The future and dynamics of global systemically important banks

The purpose of this paper is to analyse some of the issues associated with supervision and regulation of global systemically important banks, G-SIB. The paper highlights the importance of managing liquidity risk and creating a global financial system that can minimise regulatory arbitrage by large financial institutions. The paper argues that, unlike some industries such as the airline industry in which risk has been contained and yet the size and capacity of aircrafts have increased, in the banking system, less progress has been made to contain financial risk and allow large banks to expand their global activities. The paper argues that G-SIB are able to continue remaining large provided that a globally integrated financial system ensures effective global supervision of these large banks. The paper compares the US banking crises in the 19th century and the subsequent emergence of the US Federal Reserve System to the possibility of establishing a world central bank and a global supervisory board. Such new global institutions will have the capacity to reduce regulatory arbitrage, increase effective supervision, reduce systemic and liquidity risk and create a more stable global financial system.     

Bank recapitalization and economic recovery after financial crises

Does support to distressed banks early on during financial crises mitigate the macroeconomic consequences of financial distress, and if so does it matter what form the intervention takes? We analyze the effects of government and central bank interventions in 69 systemic banking crises since 1980, of which 29 are part of the recent global financial crisis. Our estimation approach controls for the correlation between intervention measures and the time-invariant component of unobservable crisis severity. We find that timely bank recapitalizations substantially reduce the duration of recessions, underscoring the distortions caused by zombie banks and the costs of regulatory forbearance.     

Incentives to innovate and financial crises

In this paper I develop a model of a competitive financial system with unrestricted but costly entry and an endogenously determined number of competing financial institutions (“banks” for short). Banks can make standard loans on which plentiful historical data are available and unanimous agreement exists on default probabilities. Or banks can innovate and make new loans on which limited historical data are available, leading to possible disagreement over default probabilities. In equilibrium, banks make zero profits on standard loans and positive profits on innovative loans, which engenders innovation incentives for banks. But innovation brings with it the risk that investors could disagree with the bank that the loan is worthy of continued funding and hence could withdraw funding at an interim stage, precipitating a financial crisis. The degree of innovation in the financial system is determined by this trade-off. Welfare implications of financial innovation and mechanisms to reduce the probability of crises are discussed.     

Financial services in an increasingly integrated global financial market

This paper discusses aspects of global financial services. As part of financial globalisation, financial institutions have evolved both nationally and internationally. FDI is becoming an important vehicle for multinational banks to enter developing countries. This in turn is changing the composition of trade in financial services. The experience of regional integration in Europe and the emergence of large multinational European banks signal a new era of global competition and consolidation of financial institutions. Home bias in international financial services is much less where financial integration is taking place. With financial globalisation, one should expect more diversification of ownership of multinational banks around the world, particularly when China and India are now able to have strategic investment in some of the key investment banks around the world. Financial globalisation requires stronger and more effective international institutions as a way of monitoring the activities of multinational financial institutions at both the national and international levels.     

Fair value accounting,fragile bank balance sheets and crisis: A model

A topic of recent interest in accounting research has been the investigation of the role of fair value accounting (FVA) in the global financial crisis. This research focused on finding a link during the crisis time-period and often states that “accounting is only a messenger”. The model presented in this paper emphasises finding the link before the crisis and “accounting as money.” Use is made of an accounting model of the economy due to the inability of standard models of monetary transmission to incorporate global financial crisis characteristics such as feedback effects, systemic risk and the centrality of the financial sector in the crisis. The model shows FVA in banks to be an accelerator that amplifies the financial cycle upswing. Feedback effects noted in the model include changes in the demand for financial instruments and changes in demand in the real economy. Minsky-like, crisis is shown to be endogenous to the model, working through the fragility of balance sheets in the real sector as well as in the financial sector. Bank balance sheet fragility is caused by bad capital driving out good capital, banks reaching for yield and the inversion of the yield curve. The model shows that the practice of not meeting rising credit demand with increasing credit supply is an essential control mechanism in the financial cycle.     

