Does money help predict inflation? An empirical assessment for Central Europe

This paper investigates the predictive ability of money for future inflation in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. We construct monetary indicators similar to those the European Central Bank regularly uses for monetary analysis. We find in-sample evidence that money matters for future inflation at the policy horizons that central banks typically focus on, but our pseudo out-of-sample forecasting exercise shows that money does not in general improve the inflation forecasts vis-à-vis some benchmark models such as the autoregressive process. Since at least some models containing money improve the inflation forecasts in certain periods, we argue that money still serves as a useful cross-check for monetary policy analysis.     

我国银信合作理财业务的发展现状与未来趋势

自2006年年初民生银行与信托公司合作发行了第一款银信合作理财产品以来,银信合作理财业务便在我国蓬勃发展起来。然而,从2009年年底开始,中国银监会频频出台政策重拳,直接和间接针对银信合作理财业务的政策共出台了十余项之多,引起了人们对银信合作理财业务前景的担忧。本文阐述了我国银信合作理财业务存在的基础,对该业务的发展现状及其存在的问题进行了分析,并根据相关的政策走向对我国银信合作理财业务的未来发展趋势提出了若干设想。     

Financial fragility,sovereign default risk and the limits to commercial bank bail-outs

We show that with intertwined weak banks and weak sovereigns, bank recapitalizations become much less effective. We construct a DSGE model with leverage constrained banks lending to firms and holding domestic government bonds. Bond prices reflect endogenously generated sovereign risk. This introduces a negative amplification cycle: after a credit crisis output losses increase more because higher interest rates trigger lower bond prices and subsequent losses at banks. This further tightens bank leverage constraints, and causes interest rates to rise further. Also bank recapitalizations are then much less effective. Recaps involve swaps of newly issued sovereign bonds for bank equity, the new debt increases sovereign debt discounts, leading to capital losses for the banks on their holdings of sovereign debt that (partially) offset the impact of the recapitalization. The favorable macroeconomic effects of bank recaps on the recovery after a financial crisis are correspondingly lower.     

Central bank disclosure as a macroprudential tool for financial stability

The Basel Capital Accord (pillar 3) states that disclosure of information (transparency) is essential to financial stability. This study analyzes, through inflation reports, the disclosure of information from the Central Bank of Brazil concerning the credit market. We consider credit risk and capital buffers as measures of financial stability in this analysis. Furthermore, in order to measure the perception of the monetary authority on the credit market, we built two indices based on the central bank’s communication on credit development. We performed a panel data analysis based on a sample of 125 banks for the period from June 1999 to September 2014 (7000 observations). The findings suggest that central bank communication regarding expectations concerning the credit market contributes to financial stability. Therefore, this kind of communication of central banks (about credit development) may constitute an important macroprudential tool to improve financial stability.     

商业银行经营决策对我国货币供给的影响及建议

商业银行经营行为对我国货币供给的影响作用于基础货币投放和存款货币创造两个阶段。国有控股商业银行因其垄断性地位使得信贷投放过于集中、流动性管理水平低,其他股份制商业银行不受风险约束的盲目扩张倾向,都可能造成我国货币供给和调控政策实施效果偏离预期。针对以上问题,本文建议,国有控股商业银行应加强股份制改革,建立现代企业制度;其他股份制商业银行根据自身的条件确定发展方向,有序竞争。     

利率市场化时代下商业银行发展对策研究

利率是国家宏观调控的重要手段。2013年7月20日,中央银行取消了商业银行贷款下限的限制,使贷款利率完全由市场竞争来决定。利率市场化对商业银行的经营风险和经营环境产生了重大的影响,对商业银行未来的发展既是机遇也是挑战。在利率市场化时代下,商业银行必须采取必要的措施来把握机遇和迎接挑战。文中主要围绕利率市场化对商业银行的影响,对其未来可持续发展有针对性地提出对策。     

“冷冻侠”高灵能源

高灵能源有一个别致的英文名，叫做“IccBank”，字面翻译是“冰银行”。这个看似奇特的名称实际上是这家公司盈利模式最简单形象的表达。依靠蓄冷而盈利——高灵能源叮以在夜间将电力转化成“冷能源”储存起来，并在白天用电高峰时提供给它的用户。     

