Household indebtedness in Korea: Its causes and sustainability

This paper investigates why household debt in Korea has increased so rapidly over the past decade and whether it is sustainable, adopting a multi-faceted approach which includes a time series analysis, a quantitative analysis based on household panel data, and an analysis using a debt dynamics equation derived from the household budget constraint. A regression analysis reveals that household debt growth has been significantly related to house price increases, banks’ lax attitudes toward household lending, and financial institutions’ favorable funding conditions. Also 70–80% of the total debt increase has been accounted for by high income or newly indebted households. The debt dynamics equation analysis shows that the rapid rise in the ratio of household debt to disposable income is attributable not only to the increase in household asset purchases but also to the dampened growth in disposable income and the reduced savings rate. The sustainability analyses indicate that Korean households’ debt sustainability is unlikely to deteriorate sharply within a short period of time unless two extreme scenarios, under which house prices decline by 5% a year over the next five years, or a significantly large macroeconomic shock similar to the 1997 crisis hits the economy, would be realized.     

论日本的主权债务问题

由于连续两个"失去的10年"和长期的财政赤字政策,日本的主权债务规模不断累积,主权债务负担显著加重,无论用财政赤字/GDP比例还是用债务余额/GDP比例测度,日本的主权债务问题都极其严重。虽然币种结构、期限结构和债权人结构与已经出现主权债务危机的欧洲国家相比都相对合理,但如果不加以治理,在可以预期的未来,日本有可能爆发严重的主权债务危机。     

日本灾后财政和债务前景展望

日本是发达经济体中财政赤字和政府债务负担最严重的国家。接二连三的欧洲主权债务危机和美国主权债务问题使市场不得不对日本是否将是下一个债务危机发生国产生隐忧。在2008年全球金融危机爆发前,日本的债务结构和低利率环境还可以使其维系高额的财政赤字和债务负担。然而2008年之后,在全球经济疲软和日本经济萎靡不振的背景下,日本处在了主权债务风险一直上升的阶段。更令日本祸不单行的是"3.11"大地震、海啸和核泄露事件,这一连串灾难更令日本在财政赤字和举债问题上如履薄冰。如果日本政府还不尽快实施有效的债务管理政策和可信的财政整顿计划,短期日本经济会难于运转,中长期日本将爆发主权债务危机。     

地方政府性债务风险预警研究——基于东北地区某市的经验数据

2013年我国地方政府性债务进入偿还高峰期。受到经济下行压力和地方财政收入增速下滑的不利影响,地方政府性债务风险增大。如何科学地监测地方债务风险,准确地评定地方政府债务风险等级,在地方政府债务危机发生前及时发出预警已成为当前地方财政研究的重要课题。论文采用模糊综合判断法和层次分析法构建债务预警模型,对地方政府性债务风险进行整体量化。选取东北地区某市2009-2011年的样本数据,通过设计针对借债、用债和偿债三个环节的风险预警指标体系,对该市地方政府性债务风险预警系统的可操作性进行实证分析与效果验证。实证结果显示:该市政府性债务风险等级为危险,债务风险预警的综合风险系数处于轻度危险区。在此基础上,论文提出了相关的政策建议。     

中国金融风险预警指标体系研究

近年来,随着亚洲金融危机、美国次贷危机以及欧债危机的爆发,全球金融稳定与金融安全面临空前考验,建立一个积极有效的金融风险预警体系来掌握金融风险的整体动态,以防范、降低和消除金融风险成为了金融研究中迫在眉睫的任务。本文借鉴在国际上有广泛影响的KLR信号分析法,根据本国国情建立了一套金融风险预警指标体系,并进一步确定了每个指标的预警临界值,同时通过主客观综合赋权法赋予每个指标相应的权值,以帮助建立符合我国经济发展现状的金融风险预警机制,并针对我国金融风险现状提出了相应对策与建议。     

中国地方政府债务违约风险评估——基于债务可持续性分析框架

结合中国地方政府财政反应特征,文章在债务可持续性分析框架中,首次识别了基础盈余主动调整的有效性条件作为分析前提,进而完善了债务不可持续性的定义内涵和度量方法,最终建立了地方政府债务违约风险评估模型。凭借此模型,对中国地方政府债务违约风险进行了评估,主要结论如下：在经济增速不稳定背景下,施行顺周期财政政策的中国地方政府,容易落入基础盈余主动调整无效的境况,因而在对地方政府债务可持续性进行分析时,有必要考虑基础盈余主动调整的有效性;通过检验发现,新构造的债务不可持续概率和条件期望债务空间指标,均能较好反映地方政府债务违约风险,而单纯的债务率指标对地方政府债务违约风险无解释力;在2019年,天津、贵州和青海等地已处于财政疲劳引起的债务不可持续状态,内蒙古等六省的条件期望债务空间不足20%,其余省份的条件期望债务空间仍相对充裕;最后,通过考察债务可持续性的改善渠道又进一步发现,财政透明度的提高可有效降低地方政府债务违约风险。     