Banking Globalization and Monetary Transmission

Globalization of banking raises questions about banks’ liquidity management, their response to liquidity shocks, and the potential for international shock propagation. We conjecture that global banks manage liquidity on a global scale, actively using cross‐border internal funding in response to local shocks. Having global operations insulates banks from changes in monetary policy, while banks without global operations are more affected by monetary policy than previously found. We provide direct evidence that internal capital markets are active in global banks and contribute to the international propagation of shocks. This feature was at play during the financial crisis of 2007–2009.     

Assessing the effectiveness of financial reporting harmonization for emerging market banks: The case of Banco Serfin

In the last decade there has been a proliferation of financial crises in emerging markets. To some extent, the suddenness and magnitude of some of these crises have been blamed on poor financial reporting standards for bank loan losses. As a result, prior to providing countries with “financial bailout” funds, international investors and international financial organizations have increasingly required that countries harmonize their bank financial reporting standards with international financial reporting standards.Given this trend, this case requires students to assess the effectiveness of efforts to harmonize loan financial reporting (with International Financial Reporting Standards) for Mexican banks during (and after) the country’s financial crisis of the late 1990s. Students are required to assess the extent to which both pre-crisis standards as well as new, post-crisis standards complied with international financial reporting standards. They are also required to assess the impact of the new standards on the reporting practices for loans of one particularly troubled financial institution. Through the examination of this institution’s accounting practices for loans, students obtain a familiarity of the shortcomings of emerging markets’ banks’ loan financial reporting as well as the factors which influence the adoption of international financial reporting standards by emerging market banks.     

Sovereign debt disputes: A database on government coerciveness during debt crises

This paper measures “debt disputes” between governments and foreign private creditors in periods of sovereign debt crises. We construct an index of government coerciveness, consisting of 9 objective sub-indicators. Each of these sub-indicators captures unilateral government actions imposed on foreign banks and bondholders. The results provide the first systematic account of debt crises that goes beyond a binary categorization of default versus non-default. Overall, government behavior and rhetoric show a strong variability, ranging from highly confrontational to very smooth crisis resolution processes. In a preliminary analysis on the determinants of coercive behavior, we find political institutions to be significant, while economic and financial factors play a lesser role. These results open up an agenda for future research.     

Banks’ capital buffer,risk and performance in the Canadian banking system: Impact of business cycles and regulatory changes

Using quarterly financial statements and stock market data from 1982 to 2010 for the six largest Canadian chartered banks, this paper documents positive co-movement between Canadian banks’ capital buffer and business cycles. The adoption of Basel Accords and the balance sheet leverage cap imposed by Canadian banking regulations did not change this cyclical behavior of Canadian bank capital. We find Canadian banks to be well-capitalized and that they hold a larger capital buffer in expansion than in recession, which may explain how they weathered the recent subprime financial crisis so well. This evidence that Canadian banks ride the business and regulatory periods underscores the appropriateness of a both micro- and a macro-prudential “through-the-cycle” approach to capital adequacy as advocated in the proposed Basel III framework to strengthen the resilience of the banking sector.     

Information acquisition,coordination, and fundamentals in a financial crisis

This paper reconciles the two explanations of a financial crisis, the self-fulfilling prophecy and the fundamental causes, in an empirically-relevant framework, by explicitly modeling the costly voluntary acquisition of information about fundamentals in a variant of Diamond and Dybvig [Diamond, D., Dybvig, P., 1983. Bank runs, deposit insurance, and liquidity. Journal of Political Economy 91, 401–419]. The model exhibits strategic complementarity in information acquisition. In the “partial run” equilibrium investors engage in costly evaluation of projects, so that banks with lower-return projects fail. There also exist the classic “full-run” and “no-run” equilibria in which there is no project evaluation. Investors’ coordination on a specific equilibrium is triggered by a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, financial crises are seen as both fundamentals-based and self-fulfilling prophecies-based phenomena.     

