. Whether these reforms promote high economic growth remains inconclusive. The paper applies the pooled mean group estimation technique to empirically re-investigate the link between financial market development, global financial crisis, and economic growth in selected African economies. The results strongly support our hypotheses that stock market and banking sector development promotes economic growth in the selected countries. Moreover, financial crisis reduce the positive effects of both the stock market and banking sector developments on economic growth. The study suggests that both the banking sector and stock market are important to deliver the long-run economic growth that the African region desired. Moreover, effort should be made to enact policy measures that would ensure development of the stock market which has received inadequate attention.     

Monetary policy and systemic risk-taking in the euro area banking sector

Available empirical evidence on the significance of the (micro) risk-taking channel of monetary policy is not enough to indicate a threat to financial stability. Evidence of risk-taking with systemic risk implications is necessary. Statistical measures that capture systemic risk in all its forms within a structural factor-augmented vector autoregressive model suggest that conventional and unconventional monetary policies have resulted in systemic risk-taking in the euro area banking sector. Systemic risk has taken the form of an increase in the banking sector’s vulnerability via contagion and interconnectedness. Banks’ balance sheets, however, do not account for the full transmission from (micro) risk taking to systemic risk-taking. The main policy implication is that a persistently accommodative monetary policy may drive a monetary authority with a price stability mandate to consider a possible trade-off with financial stability. At a minimum, coordination between monetary and macro-prudential policies requires serious consideration.     

The effect of financial liberalization on banking sector stability

Several studies indicate that financial liberalization increases likelihood of a financial crisis without distinguishing between a normal period, unstable period preceding the onset of banking panics and crisis/post period. We explain in this paper the relationship between financial liberalization and banking sector vulnerability. Then, we argue that banking sector turmoil is most likely to occur after an intermediate degree of liberalization. Using a recently updated dataset for financial reforms, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between liberalization and the likelihood of banking crisis for a sample of 49 countries between 1980 and 2010. We used a multinomial logit model in order to take into account what is called the ‘post crisis bias’. We ask whether the relationship remains when institutional characteristics of countries and dynamic effects of liberalization are considered. The empirical results indicate that the relationship between liberalization and banking sector stability depends strongly on the strength of capital regulation and supervision. With very weak regulation and supervision, the probability of banking crises is increasing with liberalization but this relationship is reversed as regulation and supervision become significant. The most important type of liberalization in relation to banking crises seems to be operational. A policy implication is that positive growth effects of liberalization can be achieved without increasing the risk of a banking fragility if appropriate institutions are developed.     

Currency crises and the real economy: The role of banks

This paper attempts to explain the divergent output effects of currency crises through a very simple and intuitive model that relates the effects of a devaluation not only to the financial fragility of banks, but also to the degree of financial market imperfection. The model shows that countries with higher degrees of financial market imperfection and/or a banking sector whose balance sheets are weak, in terms of having low net worth and high foreign currency exposure, are much more likely to suffer a contraction in the wake of a currency crisis.     

Financialization and the macroeconomy. Theory and empirical evidence

This paper sheds light on the macroeconomic impact of financialization in the banking sector. We develop a new stock-flow consistent model, which reveals that excessive leverage increases financial fragility, lowers wages, and slows down real sector investment and GDP growth. Using a panel of 29 high income countries, we then construct indicators of banking financialization and investigate the impact of the latter on the wage share, gross capital formation and GDP growth, using a Bayesian structural VAR framework, as well as a set of fixed effect regressions. Our results highlight that financialization has had a detrimental impact on real sector growth. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results to propose reforms to the international financial system.     

Sudden stops, banking crises and investment collapses in emerging markets

We evaluate whether financial openness leaves emerging market economies vulnerable to the adverse effects of capital reversals (“sudden stops”) on domestic investment. We investigate this claim in a broad sample of emerging markets during the period 1976–2002. If the banking sector does not experience a systemic crisis, sudden stop events fail to have a significant impact on investment. Bank crises, on the other hand, have a significant negative effect on investment even in the absence of a contemporaneous sudden stop crisis. We also find that openness to capital flows worsens the adverse impact of banking crises on investment. Our results provide statistical support for the policy view that a strong banking sector which can withstand the negative fallout of capital flight is essential for countries that open their economies to international financial flows.     

Bank Fragility and International Capital Mobility

The paper presents a model of a small open economy with a fragile banking sector and imperfect international capital mobility. In this model, increased international integration of the market for bank deposits makes bank runs more likely, resulting in a welfare loss for the business sector. Bank depositors may gain or lose depending on the parameters. When depositors gain, whether the gains exceed the losses to the business sector depends on the size of the holdings of foreign assets relative to the deadweight costs of bank runs. Thus, limited international financial integration may not be desirable.     

Does international integration matter for financial development in Africa?

This article analyses the links between international financial and trade integration and financial development in sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. It is based on a panel data set using methods that tackle slope heterogeneity, cross-sectional dependence and nonstationarity. The results do not point to a general direct robust link between trade and financial integration and financial development in SSA, once we control for other factors such as GDP per capita and inflation. The findings may be due to a number of factors including distortions in domestic financial markets, relatively weak institutions and/or poor financial sector supervision. We find some indication that financial integration is more important for financial development in countries with better institutional quality. Stronger scores in some measures of the quality of banking regulation and supervision are also linked to a positive association between integration and financial development in some of our results. Thus, African policy-makers should be cautious about expectations regarding immediate gains for financial development from greater international integration. Such gains are more likely to occur slowly and through indirect channels.     

Concentration in Asia's cross-border banking: Determinants and impacts

Cross-border bank positions in Asia and the Pacific remain highly concentrated among a few counterparties, exposing the region to financial risks and policy spillovers. Consequently, assessing the determinants and impacts of the region's cross-border banking concentration is relevant to the design of appropriate policies for promoting financial development and safeguarding financial stability. To this end, we construct cross-border bank concentration measures for 47 economies in Asia and the Pacific from 2000 to 2019. The results show that higher capital account and trade openness and per capita income are significantly associated with lower cross-border bank concentration. Moreover, elevated cross-border bank concentration tends to lower domestic credit and nonperforming loans. We find no impact on bank profitability for the region.     

Economic integration and the profitability of cross-border mergers and acquisitions

The 1990s was a decade of increased economic integration. The decade also witnessed a sharp increase in cross-border mergers and acquisitions. From a theoretical perspective, the increase in international mergers in more integrated economies is rather puzzling. It is a well-established result that due to the “business stealing effect”, mergers in integrated markets are not likely to be profitable. A reasonable conjecture would therefore be that closer integration of markets would reduce the attractiveness of cross-border mergers and acquisitions. The present paper demonstrates that this is not necessarily the case: Economic integration may trigger cross-border acquisitions by reducing the business stealing effect and by reducing the reservation price of the target firm. The paper thus provides explanations to the observed increase in cross-border mergers in a world of more integrated economies.