The global financial crisis and Islamic finance

The conventional view holds that the current global financial crisis was caused by extraordinarily high liquidity, reckless lending practices, and the rapid pace of financial engineering, which created complex and opaque financial instruments used for risk transfer. There was a breakdown of the lender‐borrower relationship and informational problems caused by a lack of transparency in asset market prices, particularly in the market for structured credit instruments. There was outdated, lax, or absent regulatory‐supervisory oversight; faulty risk management and accounting models; and the emergence of an incentive structure that not only encouraged excessive risk taking but also created a complicit coalition of financial institutions, real estate developers and appraisers, insurance companies, and credit rating agencies whose actions led to a deliberate underpricing of risk. Such a crisis would not have occurred under an Islamic financial system—due to the fact that most, if not all, of the factors that have caused or contributed to the development and spread of the crisis are not allowed under the rules and guidance of Shariah. The current global financial crisis is largely seen as a real test of the resilience of the Islamic financial services industry and its ability to present itself as a more reliable alternative to the conventional financial system. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

资产证券化风险引发机制概述

美国2007年底的次贷危机引发了世界范围的金融危机,该文以此为背景,以马克思的信用与虚拟资本理论以及信息不对称等理论,探讨资产证券化风险的起因,系统梳理相关的文献,归纳资产证券化风险的引发类型,结合我国资产证券化的发展提出有关建议。     

美国次贷危机对我国资产证券化路径的影响分析

随着2007年美国爆发的次贷危机不断深入,次贷危机已经升级为全球范围内的一场金融海啸。这场危机原本只是发端于美国的住房信贷市场,但其影响和范围却借助了资产证券化产品,辐射到全世界。资产证券化成为了产生蝴蝶效应的传导器和助推机。同时次贷危机已对我国资本市场和实体经济都产生了巨大的冲击,更对我国不断探索和推进的资产证券化进程产生了一定的影响。可以说次贷危机短期内必定会对我国的资产证券化形成一定的滞缓因素,但是,危机同时也对我国资产证券化进程带来积极的影响,从经验上、制度环境上以及人才引进上都是很大的推动因素。因此,我们不能因噎废食,更要积极抓住历史机遇,推动我国资产证券化进程的健康发展。     

Bank credit,public financial incentives,tax financial incentives and export performance during the global financial crisis

This paper investigates the extent to which access to credit, public financial incentives and tax financial incentives affect export performance using the EU-EFIGE/Bruegel-Unicredit data set, covering firms within Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary and the UK during the 2008 global financial crisis. The results show that firms receiving credit or benefiting from public financial incentives display higher export intensity and export a greater number of product lines compared to those that did not, especially in countries with better access to credit and/or financial incentives during the crisis. Further, firms benefiting from tax financial incentives show a better export performance compared to those that did not, regardless of the degree of access to credit and/or financial incentives in the country in which they operate. In addition, the effect of access to credit and public finance incentives on export performance is found to be size-dependent, while the effect of tax financial incentives is not. We suggest that governments should promote publicly funded financial incentives along with conventional schemes, such as R&D subsidies, to promote exports, particularly during a period of financial crisis.     

The role of trade credit in the recent subprime financial crisis

This study tests firms’ financing behavior, especially the causal relation between trade credit and bank credit around the time of the recent subprime financial crises. I find bank credit and accounts payable/receivable are simultaneously determined and there is a substitute/complementary effect between bank credit and accounts payable/receivable. Moreover, I test a cross-sectional response to crisis and find that firms with a more vulnerable financial position (i.e., financially constrained firms) are more likely to be negatively affected by crisis and, in turn, are more likely to cut their supply of credit to customers and increase their use of credit from suppliers.     

Dollar illiquidity and central bank swap arrangements during the global financial crisis

While the global financial crisis was centered in the United States, it led to a surprising appreciation in the dollar, suggesting global dollar illiquidity. In response, the Federal Reserve partnered with other central banks to inject dollars into the international financial system. Empirical studies of the success of these efforts have yielded mixed results, in part because their timing is likely to be endogenous. In this paper, we examine the cross-sectional impact of these interventions. Theory consistent with dollar appreciation in the crisis suggests that their impact should be greater for countries that have greater exposure to the United States through trade and financial channels, less transparent holdings of dollar assets, and greater illiquidity difficulties. We examine these predictions for observed cross-sectional changes in CDS spreads, using a new proxy for innovations in perceived changes in sovereign risk based upon Google-search data. We find robust evidence that auctions of dollar assets by foreign central banks disproportionately benefited countries that were more exposed to the United States through either trade linkages or asset exposure. We obtain weaker results for differences in asset transparency or illiquidity. However, several of the important announcements concerning the international swap programs disproportionately benefited countries exhibiting greater asset opaqueness.     