系统重要性机构识别和监管研究综述

2008年国际金融危机与以往危机最大的不同在于危机肇始于著名跨国金融机构的倒闭。通过对危机进行反思,二十国集团要求确保所有具有系统重要性的金融机构、市场和工具受到适当的监管和监督。该文从国际监管组织提出的“系统重要性金融机构”的概念出发,介绍了系统重要性机构的识别方法,以及当前有关强化系统重要性机构监管的国际实践,并对降低我国系统重要性金融机构的风险提出了政策建议。     

Banking crises and market discipline: International evidence

This paper analyzes the effect of banking crises on market discipline in an international sample of banks. We also evaluate how bank regulation, supervision, institutions, and crisis intervention policies shape the effect of banking crises on market discipline. We control for unobservable bank, country, and time specific effects using a panel data set of banks from 66 countries around 79 banking crises. The results suggest that on average market discipline weakens after a banking crisis. This weakening is higher in countries where bank regulation, supervision, and institutions promoted market discipline before the banking crisis, and where a more accommodative approach is adopted to resolve it.     

金融危机的原因以及中央银行在避免下一个危机所起的作用(英文)

最近一次的金融危机揭示了在大量信息不对称,金融尝新复杂和监管框架不完整这样的金融世界里,"自我调节"显然不能起到作用。本文认为,已经至少有两个主要政策影响着金融危机。一个是监督管理政策,另一个是货币政策。此外,本文还分析了中央银行能如何来帮助避免下一场财政危机。特别是,对于宏观审慎性政策的作用和限制进行了讨论。     

THE ASIAN CRISIS: LESSONS FOR CRISIS MANAGEMENT AND PREVENTION

The succession of financial crises that swept through Asia, Russia, and Latin America in 1997 and 1998 has led to considerable debate about both the role of the IMF and possible actions to limit further crises. Some have argued that international financial markets do not function well and are subject to periodic contagious panics that can be stemmed by an international lender of last resort. This paper argues that the IMF has neither the resources nor the superior information to play such a role. However, there may be a need for an international financial institution that can use its leverage to secure policy changes in the affected countries.
The paper also takes issue with the view that the IMF is simply bailing out imprudent international banks and that measures are needed to "bail them back in" again. The source of the Asian crisis lay in the real economy, but the effect of the crisis was greatly exacerbated by the financial structure of the affected countries. In particular, much of the risk was borne by domestic banks that borrowed dollars in the short-term interbank market and made longerterm loans in the local currency. Public policy needs to be directed to ensuring that the risks in emerging markets are distributed efficiently across both foreign and domestic investors. That involves greater use of equity finance and structured debt, as well as possibly a more direct role for foreign banks in funding local activities.     

Overview of the special issue on “Policy Implications of and Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis”

This paper reviews the special issue “Policy Implications of and Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis,” and its themes: Global liquidity and the use of international reserves; real and financial economic patterns before and during the global financial crisis.     

Shadow Banking,Risk Transfer,and Financial Stability

Shadow banking is the process by which banks raise funds from and transfer risks to entities outside the traditional commercial banking system. Many observers blamed the sudden expansion in 2007 of U.S. sub‐prime mortgage market disruptions into a global financial crisis on a “liquidity run” that originated in the shadow banking system and spread to commercial banks. In response, national and international regulators have called for tighter and new regulations on shadow banking products and participants. Preferring the term “market‐based finance” to the term “shadow banking,” the authors explore the primary financial instruments and participants that comprise the shadow banking system. The authors review the 2007–2009 period and explain how runs on shadow banks resulted in a liquidity crisis that spilled over to commercial banks, but also emphasize that the economic purpose of shadow banking is to enable commercial banks to raise funds from and transfer risks to non‐bank institutions. In that sense, the shadow banking system is a shock absorber for risks that arise within the commercial banking system and are transferred to a more diverse pool of non‐bank capital instead of remaining concentrated among commercial banks. The article also reviews post‐crisis regulatory initiatives aimed at shadow banking and concludes that most such regulations could result in a less stable financial system to the extent that higher regulatory costs on shadow banks like insurance companies and asset managers could discourage them from participating in shadow banking. And the net effect of this regulation, by limiting the amount of market‐based capital available for non‐bank risk transfer, may well be to increase the concentrations of risk in the banking and overall financial system.     

