Measuring Potential Output for the South African Economy: Embedding Information About the Financial Cycle

Borio et al. show that information embedded in the financial cycle can serve to improve measures of potential output and output gaps. They show that incorporating information on the financial cycle yields measures of potential output and output gaps for the United States, United Kingdom and Spain that are estimated more precisely and are more robust in real time. With its well‐developed financial markets and relatively open capital markets, the South African economy is potentially susceptible to the build‐up of the sort of financial imbalances that characterised the recent financial crisis. Using the framework developed in Borio et al., a finance‐neutral measure of the output gap is estimated for South Africa. The traditional Hodrick–Prescott filter is extended to incorporate information on credit and property prices. Including financial cycle proxies result in output gaps that are estimated more precisely and are more robust to data revisions and the arrival of new data points (i.e. estimated output gaps are more robust in real time), while also reflecting the impact of financial variables on economic activity. As such, the estimated finance‐neutral output gap seems to represent a more appropriate measure on which to base monetary policy decisions.     

Spillovers of the Conventional and Unconventional Monetary Policy from the US to South Africa

This paper assesses the effect of US monetary policy on South Africa during the period 1990–2018. We separately analyse and compare the effect of conventional monetary policy, before the Global Financial Crisis, and unconventional monetary policy, after the US monetary policy reached the zero-lower bound. Our impulse response function results indicate that monetary policy in South Africa responds mainly to local inflation, economic activity and financial conditions. While there is strong correlation between the global and South African financial cycle, the financial cycle is not transmitted to the real economy because of the sluggish response of industrial production and domestic credit, especially after the global financial crisis. We see this as an indication of the effects of structural issues to the real economy and constrained households’ balance sheet which has prevented the local economy to take advantage of low local interest rates and the global economic recovery after the crisis.     

The South African Financial Cycle and its Relation to Household Deleveraging

This paper considers the extent to which South African households have deleveraged, since the global financial crisis of 2007/2008. We extend the official South African Reserve Bank business cycle methodology to date financial cycles, from which we identify the peaks and troughs of the South African financial cycle going back to 1966. Our composite financial cycle index peaks in April 1974, January 1984 and May 2007; it has bottomed out in July 1979 and February 1999. Thus, we still await the trough. We further compare and contrast the deleveraging process in the current downward phase to the experiences from previous financial cycles. We find that the average period of the financial cycle in South Africa is much longer (approximately 17.3 years) than that of the business cycle (approximately 5.8 years), and that deleveraging has not yet matched the degree of deleveraging seen in previous downward phases. Our results suggest that further deleveraging is necessary, before we can expect to turn the financial corner.     

THE PROPERTIES OF CYCLES IN SOUTH AFRICAN FINANCIAL VARIABLES AND THEIR RELATION TO THE BUSINESS CYCLE

The paper describes cyclicality in a range of local and international financial variables and their relation to cyclical behaviour in the South African real economy. Cycles are derived using a dating algorithm similar to that used to determine business cycle turning points and falls within the Burns‐Mitchell tradition of business cycle analysis. Co‐movement between phases in financial variables and similar phases in the business cycle are described using the concordance statistic, instead of the correlation statistic (which requires stationarity). This is a preliminary step in identifying financial variables that can act as leading indicators of economic activity.     

CAN LEADING BUSINESS CYCLE INDICATORS PREDICT THE DIRECTION OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMERCIAL SHARE PRICE INDEX?

Leading indicators are a popular way to predict turning points in the business cycle. However, since the lead time of these indicators differ, those with a longer lead could potentially also be used to predict turning points in other leading indicators. This paper empirically explores the viability of using leading indicators to predict the turning points of an index of commercial shares on the JSE Securities Exchange. Although share prices are leading the business cycle, other leading indicators that lead the business cycle by a longer period should lead share prices and, therefore, could potentially be useful in predicting the direction of share price movements. The objective of this study is to evaluate and compare the performance of different leading indicators in leading the commercial share price index and in predicting turning points in the commercial share price index. In addition, a multivariate logit model is developed and estimated using these leading indicators in an attempt to improve the accuracy of forecasting the direction of the commercial share index.     