Are rules and boundaries sufficient to limit harmful central bank discretion? Lessons from Europe

Marvin Goodfriend׳s (2014) insightful, informative and provocative work explains concisely and convincingly why the Fed needs rules and boundaries. This paper reviews the broader institutional design problem regarding the effectiveness of the central bank in practice and confirms the need for rules and boundaries. The framework proposed for improving the Fed incorporates key elements that have already been adopted in the European Union. The case of ELA provision by the ECB and the Central Bank of Cyprus to Marfin-Laiki Bank during the crisis, however, suggests that the existence of rules and boundaries may not be enough to limit harmful discretion. During a crisis, novel interpretations of the legal authority of the central bank may be introduced to create a grey area that might be exploited to justify harmful discretionary decisions even in the presence of rules and boundaries. This raises the question how to ensure that rules and boundaries are respected in practice.     

Assessing the uncertainty in central banks’ inflation outlooks

Recent research has found that macroeconomic survey forecasts of uncertainty exhibit several deficiencies, such as horizon-dependent biases and lower levels of accuracy than simple unconditional uncertainty forecasts. We examine the inflation uncertainty forecasts from the Bank of England, the Banco Central do Brasil, the Magyar Nemzeti Bank and the Sveriges Riksbank to assess whether central banks’ uncertainty forecasts might be subject to similar problems. We find that, while most central banks’ uncertainty forecasts also tend to be underconfident at short horizons and overconfident at longer horizons, they are mostly not significantly biased. Moreover, they tend to be at least as precise as unconditional uncertainty forecasts from two different approaches.     

A duality theory of payment systems

We model the Central Bank’s management of intraday liquidity in modern real-time gross settlement systems as a linear programming problem parameterized by different intraday monetary policies, such as reserve requirements, net debit caps and Lombard loans. We then use duality theory to determine the shadow-prices of constraints of each bank. These shadow-prices can be used by the Central Bank to set personalized intraday monetary policies in order to reduce idleness of money and to give a microfoundation of the too-big-to-fail policy.     

邮政金融发展社区金融服务模式的探讨

社区金融服务多样,形式灵活,贴近客户。近来,我国的民营银行、城商行、四大国有行都在该领域开展业务,这一变化显然对定位于零售业务的邮储银行产生了影响,文中在对我国目前社区服务归纳总结的基础上,探讨了邮储银行展开社区金融服务应注意的问题和模式选择。     

Monetary Ratios in a Modern Regime: Why the Monetary Base still Matters

A recent paper Bank of England paper cast doubt on the ‘textbook’ model of the money multiplier. However, this criticism is inconsistent and misleading. It understates the importance of the central bank's control over the monetary base, and how this influences the money supply. The confusion suggests that it would be more fruitful to conduct analysis using the currency‐deposit ratio and reserve‐deposit ratio rather than the money multiplier, and evidence from 1998–2013 is provided. This article explains how these ratios depend on the monetary regime, and the distinction between inside and outside money. Although a modern regime alters the way that money creation occurs, the monetary base still matters.     

流动性过剩：基于货币供给决定机制的解析

货币政策的多任务性影响着我国货币供给形成过程,基础货币调整与货币乘数变动同时出现失衡,从而导致资金流动性过剩。采用发行融资债券调节基础货币的非常规策略不能持久,抑止对外净资产过快上升的成本越来越高。现金存款比率和准备金存款比率持续下降而准货币存款比率却变化不大,从而导致我国货币乘数持续上升。货币当局的资产结构和公众的资产偏好分别影响着基础货币和货币乘数,是导致资金流动性过剩的根源,而消除流动性过剩也须借助转变货币当局资产结构和公众资产偏好来实现。     

Market reaction to uniform capital adequacy guidelines in the banking industry

In this paper the authors assess the stock market reaction to information on uniform capital requirements that was disseminated on four different dates: September 29, 1987; December 7, 1987; December 10, 1987; and July 11, 1988. The share prices of U.S. money center banks were adversely affected by the December 7, 1987, announcement regarding proposals to make regulatory standards more uniform. The share prices of U.S. superregional banks were not affected by this announcement. The difference in degree of response is attributed to disparate capital positions between the two groups of banks. In order to meet the new guidelines, U.S. money center banks may need to implement policies (such as issuing new stock) that are viewed unfavorably by the market.     

