Banking Globalization, Local Lending, and Labor Market Effects: Micro-level Evidence from Brazil
Felix Noth, Matias Ossandon Busch
Abstract
This paper estimates the effect of a foreign funding shock to banks in Brazil after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. Our robust results show that bank-specific shocks to Brazilian parent banks negatively affected lending by their individual branches and trigger real economic consequences in Brazilian municipalities: More affected regions face restrictions in aggregated credit and show weaker labor market performance in the aftermath which documents the transmission mechanism of the global financial crisis to local labor markets in emerging countries. The results represent relevant information for regulators concerned with the real effects of cross-border liquidity shocks.
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Global Food Prices and Monetary Policy in an Emerging Market Economy: The Case of India
Oliver Holtemöller, Sushanta Mallick
Journal of Asian Economics,
2016
Abstract
This paper investigates a perception in the political debates as to what extent poor countries are affected by price movements in the global commodity markets. To test this perception, we use the case of India to establish in a standard SVAR model that global food prices influence aggregate prices and food prices in India. To further analyze these empirical results, we specify a small open economy New-Keynesian model including oil and food prices and estimate it using observed data over the period 1996Q2 to 2013Q2 by applying Bayesian estimation techniques. The results suggest that a big part of the variation in inflation in India is due to cost-push shocks and, mainly during the years 2008 and 2010, also to global food price shocks, after having controlled for exogenous rainfall shocks. We conclude that the inflationary supply shocks (cost-push, oil price, domestic food price and global food price shocks) are important contributors to inflation in India. Since the monetary authority responds to these supply shocks with a higher interest rate which tends to slow growth, this raises concerns about how such output losses can be prevented by reducing exposure to commodity price shocks.
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A Market-based Indicator of Currency Risk: Evidence from American Depositary Receipts
Stefan Eichler, Ingmar Roevekamp
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 4,
2016
Abstract
We introduce a novel currency risk measure based on American Depositary Receipts(ADRs). Using a multifactor pricing model, we exploit ADR investors’ exposure to potential devaluation losses to derive an indicator of currency risk. Using weekly data for a sample of 831 ADRs located in 23 emerging markets over the 1994-2014 period, we find that a deterioration in the fiscal and current account balance, as well as higher inflation, increases currency risk. Interaction models reveal that these macroeconomic fundamentals drive currency risk, particularly in countries with managed exchange rates, low levels of foreign exchange reserves and a poor sovereign credit rating.
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EFN Report Autumn 2015: Economic Outlook for the Euro Area in 2015 and 2016
European Forecasting Network Reports,
Nr. 4,
2015
Abstract
For the end of this year and for 2016, chances are good that production in advanced economies will continue to expand a bit faster than at trend rates, while growth dynamics in emerging markets economies will not strengthen or even continue to decrease.
Since autumn 2014, production in the euro area expands at an annualized rate of about 1.5%. The recovery appears to be broad based, with contributions from private consumption, exports, and investment into fixed capital, although it fell back in the second quarter after a strong increase at the beginning of the year. From a regional perspective, the recovery is as well quite broad based: production is expanding in almost every country, surprisingly and according to official data, including Greece.
Structural impediments still limit the ability of the euro area economy to grow strongly: firms and, in particular, private households are only slowly reducing their heavy debt burdens.
According to our forecasts, the euro area GDP will grow by 1.6% in 2015 and by 1.9% in 2016. The high increase in the number of refugees in 2015 will, in principle, positively affect private as well as public consumption, but the effect should be below 0.1 percentage points relative to GDP.
Our inflation forecast for 2015 is 0.1%. For 2016, we expect that inflation will increase to 1.3%, which is still below the ECB’s target of 2%.