Equity,Bonds, Institutional Debt and Economic Growth: Evidence from South Africa

We examine the finance‐growth nexus in South Africa accounting for the role of bond markets, stock markets, and bank and non‐bank financial intermediaries using a vector autoregressive technique. Extant empirical literature has largely accounted for only banks and stock markets, ignoring bond market and non‐bank financial intermediaries. We find that bond market development affects economic growth in South Africa, and no similar effect is observed for the bank and non‐bank financial intermediaries and the stock market. Our finding shows that examination of individual elements of the financial system is important in understanding the unique effect of each on growth. The observation that the bond market rather than stock market, bank and non‐bank institutions promote economic growth in South Africa induces an intriguing question as to what unique roles bond markets play that the intermediaries and equity market are unable to play.     

ZONE‐TARGETING MONETARY POLICY PREFERENCES AND FINANCIAL MARKET CONDITIONS: A FLEXIBLE NON‐LINEAR POLICY REACTION FUNCTION OF THE SARB MONETARY POLICY

We estimate a flexible model of the monetary policy reaction function of the South African Reserve Bank based on a representation of the policymaker's preferences that capture asymmetries and zone‐targeting behaviours. We augment the analysis to allow for responses to financial market conditions over and above inflation and output stabilisation to address the current debate on the importance of financial asset prices in monetary policy decision making. The empirical results show that the monetary authorities' response to inflation is zone symmetric. Secondly, the monetary authorities' response to output is asymmetric with increased reaction during business cycle downturns relative to upturns. Thirdly, the monetary authorities pay close attention to the financial conditions index by placing an equal weight on financial market booms and recessions.     

THE EFFECT OF STRESSED ECONOMIC CONDITIONS ON SYSTEMIC RISK WITHIN THE SOUTH AFRICAN BANKING SECTOR

The credit crisis resulted in increases in credit, market and operational risk, but it may also have precipitated a surge in systemic risk. Measuring systemic risk as the price of insurance against distressed losses in the South African banking sector, this article attempts to determine whether the financial crisis has in fact resulted in an increase in systemic risk. Using probabilities of default and asset return correlations as systemic risk indicators, it is found that the financial crisis has indeed increased systemic risk in South Africa. The impact was, however, less severe than that experienced in other large international banks.     

House prices, money, credit, and the macroeconomy

This paper assesses the links between money, credit, house prices,and economic activity in industrialized countries over the lastthree decades. The analysis is based on a fixed-effects panelvector autoregression, estimated using quarterly data for 17industrialized countries spanning the period 1970–2006.The main results of the analysis are the following. (i) Thereis evidence of a significant multidirectional link between houseprices, monetary variables, and the macroeconomy. (ii) The linkbetween house prices and monetary variables is found to be strongerover a more recent sub-sample from 1985 to 2006. (iii) The effectsof shocks to money and credit are found to be stronger whenhouse prices are booming.     

The Role of Credit in the 2007–09 Great Recession

This paper examines the financial crisis of 2007/9 and the downturn in the U.S. We argue that effective demand over the 2001?C2006 expansion was maintained by credit. The role of credit in a Vector Error Correction Model and Granger-causality between aggregate spending, credit, disposable income, and profits are examined. We show that credit itself is determined by factors outside the circular flow of income. The results raise new hypotheses about the crucial relationships in macroeconomics that sustain aggregate spending. We then compute the generalized impulse responses in the VECM to demonstrate the severity of the downturn and show that legislative changes that dismantled the restrictions placed on the financial sector and the consequent structural changes after 1980 enabled the growth of new debt instruments and credit. The overexpansion of credit when profits and house prices were declining in 2005/06 and informational asymmetries on the quality of credit and its sudden withdrawal in 2007 paralyzed the economy and led to the Great Recession.     

