Debt and austerity: Post-crisis lessons from Ireland

The Irish economy's heavy pre-crisis dependence on a credit-fuelled property price and construction bubble meant that it suffered more financial instability than most countries in the downturn 2008–2012 with the failure of the bulk of the banking system, heavy official and private debt and a severe employment decline. Faced with a sudden stop of international market funding, the Irish government had recourse to an EU-IMF financial support programme at the end of 2010. Reviewing the broad parameters of the programme this paper argues that, while a sharp fiscal adjustment was necessary, adverse distributional consequences were partly mitigated by government. But the programme should have embodied better international risk-sharing through financial engineering. Ireland's experience in financial crisis management and crisis resolution points to the importance of building and maintaining trust.     

Managing absenteeism in local government

Managing sickness absence effectively can produce significant cost savings as well as other, less tangible, benefits. This article shows why it is vital that local authorities provide tailor-made training on absence management for first line managers (FLMs) to develop ‘soft skills’, as well as acknowledging their specific organizational context. Development in this area should be an ongoing process which is reinforced with appropriate support from human resources (HR) professionals, and should be monitored as part of an overall absence management strategy.     

Crisis-related shifts in the market valuation of banking activities

We examine changes in banks’ market-to-book ratios over the last decade, focusing on the dramatic and persistent declines witnessed during the financial crisis. The extent of the decline and its persistence cannot be explained by the delayed recognition of losses on existing financial instruments. Rather, it is declines in the values of intangibles – including customer relationships and other intangibles related to business opportunities – along with unrecognized contingent obligations that account for most of the persistent decline in market-to-book ratios. These shifts reflect a combination of changed economic circumstances (e.g., low interest rates reduce the value of core deposits; meager growth opportunities reduce the value of customer relationships) and changed regulatory policies. Together, these changes in the business environment since the financial crisis have led investors to associate little value with intangibles. For example, changing market perceptions of the consequences of leverage have affected the way investors value banks; prior to the crisis, higher leverage, ceteris paribus, was associated with greater value (reflecting the high relative cost of equity finance), but during and after the crisis, as default risk and regulatory concerns came to the fore, lower leverage was associated with greater value. Reflecting the rising importance of regulatory risks (e.g., the uncertain consequences of the Volcker Rule), after controlling for other influences, dividend payments (a signal of management and regulatory perceptions of the persistence of financial strength) matter for market prices much more after the crisis, while increases in recurring fee income matter less.     

Managing price and financial stability objectives in inflation targeting economies in Asia and the Pacific

Many central banks have adopted explicit objectives for financial stability, raising the possibility of trade-offs between price and financial stability objectives. Based on structural vector autoregressions that incorporate both monetary and macroprudential policy shocks for four inflation targeting economies in Asia and the Pacific, we analyse the role of each policy shock in explaining deviations from the other policy’s objective, by applying historical decompositions. The macroprudential measures used in the study affect credit extended to the private sector. We find that there are periods when macroprudential policy shocks have contributed to pushing inflation away from the central bank’s inflation target and when monetary policy shocks have contributed to buoyant credit, suggesting that there have been short-term trade-offs between price and financial stability objectives. However, we also find periods when macroprudential policy shocks helped stabilise inflation and monetary policy shocks contributed to financial stability.     

On the rationality of Korea's stock market: was the recent Korean financial crisis due to fundamental factors?

This paper examines whether the recent financial crisis in Korea was due to fundamental factors. To address this issue, we identify various components of Korea's stock market prices (KOSPI) and examine their responses to different types of shocks. Given the stationary behavior of KOSPI dividends, we relate stock price directly to earnings by deriving and using a log-linear model of the spread between price and earnings with a time-varying discount factor. Therefore, stock-price movements are explained by earnings (numerator component), time-varying discount factors (denominator component), and non-fundamental factors. Although we find evidence of substantial non-fundamental components in Korea's stock market prices, the sudden decline in Korea's stock market prices during the 1997 financial crisis was primarily due to fundamental components, in particular, the numerator component (e.g. earnings) combined with the denominator component (i.e. time-varying discount factor) rather than non-fundamental factors.     

