The 1994 currency crisis in Turkey

This paper analyzes the 1994 crisis in Turkey. The period preceding the crisis witnessed a continuous deterioration of macroeconomic fundamentals. However, domestic debt financing of public deficits prevented reserve losses and an increase in inflation rate. It is argued that despite weak fundamentals of the period preceding the crisis, in the absence of policy “mistakes” that played a role of a series of shocks in the second half of 1993, the financial crisis could have been avoided.     

Fundamentals and Sovereign Risk of Emerging Markets

We empirically assess the relative importance of various economic fundamentals in accounting for the sovereign credit default swap (CDS) spreads of emerging markets during 2004–2012, which encompasses the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. Inflation, state fragility, external debt and commodity terms of trade volatility were positively associated, while trade openness and a more favourable fiscal balance/GDP ratio were negatively associated with sovereign CDS spreads. Yet the relative importance of economic fundamentals in the pricing of sovereign risk varies over time. The key factors are trade openness and state fragility in the pre‐crisis period, the external debt/GDP ratio and inflation in the crisis period, and inflation and the public debt/GDP ratio in the post‐crisis period. Asian countries enjoy lower sovereign spreads than Latin American countries, and this gap widened during and after the crisis. Trade openness was the biggest factor behind Asia's lower sovereign spreads before the crisis, and inflation during and after the crisis. The results imply that external factors were paramount in pricing sovereign risk prior to the crisis, but internal factors associated with the capacity to adjust to adverse shocks gained prominence during and after the crisis.     

The Persistence of Income Shocks: Evidence from Rural Indonesia

This paper estimates the persistence of transient income shocks to farm households in rural Indonesia. Persistence is defined as the elasticity of a household's 1997 household per capita income with respect to its 1993 per capita income, controlling for time‐invariant characteristics of the household. Local rainfall levels are used as an exogenous source of transitory variation in 1993 income. Four main conclusions emerge. First, roughly 30% of household income shocks remain after four years. Second, the persistence of negative and positive shocks is approximately equal; if anything, positive shocks last longer. Third, neither positive nor negative income shocks disproportionately affect poor households. Finally, measurement error in income and unobserved household heterogeneity are important sources of bias. These findings cast doubt on common arguments advocating public intervention to stabilize or redistribute income, and suggest that anti‐poverty policy should address more permanent causes of household poverty.     

EXCHANGE RATE MANIPULATION AND CONSTRUCTIVE AMBIGUITY

I consider dynamic models in which investors are heterogeneously informed about both foreign exchange interventions and exchange rate fundamentals and show that transparency sometimes exacerbates misalignment between the exchange rate and fundamentals. Although transparency reveals information about fundamentals, it also increases the precision of the exchange rate as a signal of those fundamentals that remain unknown (the signal‐precision effect of transparency). If a central bank announcement reveals little information about fundamentals, then this effect dominates and transparency magnifies misalignment. One implication is that ambiguity can increase the effectiveness of intervention to support a declining currency during times of crisis.     

Increase in home bias in the Eurozone debt crisis: The role of domestic shocks

One of the most striking consequences of the recent episode of sovereign debt market stress in the Eurozone has been the increase in the share of public debt held by the domestic sector in fragile economies. However, the causes and potential consequences of this increase were only given scarce attention in the literature on the Euro area sovereign debt crisis. In order to fill this gap, we first determine the shocks that impact the variation in the share of sovereign debt held at home in an SVAR model on a sample of Eurozone countries between 2002 and 2014, distinguishing between external and domestic shocks. Thanks to several alternative tests, we show that home bias in sovereign debt responds positively to country-specific fundamentals and expectation shocks but we find no evidence that the increase in home bias is destabilizing per se in the short-run. Second, a stylized theoretical model backed by the empirical results predicts that the consequences for sovereign debt crisis depend on the relative impact of domestic initial destabilizing shocks and increased home bias. The analysis suggests that an increase in home bias in times of sovereign debt stress, despite reflecting deteriorating fiscal conditions, may make default less likely.     

Fundamentals,beliefs, and financial contagion

We study contagion in a model in which financial crises can occur due to both weak fundamentals and adverse self-fulfilling expectations. Contagion emerges only if a crisis in one country leads international investors to rationally update beliefs about fundamentals in other countries. But purely expectational crises may be contagious, as investors may infer that fundamentals are weak. Hence, the structure of information is crucial. The analysis delivers useful lessons for assessing which countries are more vulnerable to contagion, which types of crises are more infectious, and whether increased transparency ameliorates contagion effects.     