以外储战略性注资推动中国商业银行国际化研究

跨国银行集团是发达国家核心竞争力之一,在历次危机中(尤其是在此次全球金融风暴的冲击下),西方发达国家都大幅注资本国大型金融机构,力图稳定其在国际金融领域的优势地位。中国商业银行经过多年来发展和海外经营,实力明显上升,并多次运用资本市场补充资本金,具备了提升国际化经营水平的基础,目前也迎来了国际化的良机,但仍然面临着资本约束的瓶颈。2003年以来,国家以外汇储备对中国大型商业银行进行的战略性注资,获得的回报远大于投入,并健全了我国的金融体系。从提高我国外汇储备战略性投资作用的角度,建议国家以强国方略再度以外储对大型商业银行进行战略性注资,再辅之以监管部门进一步改革监管和资本账户管制,以及商业银行在国际经营中充分发挥自身的主体作用,多管齐下来共同推动中国商业银行的国际化。     

Governance and bank characteristics in the credit and sovereign debt crises – the impact of CEO power

The global financial sector recently suffered from two interrelated crises: the credit crisis and the sovereign debt crisis. A common question is whether the recent experience with the credit crisis has helped in dealing with the sovereign debt crisis. We study more specifically whether banks with powerful CEOs perform better or worse than other banks, and if there is any difference in this relationship between the two crises. Using unique hand-collected data for 378 large global banks, we find that CEO power has a significant positive relation to bank profitability and asset quality, but also to insolvency risk, during the sovereign debt crisis. Thus, strong CEOs do not appear to be detrimental to bank performance. Our results also support the idea that deposit insurance may have contributed to the credit crisis.     

Safety-net benefits conferred on difficult-to-fail-and-unwind banks in the US and EU before and during the great recession

This paper investigates the links between regulatory arbitrage, financial instability, and taxpayer loss exposures. We model and estimate ex ante safety-net benefits from increased leverage and asset volatility at a sample of large banks in US and Europe during 2003–2008. Hypothesis tests indicate that, in both crisis and precrisis years, difficult-to-fail-and-unwind (DFU) banks enjoyed substantially higher ex ante benefits than other institutions. Compared to the US sample, safety-net benefits prove significantly larger for DFU firms in Europe and bailout decisions are less driven by asset size. Introducing a proxy for differences in government susceptibility to regulatory capture helps to explain bailout decisions in Europe. Our findings suggest that authorities in both venues could better contain safety-net benefits if they refocused their information systems on monitoring volatility as well as capital.     

资产透明度、监管套利与银行系统性风险

资产不透明的金融机构过度依赖批发性融资进行监管套利不利于系统性风险的防控。在此背景下,本文首先在经典银行道德风险模型的基础上引入关联性,从资产透明度和监管套利的视角分析银行系统性风险累积的内在机理。而后利用2007-2018年中国上市银行微观数据,构建资产透明度指标和系统性风险指标(SRISK、MES),对理论推论进行实证检验。主要结论有:(1)资产不透明、监管套利会提高银行的系统性风险。(2)监管套利弱化了资产透明度和资本监管机制对银行系统性风险承担的约束作用,资产透明度与资本监管机制在约束系统性风险承担中的协调作用不明显。(3)以大银行为主的债权银行受监管套利的影响相较于受资产透明度的影响更明显。在此基础上,我们对完善金融风险防范体系以及监管机制提出了若干建议。