What a network measure can tell us about financial interconnectedness and output volatility

This paper applies the PageRank algorithm, often used in network analysis, to capture multidimensional and high-degree, cross-border banking relations among countries. It provides a nuanced picture of financial interconnectedness that has not been available in the literature to date.Our measure, FIRank, shows the probability of connection to the network by any country or, equivalently, the share of all connections captured by each country, and provides relative rankings of countries according to their degree of interconnectedness. We show that the United Kingdom and the United States remain the ‘core’ in the global banking network over a thirty-three-year period, with most countries scattered in the ‘periphery’ despite considerable growth and change in the network.This finding contrasts with claims of an increasingly even distribution of connections reported in other studies using more limited network measures. Examining whether financial interconnectedness raises or lowers output volatility, we show that the relationship is nonlinear: initially, higher interconnectedness raises volatility, but beyond a critical level volatility is reduced. This is true in periods of smaller and idiosyncratic shocks but is even more pronounced in the GFC period of large shocks. The novelty of our approach lies in applying well-understood network measures to cross-border banking data to identify where countries rank in international financial interconnectedness with the global bank-lending network.Further, by explicitly analysing how the relative interconnectedness index is related to output volatility we provide new insights into the pros and cons of higher levels of international financial interconnection.     

论列宁的金融全球化思想

列宁的金融全球化思想是其经济全球化思想的重要内容和成部分。列宁的时代是垄断资本、金融资本的全球化时代,世界金融资剥削体系已经初步形成,金融全球化的发展使各民族国家和经济体相间的依存性空前增强。由此形成的列宁的金融全球化思想包括:布满界各国的金融资本把帝国主义经济变为全球经济;金融资本不仅控制世界经济,而且还操纵着国际政治、军事;金融全球化发展的历史趋势致了食利国的形成,出现食利者阶层完全脱离生产的寄生性。我们重列宁关于金融资本及其全球化问题的深刻而富有远见的论述,对于剖当前的全球化金融危机仍然有着重要的现实指导意义。     

Surfing the waves of globalization: Asia and financial globalization in the context of the trilemma

Using the “trilemma indexes” developed by Aizenman et al. (2010) that measure the extent of achievement in each of the three policy goals in the trilemma—monetary independence, exchange rate stability, and financial openness—we examine how policy configurations affect macroeconomic performances, with focus on the Asian economies. We find that the three policy choices matter for output volatility and the medium-term level of inflation. Greater monetary independence is associated with lower output volatility while greater exchange rate stability implies greater output volatility, which can be mitigated if a country holds international reserves (IR) at a level higher than a threshold (about 20% of GDP). Greater monetary autonomy is associated with a higher level of inflation while greater exchange rate stability and greater financial openness could lower the inflation rate. We find that trilemma policy configurations affect output volatility through the investment or trade channel depending on the openness of the economies. Our results indicate that policy makers in a more open economy would prefer pursuing greater exchange rate stability while holding a massive amount of IR. Asian emerging market economies are found to be equipped with macroeconomic policy configurations that help the economies to dampen the volatility of the real exchange rate. These economies’ sizeable amount of IR holding appears to enhance the stabilizing effect of the trilemma policy choices, and this may help explain the recent phenomenal buildup of IR in the region.     

Real financial market exchange rate volatility and portfolio flows

This paper studies the relationship between real financial market exchange rate volatility and US cross-border equity flows. We found strong evidence that causality goes from real financial market exchange rate volatility to equity flows. According to our results, real financial market exchange rate volatility negatively influences purchases of foreign equity. This finding is in line with the portfolio optimization theory. The impact of real financial market exchange rate volatility on sales of foreign equity is also negative. This result can be explained by the theory of behavioral finance which states that investors are reluctant to realize losses of their portfolios. This is why investors decrease sales of assets when riskiness of the assets increases. The impact of real financial market exchange rate on net purchases of foreign equity is positive. It follows from these results that sales of foreign equity decrease more strongly than purchases of foreign equity when riskiness of foreign assets increases.     

The effect of globalization on union bargaining and price-cost margins of firms

In recent years, Europe has witnessed an accelerated process of economic integration. This paper analyzes how increased economic integration has affected labor and product markets. We use a panel of Belgian manufacturing firms to estimate price-cost margins and union bargaining power and show how various measures of globalization affect them. Import competition puts pressure on both markups and union bargaining power, especially when there is increased competition from low wage countries. This suggests that increased globalization is associated with a moderation of wage claims in unionized countries, which should be associated with positive effects on employment.

Connecting two views on financial globalization: Can we make further progress?

To understand why developing countries do not automatically benefit from financial globalization, both the need for a minimum institutional quality (the threshold hypothesis) and the possibility of varying volatility of different types of capital flows (the composition hypothesis) have been suggested. This paper contends that the two hypotheses are intimately linked, and provides supportive empirical evidence. J. Japanese Int. Economies 20 (4) (2006) 459–481.     

The effect of exchange rate volatility on international trade in East Asia

In this paper, we empirically investigate the relationship between exchange rate volatility and international trade, focusing on East Asia. Our findings are summarized as follows: first, intra-East Asian trade is discouraged by exchange rate volatility more seriously than trade in other regions. Second, one important source of the discouragement is that intermediate goods trade in international production networks, which is quite sensitive to exchange rate volatility compared with other types of trade, occupies a significant fraction of East Asian trade. Third, the negative effect of the volatility is greater than that of tariffs and smaller than that of distance-related costs in East Asia.     