外部供需冲击视角下的东亚货币合作可行性研究

区域货币合作在维护区域金融稳定、促进区域经济发展方面具有不可替代的作用。欧洲主权债务危机爆发后,人们对东亚能否继续进行货币合作产生了疑问,有必要结合欧债危机产生的新情况、新问题,从新的视角探讨东亚货币合作的可行性。文章从供给与需求两方面的经济结构冲击对称性视角,对东亚10个经济体之间的冲击相关系数、冲击规模与调整速度进行了实证分析,证实了东亚区域不同经济体之间存在着不同的对称性,具有双边和次区域货币合作的经济基础。同时文章提出东亚区域未来货币合作的形式、实现路径和风险防范措施。     

Contagion, Monsoons, and Domestic Turmoil in Indonesia's Currency Crisis

The paper investigates whether Indonesia's recent currency crisis was due to domestic fundamentals, common external shocks ("monsoons"), or contagion from neighboring countries. Markov switching models attribute speculative pressure on Indonesia's currency to domestic political and financial factors and contagion from speculative pressures in Thailand and Korea. In particular, the results from a time-varying transition probability Markov switching model (which overcomes some drawbacks of previous methods) show that inclusion of exchange rate pressures from Thailand and Korea in the transition probabilities improves the conditional probabilities of crisis in Indonesia. The paper also finds evidence of contagion in the stock market.     

Contagion of self-fulfilling financial crises due to diversification of investment portfolios

We look at two countries that have independent fundamentals, but share the same group of investors. Each country might face a self-fulfilling crisis: Agents withdrawing their investments fearing that others will. A crisis in one country reduces agents’ wealth. This makes them more averse to the strategic risk associated with the unknown behavior of other agents in the second country, increasing their incentive to withdraw their investments. Consequently, the probability of a crisis there increases. This generates a positive correlation between the returns in the two countries. Since diversification affects returns in our model, its welfare implications are non-trivial.     

The impact of political institutions on U.S. state bond yields during crises: evidence from the 2008 credit market seizure

This study examines how political institutions mediate bond market reactions to severe economic crisis, based on U.S. states’ experience of the 2008 credit market seizure. Following severe fiscal shocks, political institutions assume greater importance in assessing risk characteristics of state bonds. The bond market reacts most strongly to two factors: public sector union strength in a state and the proportion of Democrats in the state legislature. We suggest that the identity of political institutions becomes increasingly important, during periods of economic crises, when credit markets might expect that political systems can no longer delay stabilisations and must deliver policy.     

Assessing the stochastic stability of public debt: the case of Austria

This paper characterizes the long-run distribution of Austrian public debt using a Markov chain model of the debt-GDP ratio and several key macroeconomic variables. We apply Bayesian techniques to estimate the transition probabilities of the model which allows to incorporate information from other countries. Based on the model, we argue that the historical record of Austrian fiscal policy is consistent with a stable long-run distribution of the debt-GDP ratio with an expected value close to the 60% threshold of the Maastricht treaty. Our results suggests that the strong increase in the debt-GDP ratio in the aftermath of the recent financial crisis should be seen as a transitory tail event rather than as a sign of long-run unsustainability. However, we also show that the existence of a stable long-run distribution depends on a continuing tendency of fiscal policy to “lean against debt” by reducing the primary deficit in face of rising debt. Finally we assess how exogenous shocks to the primary deficit and real GDP growth affect the model-implied distribution.     

Real exchange rate dynamics: Relative importance of Taylor‐rule fundamentals,monetary policy shocks,and risk‐premium shocks

We first show that the solution to the real exchange rate under the Taylor rule with interest rate smoothing can have two alternative representations—one based on a first‐order difference equation and the other based on a second‐order difference equation. Then, by comparing error terms from these two alternative representations and analyzing their second moments, we evaluate the relative importance of Taylor‐rule fundamentals, monetary policy shocks, and risk‐premium shocks in the dynamics of the real exchange rate. Empirical results suggest that the risk‐premium shock is the largest contributor to real exchange rate movements for all the countries examined, with the Taylor‐rule fundamentals and monetary policy shocks playing a limited role. These results are robust to various alternative sets of parameter values considered for the Taylor rule with interest rate smoothing.     

The sovereign spread in Asian emerging economies: The significance of external versus internal factors

This paper investigates the dynamic relations between external factors, domestic macroeconomic factors with sovereign spreads, debt to GDP ratio, etc. in Asian emerging countries. First, we develop a theoretical model that determines the equilibrium debt level, probability of default and sovereign spread and draw empirical implications. We then employ a Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) model to investigate empirically how the spread of sovereign debt is influenced over time by both external and domestic factors. The empirical results show that variations in sovereign spreads are mainly driven by external shocks, with the term structure of US interest rate and the global risk aversion having the most important role. The findings also indicate that shocks from the US have a direct effect on sovereign spread and an indirect effect via domestic macroeconomic fundamentals. Finally, the evidence produced validates the presence of some response patterns of sovereign spread to the external shocks.     

STABILITY OF THAI BAHT: TALES FROM THE TAILS

We demonstrate how the EVT‐based signalling approach for currency crises can be applied to an individual country with a small sample size. Using Thai historical data, first, we study the tail characteristics of the distributions of two Thai baht instability measures and 21 economic fundamentals. Then, we test asymptotic dependence between the currency instability measures and lagged economic fundamentals. Empirically, we find that the distributions of both currency instability measures and economic variables are heavy tailed. Assuming a normal distribution for the variables tends to underestimate the probability of extreme events. Furthermore, most of the economic variables which are usually used as signalling indicators for currency crises are asymptotically independent of the currency instability measures. Signals issued by these variables are thus not reliable. Nevertheless, the non‐parametric EVT approach facilitates the selection of economic indicators with credible signals and high crisis prediction success.     