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Global Food Prices and Business Cycle Dynamics in an Emerging Market Economy
Oliver Holtemöller, Sushanta Mallick
Abstract
This paper investigates a perception in the political debates as to what extent poor countries are affected by price movements in the global commodity markets. To test this perception, we use the case of India to establish in a standard SVAR model that global food prices influence aggregate prices and food prices in India. To further analyze these empirical results, we specify a small open economy New-Keynesian model including oil and food prices and estimate it using observed data over the period from 1996Q2 to 2013Q2 by applying Bayesian estimation techniques. The results suggest that big part of the variation in inflation in India is due to cost-push shocks and, mainly during the years 2008 and 2010, also to global food price shocks, after having controlled for exogenous rainfall shocks. We conclude that the inflationary supply shocks (cost-push, oil price, domestic food price and global food price shocks) are important contributors to inflation in India. Since the monetary authority responds to these supply shocks with a higher interest rate which tends to slow growth, this raises concerns about how such output losses can be prevented by reducing exposure to commodity price shocks and thereby achieve higher growth.
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The Political Determinants of Sovereign Bond Yield Spreads
Stefan Eichler
Journal of International Money and Finance,
Nr. 46,
2014
Abstract
This paper analyzes the political determinants of sovereign bond yield spreads using data for 27 emerging markets in the period 1996 to 2009. I find strong evidence that countries with parliamentary systems (as opposed to presidential regimes) and a low quality of governance face higher sovereign yield spreads, while the degree of democracy and elections play no significant role. A higher degree of political stability and the power to implement austerity measures significantly reduce sovereign yield spreads particularly in autocratic regimes, while no significant effect is detected for democratic countries. Overall, political determinants have a more pronounced impact on sovereign bond yield spreads in autocratic and closed regimes than in democratic and open countries.
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Sovereign Credit Risk, Banks' Government Support, and Bank Stock Returns around the World: Discussion of Correa, Lee, Sapriza, and Suarez
Reint E. Gropp
Journal of Money, Credit and Banking,
s1
2014
Abstract
In the years leading up to the 2008–09 financial crisis, many banks around the world greatly expanded their balance sheets to take advantage of cheap and abundantly available funding. Access to international funding markets, in particular, made it possible for banks to reach a size that in some cases was a large multiple of their home countries’ gross domestic product (GDP). In Iceland, for example, assets of the banking system reached up to 900% of GDP in 2007. Similarly, by the end of 2008, assets in UK and Swiss banks exceeded 500% of their countries’ GDPs, respectively. Banks may also have grown rapidly because they may have wanted to reach too-big-to-fail status in their country, implying even lower funding cost (Penas and Unal 2004).
The depth and severity of the 2008–09 financial crisis and the subsequent debt crisis in Europe, however, have cast doubts on the ability of governments to bail out banks when they experience severe difficulties, in particular, in financially fragile environments and faced with large budget imbalances. This has resulted in as what some observers have dubbed a “doom loop”: the combination of weak public finances and weak banks results in a vicious cycle, in which the funding cost of banks increases, as the ability of governments to bail out banks is called into question, in turn increasing the funding cost of these banks and making the likelihood that the government will actually have to step in even higher, which in turn increases funding cost to the government and so forth.
Against this background, the paper by Correa et al. (2014) explores the link between sovereign rating changes and bank stock returns. They show large negative reactions of stock returns in response to sovereign ratings downgrades for banks that are expected to receive government support in case of failure. They find the strongest effects in developed economies, where the credibility of government bail outs is higher ex ante, while the effects are smaller in developing and emerging economies. In my view, the paper makes a number of important contributions to the extant literature.
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The Impact of Institutional and Social Characteristics on Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from Japan
Stefan Eichler, Alexander Karmann, N. Lucke
Annals of Financial Economics,
Nr. 2,
2013
Abstract
We examine the determinants of Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) focusing on institutional and social factors. Using panel data on 59 countries from 1995 to 2008, we find that host countries with free and open markets and greater cultural distance from Japan attract Japanese FDI. Good institutions, such as a well-developed legal framework and an effective government, are important in promoting Japanese FDI to emerging economies, whereas fewer regulatory restrictions, lower tax burden, and more religious diversity attract Japanese FDI to developed countries. We find that corruption stimulates Japanese FDI to developed countries, which is contrary to most previous research.
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