The Global Financial Crisis and Sub‐Saharan Africa: The Effects of Slowing Private Capital Inflows on Growth*

Abstract: This paper uses the bias‐corrected least‐squares dummy variable (LSDV) estimator to examine the relationship between economic growth and four different types of private capital inflows (cross‐border bank lending, foreign direct investment (FDI), bonds flows and portfolio equity flows) on a sample of 15 selected sub‐Saharan African countries over the period 1980–2008. Our results show that FDI and cross‐border bank lending exert a significant and positive impact on sub‐Saharan Africa's growth, whereas portfolio equity flows and bonds flows have no growth impact. Our estimates suggest that a drop by 10 per cent in FDI inflows may lead to a 3 per cent decrease of income per capita growth in sub‐Saharan Africa, and a 10 per cent decrease in cross‐border bank lending may reduce growth by up to 1.5 per cent. Therefore, the global financial crisis is likely to have an important effect on sub‐Saharan Africa's growth through the private capital inflows channel.     

Information contents of collateral under heterogeneous borrower qualities on the bank loans market in China

We analyze the risk of default and provision of collateral for bank loans made to firms of varied credit qualities using a unique dataset obtained from a major state-owned commercial bank in China. Both high and low quality borrowers provide collateral more often than medium quality debtors do. Using models that explicitly incorporate heterogeneous borrower qualities, we find a positive relation between collateralization and risk of default for loans issued to debtors with low credit ratings. In contrast, collateral provided by debtors with high credit ratings is negatively associated with the risk of default. These results suggest that low quality borrowers may be required to provide collateral at the bank's request to mitigate moral hazard problem. On the other hand, high quality borrowers may provide collateral willingly to signal quality in order to mitigate adverse selection problem when competing for getting access to bank loans. Our findings shed new lights on different information contents of collateral on the bank loans market of China, and have important implications for banks in screening, contracting and monitoring the risk of commercial loans for clients with diverse credit qualities.     

Debt and development: The role of foreign capital in economic growth

Capital flows, whether between individuals or nations, are dominated by a two- fold paradox. Borrowers are initially primarily interested in obtaining sufficient funds for their needs, but once they have obtained a loan, their indebtedness becomes their principal concern. While a loan is being negotiated the lenders usually have the upper hand, but once it is made, they become dependent on the borrowers for repayment with interest. Their power to withhold future loans becomes their only real measure of control. Borrowing and lending has costs and benefits, and these balance out only in exceptional cases for both the borrowing and lending countries and the principal social groups within them. The debate about the impact of international capital flows accordingly has a long history. This paper begins with a historical perspective, and then reviews the principal characteristics of capital flows to developing countries since the 1950s. A discussion of the impact of capital flows on development, with a particular emphasis on trends in developing country indebtedness, follows. A brief examination of borrowing and debt management issues for borrowers, lenders and the international community concludes the paper.     

Observations on the conditionality of international financial institutions

Conditionality, the terms imposed by international financial institutions on borrowing countries, has been regarded by critics as being too inflexible and focussing too narrowly on demand forces and monetary policy instruments. The major intent of the paper, however, is to shift the discussion of conditionality to its functions in relation to private international lending. Conditionality provides information to lenders and certification of borrowers which, by decreasing uncertainty, may increase the quantities and reduce the costs of private lending. Yet restrictions on total and/or foreign credit may also reduce competition. These are examples of neglected issues of conditionality which deserve more attention.     

The Role of Property Rights in the Relationship between Capital Flows and Economic Growth in SSA: Do Natural Resources Endowment and Country Income Level Matter?

This paper studies the role played by the quality of property rights in the linkages of international capital flows into sub‐Saharan African (SSA) economies. Using panel data of 36 SSA countries over the period 1996–2015 and the ARDL procedure with the Pooled Mean Group regression method appropriate for non‐stationary panel data estimation, we account for the joint effects of property rights quality and openness to foreign capital flows on economic growth. We uncover the existence of a property rights quality threshold beyond which property rights either amplifies the spillovers effects or attenuates the negative effect of capital flows on economic growth. For instance, it takes a level of property rights of at least 60 to have a positive long‐term impact of capital flows on economic growth in natural resource‐poor African countries. The quality of property rights matters more to obtain spillover effects of capital flows on growth in natural resource‐poor countries than in their peer natural resource‐rich countries. Finally, with regard to the countries' income levels, capital flows have significant long‐term spillovers effects on economic growth in advanced African economies than in their low‐income peers.     