The 2008 financial crisis: Stock market contagion and its determinants

In this paper, we investigate worldwide contagion and its determinants during the 2008 financial crisis. Utilizing an international sample of returns from 2003 to 2009, we consider both uni- and bi-directional contagion. After controlling for crisis-related volatility, we find strong evidence that cross-market linkages increase among many financial markets. In contrast to previous crises, contagion following the 2008 global financial crisis is not confined to emerging markets. The United States and other mature financial markets in the sample transmit and receive contagion. Country markets are less influenced by regions than they are by other country markets. We also construct variables that represent relative changes in economic variables before and during the crisis. We find that both economic fundamentals such as trade structure, interest rates, inflation rates, industrial production, and regional effects, and investors’ risk aversion contribute to international contagion.     

刺激消费的财税政策选择

在金融危机背景下,中国政府所采取的财税政策虽取得了积极效果,但连续提高出口退税率已初显政策的无弹性,国家财力无法持续支撑大规模财政投资。本文分析认为,财税政策的着力点应放在扩大国内消费需求上,而扩大消费需求必须首先解决国民收入分配失衡的问题。     

A perfect storm in the financial market

This study provides a model explaining how small changes in asset prices may disrupt an entire financial market. Based on the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), our model implies that during a market crash, asset price changes affect the relative distribution of the CAPM betas of individual assets and force all tradable assets to co-move. Using US stock market data, our empirical results are consistent with the model’s predictions. Overall, the study aids understanding of the price patterns of assets during substantial market downturns, such as financial crises.     

浅析扩内需与当前税收政策的再调整

本文对增值税转型和出口退税政策调整进行了具体分析,认为当前可以通过提高个人所得税费用扣除标准和对中小企业减税,来进一步扩大内需。     

International stock market leadership and its determinants

We study time-varying price leadership between international stock markets using a Markov switching causality model. We demonstrate variations in the causality pattern over time, with the US being the dominant country in causing other markets. We examine the factors which determine a country’s role in the causal relationship. For country-specific factors, we show that trades openness increases price leadership. We also find that the lead–lag relationship between the stock markets is weaker during crisis periods, confirming the “wake-up call” hypothesis, with markets and investors focusing substantially more on idiosyncratic, country-specific characteristics during the crisis.     

Bank size, market concentration, and bank earnings volatility in the US

We examine whether bank earnings volatility depends on bank size and the degree of concentration in the banking sector. Using quarterly data for non-investment banks in the United States for the period 2004Q1-2009Q4 and controlling for the quality of management, leverage, and diversification, we find that bank size reduces return volatility. The negative impact of bank size on bank earnings volatility decreases (in absolute terms) with market concentration. We also find that larger banks located in concentrated markets have experienced higher volatility during the recent financial crisis.     

关于进一步完善结构性减税政策的研究

由美国次贷危机引发的国际金融危机,不仅冲击了许多发达国家,而且波及广大发展中国家,我国同样遭受影响。为应对这场金融危机,我国实施了积极的财政政策和适度宽松的货币政策,取得了良好的效果。本文着重分析我国应对金融危机的结构性减税政策,说明了实施结构性减税政策的原因,介绍了结构性减税政策的内容,总结了结构性减税政策实施的成效与存在的问题,提出了进一步完善结构性减税政策的建议。     

Fiscal policy with banks and financial frictions

We assess the role of banks to the transmission of optimal and exogenous changes in fiscal policy to the economy. We built-up a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with patient and impatient agents, banks and a government to find that banks and their associated capital-adequacy constraint mitigate the negative spill-over effects to the economy from higher taxes. Specifically, we confirm that labour income tax is the most distortionary fiscal instrument. The optimal choice of a housing tax is the most favorable funding source to a temporary increase in public spending. The combination of housing and labour taxes is the most preferred tax bundle to be optimally chosen under negative output shocks. Moreover, a permanent increase in housing tax is beneficial if it is welfare enhancing and the existence of banks benefits mainly impatient households under permanently higher consumption taxes. Finally, these results remain robust to various robustness checks.     