China＇s Current Real Estate Cycle and Potential Financial Risks

I. Introduction Since the late 1990s, the debate on China’s current real estate cycle has aroused great attention. The People’s Bank of China, China’s central bank, initiated a series of macroeconomic management policies to prevent the real estate market from overheating. Since the real estate bubble in the early 1990s, the Chinese Government is conscious to attach great importance to the possible financial risks and corresponding shocks to China’s economy of the real estate market ove…     

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE SYNCHRONISATION OF BUSINESS CYCLES FOR DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING ECONOMIES WITH THE WORLD BUSINESS CYCLE

Globalisation brought about worldwide changes, including economic and financial integration between countries. The objective of this paper is to establish if there is synchronisation between developed and developing countries with the world cycle. Research results show that business cycles have become less volatile after globalisation, but there is not much consensus on whether business cycles have become less or more synchronised since globalisation. Little research has been done on co‐movement between emerging markets, such as South Africa, and the world business cycle. This paper derives common factors for developed and developing countries by applying principal component analysis (PCA) to output, consumption and investment data, which represents the countries' business cycles. The empirical analysis shows co‐movement between some countries and the world business cycle (G7 countries as proxy). The results suggest that there are idiosyncratic and globally common shocks, which play different roles over time in different countries. The paper goes on to suggest that there are clear differences in how developed and emerging markets co‐move with the world business cycle. A key finding is that the co‐movement between developing economies and the world business cycle has increased since globalisation. This research also confirms previous research that most economies follow the world business cycle when large shocks – such as the recent economic downturn – occur. This has implications for forecasting the business cycle, especially in times of economic turmoil.     

Business Cycle in China since the Lehman Crisis： Interaction among Macroeconomic Policy,Economic Growth and Inflation

The major objectives of China＇s macroeconomic policy are to stabilize economic growth and inflation, which, in turn, are important factors determining key prices, such as the policy interest rate, the renminbi exchange rate and stockprices. In a framework that distinguishes different phases of the business cycle based on whether the current period＇s economic growth rate and inflation rate are above or below their ＂＇normal＂ values, this paper analyzes the interaction among macroeconomic policy, economic growth and inflation in China since the Lehman crisis, and the implications for these key prices. The path of China＇s economy indicates that stimulus measures taken by the government during the recession phase and tightening measures implemented during the overheating phase have helped minimize the fluctuation over the business cycle. Our analysis shows that Chinese authorities tend to rely more on adjusting the exchange rate than the interest rate to stabilize the economy. Comparing with conditions at the time of the post-Lehman recession, the current slowpace of economie growth in China may reflect not only weakening demand, but also a lowerpotential growth rate associated with the arrival of the Lewis turning point.     

The market turn: from social democracy to market liberalism

Social democracy and market liberalism provide different solutions to the same problem: how to provide for life‐cycle dependency. Social democracy makes lateral transfers from producers to dependents by means of progressive taxation. Market liberalism uses financial markets to transfer financial entitlement over time. Social democracy came up against the upper limits of public expenditure in the 1970s. The ‘market turn’ from social democracy to market liberalism was enabled by liberalized credit in the 1980s. Much of this was absorbed into homeownership, which attracted majorities of households (and voters) in the developed world. Early movers did well, but eventually easy credit drove house prices beyond the reach of younger cohorts. Debt service diminished effective demand, which instigated financial instability. Both social democracy and market liberalism are currently in crisis.     

动态随机一般均衡模型视角下的预期冲击与住房价格波动

本文通过建立加入金融摩擦的消息推动下的经济周期模型得出房产税试点的消息冲击,预期紧缩的个人抵押贷款政策和预期紧缩的企业信贷政策均对房价具有重要作用,并且消息冲击影响下的住房价格与传统周期模型下实际政策冲击的影响下的住房价格之间具有明显的区别。同时,本文还通过对上述三种冲击进行相互组合所产生的四组混合预期对住房价格的影响发现：当经济人对未来同时产生多种预期时,由多种预期所产生的对内生变量的影响具有相互增强的性质。最后,本文发现在导致房价上涨的预期冲击中,预期紧缩的企业信贷政策是最微弱的,其次是预期紧缩的个人抵押贷款政策,房产税试点消息预期则是导致房价上涨方面最不利的预期因素。     