Credit ratings and information asymmetry on the Chinese syndicated loan market

We study whether local credit ratings alleviate information asymmetry inherent in the fast growing Chinese market by examining the syndicate structure of loans issued by Chinese borrowers in 2003–2011. Despite the common criticism regarding the quality of Chinese credit ratings, our results suggest that they serve an important role in reducing information asymmetry in the market between corporate insiders and outside borrowers.     

Private capital flows,stock market and economic growth in developed and developing countries: A comparative analysis

Empirically we investigate how three types of private capital flows could promote economic growth in recipient developed and developing countries. Our focus is on the role of stock markets as a channel through which foreign capital flows could promote growth. The findings reveal that FDI exhibits a positive impact on growth, while both foreign debt and portfolio investment have a negative impact on growth in all sample countries. However, our results indicate that stock markets might be a significant channel or leading institutional factor through which capital flows affect economic growth. The findings provide clear implications that the negative impact of private capital flows can be transformed into a positive one if the stock market development has attained a certain threshold level, regardless of whether it is in developed or developing countries.     

Informal Credit,Usury, or Support? A Case Study for Vietnam

The informal credit market remains an important source of finance for the poor in Vietnam. Yet, little if anything is known about the impact of informal loans on poverty and inequality, and the Vietnamese government has no policies towards the informal credit market. In the present study paper, we found that the effect of credit from friends and relatives on per capita expenditure is positive but not statistically significant. Meanwhile, the effect of credit from private moneylenders on per capita expenditure is positive and statistically significant. Borrowing from private moneylenders increases per capita expenditure of households by around 15%. Further, it reduced the poverty incidence of borrowers by around 8.5 percentage points in 2006 and significantly decreases the poverty gap index and the poverty‐severity index. Borrowing from private moneylenders also reduces expenditure inequality, albeit at a very small magnitude.     

Global Imbalances or why are the Poor Financing the Rich?

Summary Traditional economic models predict that capital should flow from capital-rich to capital-poor economies. In recent years, capital has been flowing in the opposite direction, although foreign direct investment flows do behave more in line with theory. Do these perverse patterns of flows dampen growth in non-industrial countries by depriving them of financing for investment? On the contrary, the evidence suggests non-industrial countries that have relied more on foreign finance have not grown faster in the long run. At the same time, growth and the extent of foreign financing are positively correlated in industrial countries. I argue that the reason for this difference may lie in the limited ability of non-industrial countries to absorb foreign capital. This paper draws heavily from work with Eswar Prasad and Arvind Subramanian, who should share the credit for the contents. I alone am responsible for remaining errors.     

Rating the UK: the British government's sovereign credit ratings, 1976–8

The UK received its first sovereign credit ratings in 1978. Despite having required financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund only 18 months earlier, the British government managed to secure ‘triple‐A’ ratings from both Standard and Poor's and Moody's. Both assessments of creditworthiness reflected improving economic conditions but also British efforts to influence the sovereign ratings process. The Bank of England and the Treasury sought guidance from American investment banks to prepare for the ratings process and then controlled the flow of information available to the rating agencies accordingly, stressing the strengths of the national economy and downplaying the weaknesses. The British government subsequently launched its first bond issue in the New York market to high levels of investor demand. Consideration of these achievements complements the historiography concerning Britain's economic fortunes in the late 1970s. Scrutiny of events also offers a rare glimpse into the confidential sovereign ratings process. Both agencies relied on a combination of quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the UK. In addition, this article highlights the existence of a unique period in the history of sovereign credit ratings. From 1974 to 1985, the ratings industry enjoyed a cautious revival focused principally on ‘triple‐A’ borrowers.     