Four myths and a financial crisis

The main driving force of the financial crisis of 2007‐2009 was a rapid deterioration of the trust of private agents in the quality of financial institutions. In turn, this loss of confidence entailed a sharp decline in many asset prices and brought to their knees several large financial institutions with centennial traditions. This article surveys the critical moments of the crisis, presents some of the shock‐amplifying mechanisms, and comments on the effectiveness of various policy measures. We point out four conceptual myths that did not survive this crisis. The conclusion opens the debate on what structural changes in the existing financial architecture are required to contain such crises in the future. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Assessing the Impact of Crude Oil Price and Investor Sentiment on Islamic Indices: Subprime Crisis

This article attempts to shed light on the impact of oil prices, investor sentiment, and conventional index on 11 Islamic indices, particularly during the subprime financial crisis and the oil crisis. Empirical evidence suggests that the Malaysian and Indonesian Islamic indices are very much affected by the oil volatility. Estimation results of the BEKK-GARCH model reveal that the pessimistic sentiment during the subprime crisis is transmitted to Islamic indices, suggesting the herding contagion. The authors' finding indicates that investors can use VIX investor sentiment as an indicator to predict Islamic returns volatility. In addition, the authors find that the oil shock has spilled into Islamic indices. The time-varying correlation indicates strong evidence of the contagion effect of crude oil and investor sentiment measure to Islamic indices during the oil shock and U.S. financial crisis period of 2008–2009.     

Market response to policy initiatives during the global financial crisis

This paper examines the impact of macroeconomic and financial sector policy announcements in the United States, the United Kingdom, the euro area, and Japan on interbank credit and liquidity risk premia during the recent crisis. Overall, policy interventions were associated with a reduction in interbank risk premia, most significantly for recapitalization programs. By contrast, decisions to bail out individual banks in an ad hoc manner or let them fail were accompanied by a significant rise in interbank risk premia. Most policy announcements had international spillovers. These results are broadly robust to using alternative measures of financial distress and varying the size of the event window.     

次贷危机背景下我国商业银行对个人住房信贷风险的防范

美国次贷危机已演变成为了全球性的金融危机。我国商业银行的个人住房信贷扩张累积了较大风险与个贷危机,次贷危机的冲击将使个人住房贷款者信用风险的集中爆发,也会使房地产市场发展的不确定性风险加大等问题完全暴露。我国商业银行必须采取措施,提前防范其对银行体系内个人住房信贷所产生的不良影响,严格控制个人住房贷款者的信用级别,完善并严厉执行银行体系的内部控制,增强银行自身的流动性,加强金融创新监管,以全面保证商业银行信贷资产运作的安全性。     

Cross-border banking,credit access,and the financial crisis

We study the sensitivity of credit supply to bank financial conditions in 16 emerging European countries before and during the financial crisis. We use survey data on 10,701 applicant and non-applicant firms that enable us to disentangle effects driven by positive and negative shocks to the banking system from demand shocks that may vary across lenders. We find strong evidence that firms' access to credit was affected by changes in the financial conditions of their banks. During the crisis firms were more credit constrained if they were dealing with banks that experienced a decline in equity and Tier 1 capital, as well as losses on financial assets. We also find that access to credit reflects the balance sheet conditions of foreign parent banks. The effect of positive and negative shocks to a bank is greater for riskier firms and firms with fewer tangible assets.     

Financial socialism: The role of financial economics in economic disorganization

A growing body of research shows evidence that financial economics played a significant role in recent financial crises, such as the subprime mortgage crisis, Enron and Long-Term Capital Management. This track record is a wake-up call for managers and investors who employ financial economic models. This paper demonstrates how financial economics decouples market prices from the valuation by customers and resource owners in a systematic way. As an organization principle, financial economics replaces value-driven investment by a theory-driven ruling of anonymous financial markets – a scenario warranting the title “financial socialism”. Implications for customer valuation, financial accounting, and a maxim for the sound application of financial economic models are presented.     

Small shop survival – The financial response to a global financial crisis

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), many of which are small retail shops, remain the largest employer in the western world. Yet the financing of their fixed and working capital investments remains under-researched. This study focuses on this topic by examining Eurozone wholesale and retail SMEs enterprises at the peak of the 2008 financial credit crisis. In order to do this, an innovative analysis of existing theories in retail finance and policy research using generalised multilevel structural equation modelling is performed to establish how retail SMEs sourced capital during this period. This analysis, a first of its kind in wholesale and retail SME research, finds that pecking order theory, the independence of investment and financing, as well as the contest for financial resources between fixed and working capital do not hold for wholesale and retail SMEs. Moreover, it is found that government grants and subsidised loans were not used by SMEs in this sector of the Eurozone as primary sources of finance during the aftermath of the 2008 global credit crisis. Crucially, it is posited that a business environment characterized by stronger legal rights and deeper credit information did not improve SMEs’ access to external finance. The authors recommend that further research should be pursued in this field in order to improve current understanding of the resilience of retail SMEs for future global financial crises.     