The Impact of Firm Size and Liquidity on the Cost of External Finance in Africa

Established illiquidity measures are constructed for emerging markets in Africa and used to determine which best explains trading costs. Costs of equity are derived from an augmented Capital Asset Pricing Model for a sample of emerging financial markets generally ignored in the literature. These include: South Africa and Namibia, three countries in North Africa and four in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA), plus London and Paris as examples of integrated markets. Minimum variance portfolios are constructed and asset weights derived, with the sample divided into countries dependent on their legal regime. Portfolio weights are shown to be directly related to well‐regulated markets with high standards of corporate governance and disclosure, and firms seeking cost‐effective finance from SSA stock markets are at a distinct disadvantage compared with those in Northern Africa, South Africa and, in particular, London and Paris.     

ASSESSING MONETARY POLICY IN SOUTH AFRICA IN A DATA‐RICH ENVIRONMENT

This paper examines the efficacy of monetary policy in the South African economy using a data‐rich framework. We use the Factor‐Augmented Vector Autoregressive (FAVAR) methodology, which contains 110 monthly variables for the period 1985:02‐2007:11. The results, based on impulse‐response functions, provide no evidence of the price puzzle observed in traditional Structural Vector Autoregressive analysis and confirm that monetary policy in South Africa is effective in stabilising prices. Unlike the traditional vector autoregressive approach, the FAVAR methodology allows further analysis of a large number of variables. Variables from real and financial variables react negatively to a contractionary monetary policy shock. Finally, we find evidence of the importance of a confidence channel transmission following a monetary policy shock.     

人民币汇率、短期国际资本流动与房价——基于时变参数向量自回归模型的研究

2017年上半年以来,金融周期的概念受到广泛关注。我国房价与人民币汇率,作为资产价格,在金融周期中呈现较强的相关性。随着我国资本项目的逐步对外开放,国际资本流动加大了二者的相关程度,表现出金融顺周期性。通过TVP-VAR模型,文章分析房价、短期国际资本流动与人民币汇率的时变动态关系,试图用短期国际资本流动解释房价与汇率的相关性,并发现国际资本的顺周期性呈现不对称特点：国际资本流出时期在房价与汇率的相关性中起到桥梁变量的作用,较流入时期而言顺周期性更强。因此,文章认为关注金融周期中资本项目开放产生的不对称顺周期性对于防范金融危机具有重要意义。     

Measuring Core Inflation in South Africa

Measures of core inflation convey critical information about an economy. They have a direct effect on the policymaking process, particularly in inflation‐targeting countries, and are utilised in forecasting and modelling exercises. In South Africa, the price indices on which inflation is based have been subject to important structural breaks following changes to the underlying basket of goods and the methodology for constructing price indices. This paper seeks to identify a consistent measure of core inflation for South Africa using trimmed means estimates, measures that exclude changes in food and energy prices, dynamic factor models, and wavelet decompositions. After considering the forecasting ability of these measures, which provide an indication of expected second‐round inflationary effects, traditional in‐sample criteria were used for further comparative purposes. The results suggest that wavelet decompositions provide a useful measure of this critical variable.     

SYNCHRONISATION BETWEEN SOUTH AFRICA AND THE U.S.: A STRUCTURAL DYNAMIC FACTOR ANALYSIS

This paper studies the synchronisation of the South African and the US cycles and transmission channels through which supply and demand shocks from the US affect economic activity in South Africa in a structural dynamic factor model framework. We find, using the full-sample period, US supply shocks are transmitted to South Africa through business confidence and imports of goods and services; while US demand shocks are transmitted via interest rates, stock prices, exports of goods and services, and real effective exchange rates. Second, there is a decrease in integration over time translated by a drop in synchronisation of cycles. The impact of an increase in comovement of GDP is outweighed by the structural reforms initiated by the government after the end of apartheid. Finally, the idiosyncratic component still plays an important role in the South African economy.