Financial reforms and capital accumulation in developing economies: New data and evidence

This study uses newly constructed data on structural reforms and private and public capital stock to assess the effects of financial reforms on capital formation in developing economies. We find that while both domestic and external financial reforms are important determinants of capital formation, the former is more influential in middle-income countries (MICs) and the latter in low-income countries (LICs). For LICs, external financial reforms work mostly through attracting FDI. For MICs, within domestic financial reforms, what matters most are measures related to strengthening banking supervision and reducing credit controls. These results are driven by capital formation in the private sector. In addition, these effects are nonlinear, and it is important for a country's policy when it comes to the sequence of implementing domestic and external financial reforms. Given the importance of public investment in decarbonization, this study further discusses the potential impacts of financial reforms on climate change and carbon inequality.     

International Capital Flows in the Model with Limited Commitment and Incomplete Markets

Recent literature has proposed two alternative types of financial frictions, i.e., limited commitment and incomplete markets, to explain the empirical patterns of international capital flows between developed and developing countries in the past two decades. This paper integrates these two frictions into a two-country overlapping-generations framework to facilitate a direct comparison of their respective effects. In our model, limited commitment distorts the investment made by agents with different productivity, which creates a wedge between the interest rates on equity capital vs. credit capital; while incomplete markets distort the investment among projects with different riskiness, which creates a wedge between the risk-free rate and the mean rate of return to risky capital. We show that the two approaches are observationally equivalent with respect to their implications for international capital flows, production efficiency, and aggregate output.     

Credit risk and financial instability

Recent advances in modelling credit risk bring much greaterdiscipline to the pricing of credit risk and should promotediversification by penalizing concentrations of credit riskwith greater allocations of economic capital. Although thesemodels perform well with regard to high-frequency hazards, theyare ill equipped to deal with the low-frequency, high-severityevents that are likely to be the most serious threat to financialstability. Cognitive biases in estimating the probability ofsuch losses may lead to disaster myopia. In periods of benignfinancial conditions, disaster myopia is likely to lead to decisionsregarding allocations of economic capital, the pricing of creditrisk, and the range of borrowers who are deemed creditworthy,that make the financial system increasingly vulnerable to crisis.Alternative policy measures to counter disaster myopia are considered.     

DO FOREIGN CURRENCY DEPOSITS PROMOTE OR DETER FINANCIAL INTERMEDIARY DEVELOPMENT IN LOW‐INCOME COUNTRIES? AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF CROSS‐COUNTRY DATA

Foreign currency deposits (FCD) are prevalent in many low‐income developing countries, but their impact on bank lending has rarely been examined. An examination of cross‐country data indicates that a higher proportion of FCD in total deposits is associated with more private credit only in inflationary circumstances. FCD can lead to a decline in private credit below a certain threshold level of inflation. Given that FCD exhibit persistence, deregulating them in low‐income countries could cause more harm than good to financial intermediary development in the long term.     

Leaning against the wind: Macroprudential policy in Asia

In recent years, many countries have adopted macroprudential measures to safeguard financial stability, in particular to deal with the credit and asset price cycles driven by global capital flows. Using a newly constructed database on macroprudential instruments and capital flow measures in 13 Asian economies and 33 economies in other regions for the period 2000–2013, the paper formulates various macroprudential policy indices, aggregating sub-indices on key instruments. Asian economies appear to have made greater use of macroprudential tools, especially housing-related measures, than their counterparts in other regions. The effects of macroprudential policy are assessed through an event study, cross-country macro panel regressions, and bank-level micro panel regressions. The analysis suggests that housing-related macroprudential instruments-particularly loan-to-value ratio caps and housing tax measures—have helped curb housing price growth, credit growth, and bank leverage in Asia.     