India's fiscal and monetary framework: growth in an opening economy

Since a crisis is a shock impinging on a system, the response can be used to deduce aspects of the system's structure. Analysis of the crisis and recovery suggests aggregate supply in India is elastic but subject to upward shocks. This has implications for cyclical policy and for fiscal consolidation. Both monetary and fiscal policy should identify measures that would reduce costs, while avoiding too large a demand contraction. Specific policies are identified and Indian policies evaluated.     

The impact of monetary policy announcements on the stock price of large European banks during the financial crisis

Since 2007, the European Central Bank responded decisively to the challenges posed by the global financial crisis, reducing key policy interest rates to unprecedented low levels and intervening with non-standard policy measures (i.e., monetary easing and liquidity provision). This paper aims to assess the impact of ECB monetary policy announcements on the stock price of large European banks. As a first step, an event study is conducted in order to measure cumulated abnormal returns (CARs) around the announcements over June 2007–June 2013; the second step is a regression analysis aimed at identifying the determinants of CARs. Results show that banks were more sensitive to non-conventional measures than to interest rate decisions, and that the same type of intervention may have a different impact depending on the stage of the crisis. In addition, banks with weaker balance sheets and operating with high-risk were more sensitive to monetary policy interventions.     

Illiquidity or credit deterioration: A study of liquidity in the US corporate bond market during financial crises

We investigate whether liquidity is an important price factor in the US corporate bond market. In particular, we focus on whether liquidity effects are more pronounced in periods of financial crises, especially for bonds with high credit risk, using a unique data set covering more than 20,000 bonds, between October 2004 and December 2008. We employ a wide range of liquidity measures and find that liquidity effects account for approximately 14% of the explained market-wide corporate yield spread changes. We conclude that the economic impact of the liquidity measures is significantly larger in periods of crisis, and for speculative grade bonds.     

论全球金融危机下的中国结构性减税

实施两年的结构性减税该向何处走?回答这个问题,需要深入分析结构性减税与税制改革、宏观调控的内在逻辑。事实上,结构性减税不仅仅是应对危机的短期宏观调控手段,更是税制改革的一项长期战略选择。在后危机时代进一步推进结构性减税,应该从适应国际经济环境,面向十二五规划目标,明确产业、地区、居民三个方面的导向以及突破关键瓶颈入手。     

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.     

Access policy and money market segmentation

Deviations between interest rates paid in the Swiss franc unsecured money market and the respective Libor rate are analysed for a period spanning the financial crisis. First, banks that have access to sources of secured central bank and interbank funding pay less than other banks. Second, foreign banks (not chartered in Switzerland) pay more than domestic banks. Third, both lines of segmentation are economically relevant but limited due to open access to sources of secured funding. Thus, access policy matters for monetary policy implementation and financial stability.     

Exchange market pressures during the financial crisis: A Bayesian model averaging evidence

In this paper, we examine whether pre-crisis leading indicators help explain pressures on the exchange rate (and its volatility) during the global financial crisis. We use a unique data set that covers 149 countries and 58 indicators, and estimation techniques that are robust to model uncertainty. Our results are threefold: First and foremost, we find that price stability plays a pivotal role as a determinant of exchange rate pressures. More specifically, the currencies of countries that experienced higher inflation prior to the crisis tend to be more affected in times of stress. Second, we investigate potential effects that vary with the level of pre-crisis inflation. In this vein, our results reveal that an increase in domestic savings reduces the severity of pressures in countries that experienced a low-inflation environment prior to the crisis. Finally, we find evidence of the mitigating effects of international reserves on the volatility of exchange rate pressures.