Housing Consumption and Macroprudential Policies in Europe: An Ex Ante Evaluation
Antonios Mavropoulos, Qizhou Xiong
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 17,
2018
Abstract
In this paper, we use the panel of the first two waves of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey by the European Central Bank to study housing demand of European households and evaluate potential housing market regulations in the post-crisis era. We provide a comprehensive account of the housing decisions of European households between 2010 and 2014, and structurally estimate the housing preference of a simple life-cycle housing choice model. We then evaluate the effect of a tighter LTV/LTI regulation via counter-factual simulations. We find that those regulations limit homeownership and wealth accumulation, reduces housing consumption but may be welfare improving for the young households.
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06.09.2018 • 17/2018
The Cyclical upswing in Germany continues, in spite of foreign demand losing momentum
In autumn 2018, the global economy continues to expand quite strongly. Whereas the cyclical upswing in the USA has gained even more strength, the economy in the Euro area has weakened somewhat. To a lesser extent, this also applies to the German economy. “According to this forecast, the growth rate of German real gross domestic product will be 1.8% in 2018 and 1.7% in 2019. The East German economy will expand by 1.5% this year and by 1.4% in 2019”, says Oliver Holtemöller, head of the Department Macroeconomics and vice president at IWH.
Oliver Holtemöller
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The Exchange Rate, Asymmetric Shocks and Asymmetric Distributions
Calin-Vlad Demian, Filippo di Mauro
International Economics,
August
2018
Abstract
The elasticity of exports to exchange rate fluctuations has been the subject of a large body of literature without a clear consensus emerging. Using a novel sector-level dataset based on firm level information, we show that exchange rate elasticities double in size when country and sector specific firm productivity distributions are considered in the empirical estimations. In addition, exports appear to be sensitive to appreciation episodes, but rather unaffected by depreciations. Finally, only rather large changes in the exchange rate appear to matter. The paper intends to contribute to the debate on the effectiveness and impacts of exchange rate movements, which features highly in the policy agenda.
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Differences Make a Difference: Diversity in Social Learning and Value Creation
Yiwei Fang, Bill Francis, Iftekhar Hasan
Journal of Corporate Finance,
2018
Abstract
Prior research has demonstrated that CEOs learn privileged information from their social connections. Going beyond the importance of the number of social ties in a CEO's social network, this paper studies the value generated from a diverse social environment. We construct an index of social-network heterogeneity (SNH) that captures the extent to which CEOs are connected to people of different demographic attributes and skill sets. We find that higher CEO SNH leads to greater firm value through the channels of better corporate innovation and diversified M&As. Overall, the evidence suggests that CEOs' exposure to human diversity enhances social learning and creates greater growth opportunities for firms.
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"The Good News about Bad News": Information about Past Organisational Failure and its Impact on Worker Productivity
Sabrina Jeworrek, Vanessa Mertins, Michael Vlassopoulos
Abstract
Failure in organisations is a very common phenomenon. Little is known about whether past failure affects workers’ subsequent performance. We conduct a field experiment in which we follow up a failed mail campaign to attract new volunteers with a phone campaign pursuing the same goal. We recruit temporary workers to carry out the phone campaign and randomly assign them to either receive or not receive information about the previous failure and measure their performance. We find that informed workers perform better – in terms of both numbers dialed (about 14% improvement) and completed interviews (about 20% improvement) – regardless of whether they had previously worked on the failed mail campaign. Evidence from a second experiment with student volunteers asked to support a campaign to reduce food waste suggests that the mechanism behind our finding relates to contextual inference: Informing workers/volunteers that they are pursuing a goal that is hard to attain seems to add meaning to the work involved, leading them to exert more effort.
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When Arm’s Length is too Far: Relationship Banking over the Credit Cycle
Thorsten Beck, Hans Degryse, Ralph De Haas, Neeltje van Horen
Journal of Financial Economics,
No. 1,
2018
Abstract
We conduct face-to-face interviews with bank CEOs to classify 397 banks across 21 countries as either relationship or transaction lenders. We then use the geographic coordinates of these banks’ branches and of 14,100 businesses to analyze how the lending techniques of banks in the vicinity of firms are related to credit constraints at two contrasting points of the credit cycle. We find that while relationship lending is not associated with credit constraints during a credit boom, it alleviates such constraints during a downturn. This positive role of relationship lending is stronger for small and opaque firms and in regions with a more severe economic downturn. Moreover, our evidence suggests that relationship lending mitigates the impact of a downturn on firm growth and does not constitute evergreening of loans.
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Does It Pay to Get Connected? An Examination of Bank Alliance Network and Bond Spread
Iftekhar Hasan, Céline Meslier, Amine Tarazi, Mingming Zhou
Journal of Economics and Business,
forthcoming
Abstract
This paper examines the effects of bank alliance network on bonds issued by European banks during the period 1990–2009. We construct six measures capturing different dimensions of banks’ network characteristics. In opposition to the results obtained for non-financial firms, our findings indicate that being part of a network does not create value for bank’s bondholders, indicating a dark side effect of strategic alliances in the banking sector. While being part of a network is perceived as a risk-increasing event by market participants, this negative perception is significantly lower for the larger banks, and, to a lesser extent, for the more profitable banks. Moreover, during crisis times, the positive impact on bond spread of a bank’s higher centrality or of a bank’s higher connectedness in the network is stronger, indicating that market participants may fear spillover effects within the network during periods of banks’ heightened financial fragility.
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19.12.2017 • 40/2017
The medium-term economic development in Germany from 2017 to 2022 and opportunities for fiscal policies of a new federal government
Due to the cyclical upswing in Germany, in case of unaltered legislation, the general government would achieve considerable budget surpluses in the years ahead. As a consequence, there is large fiscal scope for a new federal government. With the fiscal policy simulation model of the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association, the macroeconomic effects of various fiscal policy measures are analysed. The results show that additional government expenditures, like the expansion of social benefits, do have a stronger effect on GDP than revenue cuts, like for instance tax reliefs. „Due to the already high capacity utilisation, revenue cuts seem to be advantageous from a business cycle perspective. Moreover, a reduction of the high taxes and charges on labour would, in contrast to an expansion of social benefits, have a positive effect on potential output“, says Oliver Holtemöller, head of the Department of Macroeconomics and IWH vice president.
Oliver Holtemöller
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Criminal Network Formation and Optimal Detection Policy: The Role of Cascade of Detection
Liuchun Deng, Yufeng Sun
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization,
September
2017
Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of cascade of detection, how detection of a criminal triggers detection of his network neighbors, on criminal network formation. We develop a model in which criminals choose both links and actions. We show that the degree of cascade of detection plays an important role in shaping equilibrium criminal networks. Surprisingly, greater cascade of detection could reduce ex ante social welfare. In particular, we prove that full cascade of detection yields a weakly denser criminal network than that under partial cascade of detection. We further characterize the optimal allocation of the detection resource and demonstrate that it should be highly asymmetric among ex ante identical agents.
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06.07.2017 • 28/2017
Politicians share responsibility for the risk of their state defaulting
Investors assume higher risks of default when a country is politically unstable or governed by a party at the left or right end of the political spectrum. However, according to findings obtained by Stefan Eichler from the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), the more democratic the country is and the more it is integrated into the global economy, the lower is the impact that such political factors have.
Stefan Eichler
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