美国次贷危机的原因分析及对中国的启示

美国次贷危机,使全球金融市场受到了严重冲击.美国次贷危机产生的原因、性质和后果,让我们更加理性地认识到:必须严防资产价格的过度攀升;我国商业银行要警惕个人住房贷款的风险性和资产证券化的风险;要尽快健全个人诚信系统;政府要抓紧完善风险防范保障机制,以防止出现失控局面,从而确保我国金融市场的长期稳定、健康发展.     

Off the cliff and back? Credit conditions and international trade during the global financial crisis

We study the collapse of international trade flows during the global financial crisis using detailed data on monthly US imports. We show that credit conditions were an important channel through which the crisis affected trade volumes, by exploiting the variation in the cost of capital across countries and over time, as well as the variation in financial vulnerability across sectors. Countries with higher interbank rates and thus tighter credit markets exported less to the US during the peak of the crisis. This effect was especially pronounced in sectors that require extensive external financing, have limited access to trade credit, or have few collateralizable assets. Exports of financially vulnerable industries were thus more sensitive to the cost of external capital than exports of less vulnerable industries, and this sensitivity rose during the financial crisis. The quantitative implications of our estimates for trade volumes highlight the large real effects of financial crises and the potential gains from policy intervention.     

The future of the global financial services industry

There are three fundamental technological shifts that are defining the competitive landscape of the early 21st century in financial service provision. First and foremost is distributed service provision: both deposit taking and credit provision are becoming more and more dispersed geographically, with less and less need for service providers and service users to meet face to face. The principal enabling technology is in advanced telecommunications, which allows for operation of widely dispersed automatic teller machines, videoconferencing, and internet operations. The second huge technological change that is underway concerns internal management information systems. Financial institutions are now able to put relevant data from affiliates and activities around the world into real-time globally accessible form. The third technological change is financial engineering, which involves creation of new financial products, often derived from existing credit or deposit-type instruments. This article explores the implications of these dramatic changes in the competitive landscape of financial service provision and suggests strategies for survival into the 21st century.     

E-coli,Repo Madness,and the Financial Crisis

All bond prices plummeted (spreads rose) during the financial crisis, not just the prices of subprime-related bonds. These price declines were because of a banking panic in which institutional investors and firms refused to renew sale and repurchase agreements (repos)—short-term, collateralized, agreements that the U.S. Federal Reserve rightly used to count as money. Collateral for repos was, to a large extent, securitized bonds. Firms were forced to sell assets as a result of the banking panic, reducing all bond prices and creating losses. There is nothing mysterious or irrational about the panic. There were genuine fears about the locations of subprime risk concentrations among counterparties. This banking system (the “shadow” or “parallel” banking system)—repos based on securitization—is a genuine banking system, as large as the traditional, regulated banking system. It is of critical importance to the economy because it is the funding basis for the traditional banking system. Without it, traditional banks will not lend and credit will not be created.     

Asia-Pacific Economies: Challenges Along the Road from Self Reliance to Global Engagement

This review article makes a contribution to understanding the current U.S. subprime mortgage and credit crisis that has adversely affected the global financial system in terms of its historical parallels with a recent Asia-Pacific financial crisis. It also looks at the distinctive ways in which bad actors and flawed processes at the macro-, meso-, and microlevels have unilaterally shifted risks onto innocent stakeholders and are now facing a time of global reckoning and reform. An alternative business model, the global business integrity capacity model (GBICM), is proposed that inclusively balances types of capitalist, moral accountability, and human nature theories and provides a framework for selected reforms at the macro-, meso-, and microlevels, which are designed to prevent a recurrence of the current financial meltdown, to re-create systemic financial institution integrity, and to promote sustainable prosperity for current and future generations.     

Accounting for sovereign tail risk in emerging economies: The role of global and domestic risk factors

This paper evaluates the role of global and domestic risk factors in explaining sovereign tail risk for 18 emerging economies. Sovereign tail risk is defined as the likelihood of a sharp rise in sovereign credit risk. We find that both global and domestic risk factors contribute significantly to sovereign tail risk, with explanatory power increasing with the severity of tail risk in a non-linear fashion. Indeed, their contributions have become stronger following the global financial crisis. In particular, global liquidity conditions, commodity prices and economic growth are ranked as the major risk factors for sovereign tail risk among the EMEs.     

How do business and financial cycles interact?

This paper analyzes the interactions between business and financial cycles using an extensive database covering 44 countries for the period 1960:1–2010:4. Our analysis shows that there are strong linkages between the different phases of business and financial cycles. In particular, recessions associated with financial disruptions, notably house and equity price busts, tend to be longer and deeper than other recessions. Conversely, while recoveries following asset price busts tend to be weaker, recoveries associated with rapid growth in credit and house prices are often stronger. These findings emphasize the importance of financial market developments for the real economy.