Industry equilibrium with random exit or default

An industry consisting of a large number of small price taking firms subject to idiosyncratic productivity shocks is considered. At the moment of entry, a firm takes on debt. We show that in a competitive equilibrium, some firms exit and pay out their debt while others choose to default. The outcome depends on the realization of firm‐specific shocks. The paper demonstrates that if the firms self‐select between exit with debt repayment and default, then the default region is disconnected from the exit region. The methodological contribution of the paper is the analytical characterization of the long‐run equilibrium for two scenarios of the initial distribution of productivity shocks. We consider two public policy mechanisms—contract enforcement and creditor protection. Our policy recommendation is that regulators need to reduce the contract enforcement if they want to decrease the long‐run default rate.     

Sovereign debt spread and default in a model with self-fulfilling prophecies and asymmetric information

The euro area sovereign debt crisis has renewed interest in government credibility and the risk of default. Recent empirical evidence has shown that the sharp increase in government bond yields cannot be attributed entirely to changes in macroeconomic fundamentals. Contagion effects can occur, and self-fulfilling speculation may arise. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model in the spirit of the second-generation currency crisis models developed by Obstfled (1996). The model describes a strategic game between governments and private investors. Euro area countries face a trade-off as governments may either commit to and implement restrictive fiscal policies or default on debt. The commitment strategy may not be optimal if the fundamentals deteriorate. The policy maker lose part of their credibility, and governments are forced to default. In addition, we introduce uncertainty about the cost of default in the model, which is then able to account for a greater variety of equilibrium. Thus, when the evaluation of the cost of default is asymmetric, prophecies are not always realized and default does not occur. Simulations of the model then show that it offers insights, and can help to account for the situations of Greece and Italy during the sovereign debt crisis.     

Tracing the causes of the banking crisis

We add the Bernanke–Gertler–Gilchrist model to a modified version of the Smets–Wouters model of the U.S. in order to explore the causes of the banking crisis. The innovation of this article is estimating the model using unfiltered data allowing for non-stationary shocks in order to replicate how the model predicts the crisis. We find that ‘traditional shocks’ account for most of the fluctuations in macroeconomic variables; the non-stationarity of the productivity shock plays a key role. Crises occur when there is a ‘run’ of bad shocks; based on this sample they occur on average once every 64 years and when they occur around 10% are accompanied by financial crisis. Financial shocks on their own, even when extreme, do not cause crises – provided the government acts swiftly to counteract such a shock as happened in this sample.     

Crisis and self-fulfilling expectations: The Turkish experience in 1994 and 2000–2001

In this paper we analyze the role of fundamentals and self-fulfilling expectations in the crisis episodes of Turkey in 1994 and 2001. The question is how much of the occurrence of a crisis can be attributed to market expectations and how much to fundamentals. The model is estimated using a Markov switching framework in which the devaluation expectations affect crisis probability via three different specifications. Such a framework which allows for sunspots performs better than a purely fundamental-based model. The study shows that besides the fundamentals in the economy, shifts in agents' devaluation expectations have played a crucial role and that a Markov switching model with constant transition probabilities provides better estimates for the Turkish currency crises.     

The Exchange Rate: A Shock Absorber or Source of Shocks in Turkey?

This study investigates the role of the exchange rate as shock-absorber as opposed to a source of its own shocks in Turkey during the period from 1990 to 2009 by employing a structural VAR framework with long-run and short-run restrictions. We find that the economic shocks have predominantly been asymmetric relative to one of the largest trading partner, the US. Our results provide evidence of the fact that while the major source of variability in exchange rates in the pre-2001 crisis period is mainly nominal shocks, a large proportion of the exchange rate variability can be attributed to supply and demand shocks in the post-2001 crisis period. This suggets that, rather than reacting to shocks to the foreign exchange market, such as shifts in risk premia, the exchange rate moves mainly in response to the real shocks during the post-2001 crisis period. Hence, there is a sizeable role for exchange rate stabilization during this period, absorbing those shocks and therefore requiring opposed monetary policy responses.     

Public capital in the 21st century: as productive as ever?

The global financial crisis and the euro area sovereign debt crisis that followed induced a rapid deterioration in the fiscal positions of countries across the globe. In the ensuing fiscal adjustment process, public investments were severely reduced in many countries. How harmful is this for growth perspectives? Our main objective is to find out whether the importance of public capital for long run output growth has changed in recent years. To this end, we expand time series on public capital stocks for 20 OECD countries and estimate country-specific recursive vector autoregressive (VAR) models. Results show that the effect of public capital shocks on economic growth has not increased in general, although results differ widely between countries. This suggests that the current level of public investments generally does not pose an immediate threat to potential output. Of course, this could change if low investment levels are sustained for a long time.