从欧债危机看“中国式主权债务危机”

近年来,我国地方政府投融资平台数目众多,地方政府债务迅速膨胀。通过比较分析欧洲主权债务与中国式主权债务,本文发现尽管两者有诸多相似之处,但却存在本质上的区别。虽然我国并不具备爆发欧洲式主权债务危机的相关条件,但仍存在爆发中国式主权债务危机的隐患。     

House Price Dynamics with Household Debt: The Korean Case*

This paper revisits the long‐run determinants of house prices, and analyzes the house price dynamics using Korean data taking into account the close relationship between house prices and household debt. The results of cointegrating regression indicate that the major portion of the rise in house prices in Korea over the last 15 years can be explained by changes in macro variables such as household income, the demographic structure, the user cost of home ownership and the housing stock supply. The results also confirm that house prices are, indeed, closely linked to the steep increase in household debt seen over this period. Estimation of an error correction model shows that the extent of convergence of actual house prices to their long‐run equilibrium path has weakened somewhat since the global financial crisis while the speed of convergence has slowed, indicating structural changes in the Korean housing market. Finally, a forecast for house prices over the next several years suggests that they are unlikely to rise as sharply as they did in the 2000s, given the likely changes in the macro‐financial environment, and that their future path will be closely associated with that of the household debt‐to‐income ratio.     

经济危机背景下地方政府债务的探究

长期以来,我国地方政府沉重的债务负担一直是困扰我国国民经济健康可持续发展的隐患之一。当前正值经济危机时期,扩大内需、刺激经济的政策需求使得我国地方政府的债务风险逐渐放大。如果治理不当,这将会对我国摆脱经济危机以及国民经济的后续发展产生无法想象的冲击。     

从欧洲主权债务危机析我国地方政府债务的安全

本文研究了欧洲主权债务危机的现状与成因,并从比较与借鉴的角度分析了中国地方政府债务的现状与成因,指出中国地方政府由于负债过高因而存在较大的隐性债务风险。研究结果表明,中国地方政府债务与欧洲主权债务有着本质的不同,中国地方政府债务隐性风险尚在可控制范围,中国不会爆发地方政府债务危机。     

欧洲主权债务危机的内生性与外生性研究

南欧成员国社会福利过度造成的财政支出扩张与经济停滞导致的财政收入收缩是欧洲主权债务危机的内生性成因。美国因素是欧洲主权债务危机的重要外生性解释变量。美国试图通过债务危机打压欧元是为了巩固美元的全球霸权。即使欧洲主权债务危机在短期内对于欧元产生了一定的冲击,但在长期仍有可能造就一个更强大的欧元。     

Impacts of household loan regulation on financial stability: evidence from Korea

The paper examines whether banking regulations and monetary policy contributed to controlling the fragility of household debt in Korea. The results show that housing loan regulations such as debt to income regulation contributed to a lower household debt delinquency ratio. Lowering the target interest rate provided additional stabilisation of the delinquency ratio. It is recommended that the government adopt an appropriate mix of regulation and monetary policy to control household financial fragility. The financial supervisory services need to be involved in managing debt to income regulation and minimising financial instability and financial market distortions. Further, the monetary authority has to adopt a more effective position in controlling the real lending interest rate and the delinquency ratio of household loans. Such a policy mix will improve effectiveness in controlling financial fragility, especially at a time of financial crisis.     

Factors affecting the external debt-servicing capacity of African nations: An empirical investigation

While there have been a vast number of studies and international discussions on developing nations’ debt servicing capacity, not much attention has been focused on the African dimension. This article examines the determinants of debt reschedulings for forty-five African nations over the twelve-year period 1976 to 1987. A logit model of the macroeconomic variables affecting the probability of rescheduling is developed. The findings indicate that debt-service ratio, reserves to imports ratio, debt-service payments to capital inflow ratio, GDP growth rate, rate of domestic inflation, and net government deficit to GDP ratio are important indicators of debt servicing capacity. The overall results, while providing strong support for some of the often-mentioned causes of the African debt crisis, are seen to hold useful possibilities for both the debtor countries and international creditors.     

