Kommentar: Deutsche Blockade der EU-Reformen eine Gefahr für Europa
Reint E. Gropp
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 2,
2018
Abstract
In den letzten Wochen haben wir zwei wichtige Dinge gelernt. Erstens: Europa hat keinen verlässlichen Partner in den USA und ist auf sich gestellt. Zweitens: Der wirtschaftliche Boom im Euroraum wird nicht unendlich anhalten. Auf den ersten Blick haben die beiden Erkenntnisse nicht viel miteinander zu tun, auf den zweiten jedoch machen sie klar, dass Deutschland seine Blockadehaltung in Bezug auf Reformen in der Europäischen Union (EU) aufgeben muss, um eine neuerliche Krise zu vermeiden.
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Secrecy, Information Shocks, and Corporate Investment: Evidence from European Union Countries
Mohamad Mazboudi, Iftekhar Hasan
Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money,
2018
Abstract
This study examines how national culture affects corporate investment. We argue that national culture affects corporate investment efficiency through the level of secrecy that national culture exhibits. Using a sample of firms from eight culturally-diverse European Union countries, we find that the level of secrecy that national culture exhibits is negatively related to corporate investment efficiency after controlling for a number of firm- and country-level factors. We also find that the negative relation between national culture and corporate investment efficiency is mitigated by an exogenous shock to the information asymmetry problem between managers and investors. Our study highlights the importance of the cultural value of secrecy/transparency as a determinant of investment efficiency at the firm-level.
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21.03.2018 • 5/2018
What is holding back the banking union?
The European Commission wants to better regulate and monitor the European banking sector. In many EU Member States, however, the necessary directives are being implemented extremely slowly. Surprisingly, the reasons for this do not lie in politics and banking structures, but in the institutional framework conditions and existing regulations in the Member States, as argued by Michael Koetter, Thomas Krause and Lena Tonzer from the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
Michael Koetter
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Comments on “Consultation BCBS discussion paper on the regulatory treatment of sovereign exposures”
Michael Koetter, Lena Tonzer
Einzelveröffentlichungen,
2018
Abstract
The BCBS discussion paper on the regulatory treatment of sovereign exposures addresses a so far hardly touched topic as concerns capital regulation. While the regulatory framework has been changed substantially over recent years including the establishment of the European Banking Union, risk weights on sovereign exposures have remained mostly unchanged and sovereign exposures of banks benefit from a favourable capital treatment. This applies despite the fact that the recent European sovereign debt crisis has revealed the potential of a doom loop between bank and sovereign risk and demonstrated that sovereign exposures are by no means “risk-free”. The paper is thus an important proposal how to change the risk evaluation of banks’ sovereign exposures.
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Sovereign Stress, Banking Stress, and the Monetary Transmission Mechanism in the Euro Area
Oliver Holtemöller, Jan-Christopher Scherer
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 3,
2018
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate to what extent sovereign stress and banking stress have contributed to the increase in the level and in the heterogeneity of nonfinancial firms’ refinancing costs in the Euro area during the European debt crisis and how they did affect the monetary transmission mechanism. We identify the increasing effect of government bond yield spreads (sovereign stress) and the share of non-performing loans (banking stress) on firms’ financing costs using an instrumental-variable approach. Moreover, we estimate both sources of stress to have significantly impaired the monetary transmission mechanism during the European debt crisis.
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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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The European Refugee Crisis and the Natural Rate of Output
Katja Heinisch, Klaus Wohlrabe
Applied Economics Letters,
No. 16,
2017
Abstract
The European Commission follows a harmonized approach for calculating structural (potential) output for EU member states that takes into account labour as an important ingredient. This article shows how the recent huge migrants’ inflow to Europe affects trend output. Due to the fact that the immigrants immediately increase the working population but effectively do not enter the labour market, we illustrate that the potential output is potentially upward biased without any corrections. Taking Germany as an example, we find that the average medium-term potential growth rate is lower if the migration flow is modelled adequately compared to results based on the unadjusted European Commission procedure.
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Delay Determinants of European Banking Union Implementation
Michael Koetter, Thomas Krause, Lena Tonzer
Abstract
To safeguard financial stability and harmonise regulation, the European Commission substantially reformed banking supervision, resolution, and deposit insurance via EU directives. But most countries delay the transposition of these directives. We ask if transposition delays result from strategic considerations of governments conditional on the state of their financial, regulatory, and political systems? Supervisors might try to protect national banking systems and local politicians maybe reluctant to surrender national sovereignty to deal with failed banks. Alternatively, intricate financial regulation might require more implementation time in large and complex financial and political systems. We therefore collect data on the transposition delays of the three Banking Union directives and investigate observed delay variation across member states. Our correlation analyses suggest that existing regulatory and institutional frameworks, rather than banking market structure or political factors, matter for transposition delays.
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01.11.2017 • 38/2017
IWH Policy Talk „Risk Sharing and Risk Reduction – The Challenges that Lie Ahead“
The Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association is pleased to inform about its next upcoming IWH Policy Talk „Risk Sharing and Risk Reduction – The Challenges that Lie Ahead“ with Andrea Enria, first Chairperson of the European Banking Authority (EBA). The talk will take place on Tuesday, No¬vember 7, 2017, 5:00 p.m., in the IWH conference room. You are hereby cordially invited to attend.
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