Money Growth and Inflation in the Euro Area: A Time‐Frequency View

This article provides new insights on the relationship between money growth and inflation in the euro area over the last 40 years. This highly relevant link for the European Central Bank monetary policy strategy is assessed using wavelet analysis. The findings indicate a stronger link between inflation and money growth at low frequencies over the whole sample period. At the typical business cycle frequency range the link is only present until the beginning of the 1980s. Moreover, there seems to be a recent deterioration of the leading properties of money growth with respect to inflation in the euro area.     

Wicksell on the Classical Theories of Money, Credit, Interest and the Price Level:

ABSTRACT Knut Wicksell occupies a significant place in the history of monetary economics as the developer of the "cumulative process" by which deviations between the market and "natural" rates of interest cause the price level to change persistently. A more accurate version of the same argument is a part of classical monetary analysis but there the process originates from a change in base money or central bank credit while Wicksell's version may be initiated by banks capriciously setting their lending rates. Wicksell's version arises from his difficulties in correctly interpreting the classical quantity theory of money and interest rate determination from Hume down to Marshall, but has not been so noted in the literature.     

货币国际化扩张中的政策行为--基于最优铸币收入的动态分析

货币国际化为其政策主体带来的重要收益之一就是铸币收入。笔者从考察一种抽象的国际货币出发，在建立了相关收益及成本约束的基础上，得出了该货币铸币收入行为的一般性路径规律，即，其基础货币发行速度变化的最优（各期铸币收入现值最大化）动态路径，并对该路径模型作了从单周期到多周期的扩展性描述。     

Indirect Convertibility,Equity‐Based Banking and Financial Stability

Banking reform proposals put forward in the wake of the recent financial crisis maintain that equity‐based banking would be stable and would prevent bank runs. This article argues that complementing this form of banking with an indirect convertibility monetary standard and thereby dispensing with base money would enhance financial stability further. Banks would not hold a distinctive asset (base money) that would be called upon by customers at short notice, thereby removing the possibility of bank runs. No discrepancy in value between the two sides of a bank's balance sheet would arise as its assets (securitised loans) would be marked to market. Unlike other recent contributions, the intermediation model outlined here is not ‘limited purpose’ in nature as banks would not be restricted in the form of lending activity they can pursue. Common sources of banking and financial instability – liquidity risk, solvency risk, moral hazard – would be absent.     

Efficient forecast tests for conditional policy forecasts

Central Banks regularly make forecasts, such as the Fed’s Greenbook forecast, that are conditioned on hypothetical paths for the policy interest rate. While there are good public policy reasons to evaluate the quality of such forecasts, up until now, the most common approach has been to ignore their conditional nature and apply standard forecast efficiency tests. In this paper we derive tests for the efficiency of conditional forecasts. Intuitively, these tests involve implicit estimates of the degree to which the conditioning path is counterfactual and the magnitude of the policy feedback over the forecast horizon. We apply the tests to the Greenbook forecast and the Bank of England’s inflation report forecast, finding some evidence of forecast inefficiency. Nonetheless, we argue that the conditional nature of the forecasts made by central banks represents a substantial impediment to the analysis of their quality—stronger assumptions are needed and forecast inefficiency may go undetected for longer than would be the case if central banks were instead to report unconditional forecasts.     

A profitable trading rule for net borrowers on settlement Wednesday

Griffiths and Winters (1995) suggest that the rules and regulations of the bank settlement process create incentives such that banks optimizing their reserve account management will borrow on settlement Wednesday to obtain the funds necessary to meet Federal Reserve Board mandated reserves. We develop a trading rule for settlement Wednesday that reduces the cost of borrowing by exploiting the predicted daily trading behavior of the Federal Reserve Open Market Desk. The strategy reduces the cost of borrowing by approximately $43,333 per $1 billion on an annualized basis in simulated trading. Our results reinforce that optimal reserve account management is a function of the rules and regulations governing overnight money markets.