试论西部农民债务产生的原因及其影响

西部农民债务主要是由农户赌博、畸形消费、子女读书、医疗、建房等方面的支出、自然灾害以及农户收入少等原因造成的。日益严重的农户债务阻碍了村民生活质量的进一步提高;导致失学、辍学的青少年儿童越来越多;增加了农村的不稳定因素;降低了党和政府在村民中的形象和地位,成为西部农村发展的难题。     

金融素养是否降低了家庭金融脆弱性?

金融素养对家庭金融脆弱性的影响具有不确定性,既可能通过增加家庭的资产和收入,降低家庭金融脆弱性;也可能通过增加家庭的负债与支出,提升家庭金融脆弱性。本文首先从金融知识、金融行为、金融态度三个维度测算金融素养,再基于"资不抵债"、"入不敷出"两个维度量化家庭金融脆弱性,最后构建实证模型,以CFPS（2014）为样本,量化分析金融素养对家庭金融脆弱性的影响。实证研究表明：金融素养的增加显著降低家庭金融脆弱性及"资不抵债"的概率;在金融素养的三个维度中,金融知识降低金融脆弱性、缓解资不抵债的作用更为显著。     

美国国债危机的根源及出路

虽然美国债务危机还没有爆发,但目前的财政赤字和国债规模过大、财政收支结构的刚性特征均阻碍了其财政赤字状况的改善、美元的国际货币地位也非可以永久持续,这使美国国债的可持续性问题面临挑战。在解决方案上,短期内美国政府可以通过技术性违约或者债务货币化将政府债务延后或者隐性处理,但是其代价是巨大的。因此美国应当从中长期根本上解决债务问题,中期需要建立严格的财政制度;长期上则需要协调好各个产业的发展,寻找新的经济增长点。     

Forecasting corporate financial distress in the Southeast Asian countries: A market-based approach

This study is conducted to investigate the prediction of corporate financial distress based on the Merton (1974) market-based Distance to Default (DD) model over the period from 1997 to 2016 which covers a range of economic financial circumstances, including the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) and Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The study focusses on the six largest countries in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), comprising of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Unlike previous studies which focus mainly on bankruptcy, this paper focusses on early warning distress indicators that signal distress well before bankruptcy. This is when firms experience difficulty in servicing debt as measured by interest coverage ratio (ICR) at a firm level and non-performing loans (NPLs) at a country level. Key empirical findings from this paper indicate that the market-based distance-to-default (DD) model is generally a good early warning indicator of financial distress in the following year, particularly for ICR, but that prediction accuracy varies between individual countries in the Southeast Asian region.     

欧洲国际债务危机对我国经济发展的深层分析

与所有经济危机发生的原因相似,本次国际债务危机的根本原因同样是由于过度消费,即在不能合理预期未来收益的情况下超前消费。虽然国际金融危机等外部原因不可忽视,但是这次危机主要原因依然是债务国本身的债务结构不合理、过度消费、经济结构存在弊端。我国应该在吸取这些教训以后做出深刻地反思,在债务结构、文化建设、社会风气、金融监管等方面做出一些改善。     

Competition, Innovation and Financial Crises: A Perspective on the Current Financial Market Turmoil

This paper provides a perspective on the causes of the current financial crisis by comparing it to the international debt crisis of the early 1980s. It argues that competition and innovation can lead to unsustainable debt build-ups as risk is consistently underestimated and underpriced. This has important implications for policies for crisis prevention.     

互联网普及如何影响中国家庭债务杠杆率

互联网技术的普及推动了数字金融、移动支付、金融科技等一系列金融创新的发展,基于此,文章利用中国家庭金融调查（CHFS）2017年的数据,细致探讨了互联网这一最基础的技术普及与家庭债务杠杆率的关系及内在作用机理。结果发现：（1）互联网的使用将显著推高家庭的债务杠杆率。在使用工具变量回归、处理效应模型与PSM匹配纠正内生性问题后,这一结论依然成立。（2）除通过促进电子支付、增加金融可及性外,互联网的使用还将通过提高信息搜寻与增强社会互动这两种渠道而带来家庭债务杠杆率的累积。（3）互联网的使用与家庭债务杠杆率间存在显著的非线性关系,即意味着只有当对互联网的使用达到一定程度后,其才会带来家庭债务风险。（4）对于受需求型信贷约束、低收入与中老年群体,互联网使用对这类群体债务杠杆率的影响程度更大。进一步地,除网络平台借款将推高家庭债务杠杆外,文章还考察了互联网的使用对民间借贷的影响,并发现其对家庭非正规借贷杠杆率的影响更为突出。而对于金融知识欠缺的家庭,其债务杠杆率更高。这说明,在鼓励使用互联网推动家庭参与金融市场的同时,也要注意防范过度使用互联网所带来的金融风险,而其中一种有效的途径便是普及金融知识教育,提高居民的金融素养。