结构性违约、信用分层与评级机构的策略性反应——来自中国信用债市场的证据

2014年以来,以主要集中于民企的"结构性违约"宣告了中国信用债市场刚性兑付的"结构性打破",债券市场进入了新的发展阶段。利用2013-2017年债券数据,本文深入分析了结构性违约对评级机构行为和效率的影响,主要有如下发现：首先,信用评级的市场公信力会因政府隐性担保导致的"刚性兑付"而削弱;其次,结构性违约爆发之后,信用评级的整体效率有所提升,但在不同发行主体呈现分化,对于非城投类企业,信用评级对发行利差的影响显著增大,意味着评级公信力的显著提升,而对于城投类企业,评级效率并未明显改善;进一步研究表明,出现这种情况的原因在于评级机构在违约后采取了差异化的评级策略,对于违约风险较大的非城投类债券,评级机构倾向采取"收紧评级"的策略;对于违约风险较低的城投债,评级机构倾向于采取"放宽评级"的策略。这种策略性行为是导致市场"信用分层"的重要原因,并有可能推升民营企业的融资成本。     

Debt Relief and Credit to the Private Sector in African Countries

Abstract: The purpose of the paper is to empirically investigate the link between debt relief and credit to the private sector in African countries using a panel method over the period 1988–2004. The motivation for investigating the relationship between debt relief and credit to the private sector follows Christensen's (2004) hypothesis that domestic debt has a negative impact on the credit to private sector; therefore debt relief is expected to alleviate domestic debt and thereby create space for domestic credit, which if it is mostly constituted of public sector credit, crowds out credit to the private sector. The main results of the paper are as follows: (1) debt relief has a significant and positive effect on credit to the private sector in the short term; (2) in the long term, debt relief has positive effects on domestic credit to the private sector only when associated with good initial institutional quality.     

Monetary Policy and Borrowers’ Loan Defaults: Research Based on Data from Renrendai

This paper uses Renrendai data to study the relationship between monetary policy and the default behavior of borrowers, and analyzes the transmission channels. The research shows that tight monetary policy will lead to a significant increase in a borrower's probability to default, and this effect will continue for several months. There may be two transmission channels: (i) monetary policy changes a debtor's liquidity through credit and balance sheet channels, which directly affects their current repayment behavior; and (ii) monetary policy may affect a borrower's investment, production and profitability, thus changing their long‐term solvency. The paper also finds that the repayment behavior of productive borrowers is more susceptible to monetary policy than consumptive borrowers, and that the default behavior of borrowers in coastal provinces is more susceptible to monetary policy than of borrowers in inland provinces. These findings provide new evidence for understanding how monetary policy affects individual behavior and its transmission mechanisms.     

国际人口迁移、信贷约束与人力资本积累

本文以收入不平等与经济增长的关系为基础,在信贷市场不完全的条件下,进一步考察了熟练劳动力跨国迁移对发展中国家人力资本积累及经济增长的影响。分析显示,基于跨国移民的"教育激励"效应对发展中国家的人力资本积累及经济增长的影响在短期和长期存在差异。短期中,基于跨国移民的"教育激励"效应会减缓"人才流失"效应对发展中国家人力资本积累及经济增长的负面影响,甚至可能会提高发展中国家熟练劳动力的比重,从而促进人均收入水平的提高。长期中,当代际转移收敛于稳态水平时,国际人口迁移不再具有"教育激励"效应,而国际人口迁移的"人才流失"效应则会继续损害人力资本积累,从而对发展中国家的人均收入产生负面影响。     

International capital flows,debt overhang and volatility

This paper shows how international capital flows originate boom‐bust and sunspot episodes in a neoclassical growth model of a small, open economy. A limit is imposed on how much the economy can borrow from foreign creditors and it is made endogenous by assuming that the debt‐to‐GDP ratio is procyclical. The steady state is locally indeterminate when the credit multiplier is larger than some threshold level, whereas saddle‐point stability prevails when the credit multiplier is low enough. As a consequence, high levels of the credit multiplier lead to both booms followed by busts and sunspot‐driven volatility near the steady state, while, in contrast, low levels ensure monotonic convergence. Compared with saddle‐path equilibria, boom‐bust and sunspot equilibria are associated with both lower welfare and debt overhang, that is, a crowding‐out effect of credit: when the economy is highly leveraged, it uses savings to cut down foreign debt, at the expense of both human and physical investment. Numerical examples show that indeterminacy arises for debt‐to‐GDP ratios that fall within the range of available estimates. Finally, the effects of shocks to the world interest rate on output and consumption are amplified and persistent in the debt overhang regime.