The effect of circuit breakers on expected volatility: Tests using implied volatilities

Following the 1987 stock market crash, trading controls or circuit breakers were implemented in financial markets to moderate extreme volatility. However, the effectiveness of circuit breakers on the operation of these markets is disputed. While some argue that circuit breakers curb the effects of overreaction in markets and restore confidence, others argue that these trading interruptions merely delay price movements to later periods or to other markets. This paper examines the effect of changes in circuit breaker rules on the market's expectation of future volatility. The results have policy implications and suggest that the circuit breaker rule changes have no effect on expected volatility.     

关于我国财政政策挤出效应的广义分析

<正>实施财政政策,通常是为取得对经济活动的导向、协调、控制和稳定等功能,但难免也会产生负面的挤出效应。传统的观点认为,财政政策的挤出效应是政府通过向公众和商业银行借款来实行扩张性财政政策,引起利率上升和借贷资金的竞争,导致民间部门支出减少,从而使财政支出的扩张作用部分或全部被抵消。可以说这对挤出效应是较为狭义的的理解,是对过去资金决定因     

The effect of financial deepening on inequality: Some international evidence

This paper uses an unbalanced panel data analysis of 126 countries for the period 1963–2002 to analyze the effects of financial deepening on inequality. The principal findings can be summarized as follows: (1) financial deepening reduces inequality; (2) economic growth reduces the equalizing effects of financial deepening; (3) inequality increases with an increase in trade openness; (4) the disequalizing effects of trade openness decrease as a country grows; (5) financial deepening and trade openness therefore have asymmetric effects on inequality; and (6) these effects are robust to the choice of financial variables, inequality measures, and model specifications.     

The effect of index futures trading on volatility: Three markets for Chinese stocks

This paper examines whether the introduction of Chinese stock index futures had an impact on the volatility of the underlying spot market. To this end, we estimate several Generalized Auto-regressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH) models and compare our findings for mainland China with Chinese index futures traded in Singapore and Hong Kong. Our results indicate that Chinese index futures decrease spot market volatility in all three spot markets considered. In contrast, we do not obtain the same results for the companion index futures markets in Hong Kong and Singapore. China's stock market is relatively young and largely dominated by private retail investors. Nevertheless, our evidence is favorable to the stabilization hypothesis usually confirmed in mature markets.     

Export characteristics and output volatility: comparative firm-level evidence for CEE countries

The literature shows that openness to trade improves long-term growth but also that it may increase exposure to high output volatility. In this vein, our paper investigates whether exporting and export diversification at the firm level have an effect on the output volatility of firms. We use large representative firm-level databases from Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia over the last boom–bust cycle in 2004–2012. The results confirm that exporting is related to higher volatility at the firm level. There is also evidence that this effect increased during the Great Recession due to the large negative shocks in export markets. We find that export diversification mitigates volatility only in some cases. Exporting more products or serving more markets does not necessarily result in higher stability of firm sales.     

国际金融危机下我国积极财政政策的效应评析

由美国次贷引发的国际金融危机对我国经济产生了巨大的冲击。在出口、投资和消费均出现下滑的态势下,我国政府果断出台了扩大内需的积极财政政策,以实现稳定经济增长的目标。本文在分析国际金融危机背景下我国经济基本走势的基础上,对我国政府实施的积极财政政策进行了政策回顾及效应评析,充分肯定了积极财政政策在应对国际金融危机中发挥的积极作用。     

The pros and cons of globalization

Analysis suggests that future freer globalized trade will (1) likely benefit both rich and poor regions, (2) probably give measured percentage gains to poor places that exceed those to rich places, (3) possible exacerbate real income inequality between rich and poor, and more certainly (4) bring more lifetime uncertainty along with enlarged material gains. A backlash to freer trade, economic history suggests, will lead to weaker productivity advance, enhanced degree of monopoly, and to aggravated crony-capitalism and plutocratic lobbyist democracy.     

对经济全球化的理性审视

一、经济全球化的产生经济全球化的基本要求,是在全球范围内实现国与国之间、地区与地区之间的贸易和投资的自由化和便利化。在经济全球化的过程中,有可能出现两种趋势。一种趋势是经济全球化朝着合理的方向发展,促进世界资源得到有效而公正的配置,推进全球多边贸易体制和公正合理的国际经济新秩序的建立,从而加速各国生产力的发展,最终造福各国人民。而另一种趋势,则是出现以维护某个超强国家的利益为中心的全球化,按照其不合理的规则行事,进一步加剧世界经济发展的不平衡,扩大南北差距,从而导致国与国之间、地区与地区之间的磨擦和冲突,以…     

The effect of North Korean threats on financial markets in South Korea and Japan

This paper examines the effects of North Korean threats, as measured by the proprietary North Korean Threat Index (NKTI), on financial markets in South Korea and Japan. We examine the effects of the threats on stock markets, foreign exchange markets, and overnight interest rates. We consider causality in mean and variance tests to determine any link between the NKTI and financial variables. The causality-in-mean test results indicate the presence of a causal link running from North Korean threats to stock returns and exchange rate returns in both countries, but no significant link to the overnight interest rate in either country. The causality-in-variance test results indicate no significant impact emanating from North Korean threats. Integrating the North Korean economy into the global economy stands to eliminate these threats and thus to contribute to regional financial stability.     

全球化下一步往哪走

尽管关于全球化的谈论大多可以归为“赞成”或是“反对”，这其实是一个错误的选择。真正的问题在于，政治和商业领袖是会引领世界奔向繁荣，实现下一轮大规模的全球化（即新兴市场国家金融系统的全球化），还是会把世界带上下一轮大倒退（商品、服务和资本跨境自由流动出现倒退）的危险道路。