German bond markets and US monetary policy

Low interest rates have been a major problem for the European life insurance industry. The implementation of Solvency II certainly has forced European life insurers to improve their risk management procedures and to buy long term bonds in order to handle the interest rate risk inherent to their liabilities. As a consequence, the industry meanwhile more or less seems to be able to cope with the problem of low interest rates. However, now the US central bank has started to hike rates. The Bank of Canada meanwhile has followed its southern neighbor. The changed monetary policy environment in North America might create new challenges for asset managers in the European life insurance industry. This paper provides some additional thoughts and empirical evidence about the linkages between US monetary policy and the European bond market employing techniques of time series analysis.     

Monetary policy and bank lending:: Evidence from German banking groups

This paper analyses the impact of monetary shocks on bank lending in Germany. We follow a cross-sectoral approach by looking at six different banking groups. In general, smaller banks hold a larger buffer of liquid assets which they can use to offset monetary shocks. In addition, the response of bank lending after a monetary contraction is very different across banking sectors. Lending by the credit co-operatives, which are on average the smallest banks, declines most, whereas big banks are able to shield their loans portfolio against monetary shocks. Overall, our results provide support for the existence of a bank lending channel.     

Government finance in the wake of currency crises

We address three questions: (i) Can classical models be reconciled with the fact that many crises are marked by high rates of depreciation and small increases in seignorage revenue? (ii) What are the implications of different financing methods for post-crisis rates of inflation and depreciation? (iii) How do governments pay for the fiscal costs associated with currency crises? To study these questions we use a general equilibrium model in which prospective government deficits trigger a currency crisis. We then use our model in conjunction with fiscal data to interpret government financing in the wake of three recent currency crises: Korea (1997), Mexico (1994) and Turkey (2001).     

Covid-19, corporate survival and public policy: The role of accounting information and regulation in the wake of a systemic crisis

The economic crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic prompted governments to issue several relief mechanisms to hold up companies and workers. This study analyzes how accounting information and regulation can support policymakers in the wake of a systemic crisis. Based on an accounting-based framework and readily available data from financial statements, it forecasts the impact of the crisis in terms of losses, equity depletion, and corporate defaults, absent government intervention. Next, it quantifies the costs and effects of five relief mechanisms in alleviating the risk of generalized corporate bankruptcies. The effects of the health pandemic and relief mechanisms on profitability and equity shortfalls are estimated for a sample of 586,076 privately held Italian firms. The findings indicate that the number of companies facing bankruptcy risk would increase from 65,463 (11% of the population) in 2019 to 153,681 (26%) in 2020, absent any government intervention. Altogether, these firms employ 1.4 million employees and have a total exposure to the financial industry equal to €68 billion in loans. Next, we assess the effects of relief mechanisms introduced by the Italian government to support corporations, whose aggregate costs reach €49.33 billion in 2020, and find that the interventions ‘rescue’ about 43,000 firms otherwise in default. Finally, the study adds to the debate on the role of accounting regulation in the wake of a systemic crisis by (a) discussing the effects of temporary changes to accounting rules on the informativeness and transparency of financial statements, and (b) suggesting alternative ways to modify accounting rules to safeguard corporate survival without compromising the informativeness of financial statements once the crisis reaches a halt.     

Dividend policy of German firms: A panel data analysis of partial adjustment models

German firms pay out a lower proportion of their cash flows, but a higher proportion of their published profits than UK and US firms. We estimate partial adjustment models and report two major findings. First, German firms base their dividend decisions on cash flows rather than published earnings as (i) published earnings do not correctly reflect performance because German firms retain parts of their earnings to build up legal reserves, (ii) German accounting is conservative, (iii) published earnings are subject to more smoothing than cash flows. Second, to the opposite of UK and US firms, German firms have more flexible dividend policies as they are willing to cut the dividend when profitability is only temporarily down.     

实现"规模、质量和效益"的统一——访中国农业银行信用卡中心总经理陈方华

记者:您如何看待此次美国出台的信用卡法案?是否会对中国信用卡市场产生一定的影响?     

Banking industry performance in the wake of the global financial crisis

This paper analyzes the performance of the banking industry both prior to and during the global financial crisis (GFC). Through the application of a panel regime-switching model designed to capture heterogeneity, our findings suggest that global banking performance can be grouped into two distinctive clusters, each with its own specific regime dynamics. Before the crisis, a cluster of banking institutions pertaining to advanced economies stood out for its buoyant stock market performance, whereas a second cluster, mainly composed of banking indexes that belong to emerging economies, exhibited a more subdued performance. Further, this differentiation was accompanied by low regime synchronization between the clusters. During the crisis, banking institutions behaved similarly, regime synchronization increased, and the differences in the regime dynamics vanished. Finally, the GFC constituted a highly synchronized and systemic extreme financial event, as evidenced by our findings depicting the onset of severe underlying international financial contagion processes.     

次贷危机后的保险业风险管理问题

2007年美国发生的次级贷危机再次将风险与风险管理的问题摆在了全球金融业面前,而以风险为主营业务的保险业更需要系统思考风险管理对于本行业健康运营的内在意义。本文从风险管理行为动机、非系统性风险的分散、系统性风险的控制三个方面分析了保险业影响危机发生及受到危机冲击的原因,进一步明确了今后保险业风险管理的发展方向,并提出通过建立合理目标、完善信息沟通机制和治理结构等为风险管理提供有效内部支持。     

到德国证券市场筹资去

作为筹资者,您是否关注过德国证券市场? 作为全球三大证券中心之一,欧盟证券市场一体化对全球投资者和筹资者展示了广阔的市场空间,只要进入一个成员国的证券市场,就可以通过分享一体化的欧盟证券市场的种种便利来分散投资风险、降低筹资成本.     

Expectations in the German hyperinflation reconsidered

Data on forward foreign exchange rates during the German hyperinflation after World War I provide direct observations of expected changes in the spot rate. Although levels of these forward rates seem to be efficient predictors of the spot rate, the predicted changes in the spot rate are biased downward substantially and do not meet the specific conditions of rationality. Indeed, the bias in the forward rate predictions is similar to bias in adaptive expectations of the spot rate. The behavior of the forward rate can be rationalized as a gradual market adaptation to a new regime of volatile and escalating inflation, reasonably represented by adaptive expectations. The strict definition of rational expectations needs to be broadened to allow for the difficulty of distinguishing between permanent and transitory shocks.     

Seasonalities in the German stock market

Financial Markets and Portfolio Management - This paper suggests innovative investment strategies drawing on return seasonalities. By means of an out-of-sample study of the German stock market, we...     

金融海啸后我国保险监管的方向和边界

席卷全球的金融海啸再次凸显出金融监管的重要性,促使我们对当前的监管模式进行反思,对今后监管的方向和边界进行定位。这场国际金融危机暴露出的监管漏洞及美国所提出的监管改革方案都对我国保险监管有一定的启示。本文结合金融海啸,探讨了我国保险监管模式的选择,以及保险监管的方向和边界。