A Macroeconomist’s View on EU Governance Reform: Why and How to Establish Policy Coordination?
Hubert Gabrisch
Economic Annals,
Nr. 191,
2011
Abstract
This paper discusses the need for macroeconomic policy coordination in the E(M)U. Coordination of national policies with cross-border effects does not exist at the macroeconomic level, although requested by the EU Treaty. The need for coordination stems from current account imbalances, which origin in market-induced capital flows, destabilizing the real exchange rates between low and high wage countries. The recent attempts of the Commission and the European Council to reform E(M)U governance do not address this problem and thus remain incapable to protect against future instability.
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Transmission of Nominal Exchange Rate Changes to Export Prices and Trade Flows and Implications for Exchange Rate Policy
Mathias Hoffmann, Oliver Holtemöller
Scandinavian Journal of Economics,
2010
Abstract
We discuss how the welfare ranking of fixed and flexible exchange rate regimes in a New Open Economy Macroeconomics model depends on the interplay between the degree of exchange rate pass-through and the elasticity of substitution between home and foreign goods. We identify combinations of these two parameters for which flexible and fixed exchange rates are superior with respect to welfare as measured by a representative household's utility level. We estimate the two parameters for six non-EMU European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, and the UK) using a heterogeneous dynamic panel approach.
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Cross-border Diversification in Bank Asset Portfolios
Claudia M. Buch, J.C. Driscoll, C. Ostergaard
International Finance,
im Erscheinen
Abstract
We compute optimally diversified international asset portfolios for banks located in France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States using the mean–variance portfolio model with currency hedging. We compare these benchmark portfolios with the actual cross-border asset positions of banks from 1995 to 2003 and ask whether the differences are best explained by regulations, institutions, cultural conditions or other financial frictions. Our results suggest that both culture and regulations affect the probability of a country's being overweighted in banks' portfolios: countries whose residents score higher on a survey measure of trust are more likely to be overweighted, while countries that have tighter capital controls are less likely to be overweighted. From a policy standpoint, the importance of culture suggests a limit to the degree of financial integration that may be achievable by the removal of formal economic barriers.
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Money and Inflation: The Role of Persistent Velocity Movements
Makram El-Shagi, Sebastian Giesen
Abstract
While the long run relation between money and inflation is well established, empirical evidence on the adjustment to the long run equilibrium is very heterogeneous. In the present paper we use a multivariate state space framework, that substantially expands the traditional vector error correction approach, to analyze the short run impact of money on prices. We contribute to the literature in three ways: First, we distinguish changes in velocity of money that are due to institutional developments and thus do not induce inflationary pressure, and changes that reflect transitory movements in money demand. This is achieved with a newly developed multivariate unobserved components decomposition. Second, we analyze whether the high volatility of the transmission from monetary pressure to inflation follows some structure, i.e., if the parameter regime can assumed to be constant. Finally, we use our model to illustrate the consequences of the monetary policy of the Fed that has been employed to mitigate the impact of the financial crisis, simulating different exit strategy scenarios.
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Transmission of Nominal Exchange Rate Changes to Export Prices and Trade Flows and Implications for Exchange Rate Policy
Oliver Holtemöller, Mathias Hoffmann
Deutsche Bundesbank Discussion Paper 21/2009,
2009
Abstract
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Cross-border Banking and Transmission Mechanisms in Europe: Evidence from German Data
Claudia M. Buch
Applied Financial Economics,
Nr. 16,
2004
Abstract
International activities of commercial banks play a potential role for the transmission of shocks across countries. This paper presents stylized facts of the integration of European banking markets and analyses the potential of banks to transmit shocks across countries. Although the openness of banking systems has increased, bilateral financial linkages among EU countries are relatively small. The exceptions are claims of German banks on a number of smaller countries. These data are used for an analysis of the determinants of cross-border lending patterns.
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The Impact of Technology and Regulation on the Geographical Scope of Banking
Hans Degryse, Steven Ongena
Oxford Review of Economic Policy,
Nr. 4,
2004
Abstract
We review how technological advances and changes in regulation may shape the (future) geographical scope of banking. We first review how both physical distance and the presence of borders currently affect bank lending conditions (loan pricing and credit availability) and market presence (branching and servicing). Next we discuss how technology and regulation have altered this impact and analyse the current state of the European banking sector. We discuss both theoretical contributions and empirical work and highlight open questions along the way. We draw three main lessons from the current theoretical and empirical literature: (i) bank lending to small businesses in Europe may be characterized both by (local) spatial pricing and resilient (regional and/or national) market segmentation; (ii) because of informational asymmetries in the retail market, bank mergers and acquisitions seem the optimal route of entering another market, long before cross-border servicing or direct entry are economically feasible; and (iii) current technological and regulatory developments may, to a large extent, remain impotent in further dismantling the various residual but mutually reinforcing frictions in the retail banking markets in Europe. We conclude the paper by offering pertinent policy recommendations based on these three lessons.
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Cross-border bank mergers: What lures the rare animal?
Claudia M. Buch, G. DeLong
Journal of Banking and Finance,
Nr. 9,
2004
Abstract
Although domestic mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the financial services industry have increased steadily over the past two decades, international M&As were until recently relatively rare. Moreover, the share of cross-border mergers in the banking industry is low compared with other industries. This paper uses a novel dataset of over 3000 mergers that took place between 1985 and 2001 to analyze the determinants of international bank mergers. We test the extent to which information costs and regulations hold back merger activity. Our results suggest that information costs significantly impede cross-border bank mergers. Regulations also influence cross-border bank merger activity. Hence, policy makers can create environments that encourage cross-border activity, but information cost barriers must be overcome even in (legally) integrated markets.
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The Contestable Markets Theory - Efficient Advice for Economic Policy
Christian Growitsch, Thomas Wein
Externe Publikationen,
2004
Abstract
During the nineties of the last century several formerly monopolistic markets (telecommunication, electricity, gas, and railway) have been deregulated in Germany based on European directives and theoretically inspired by the theory of contestable markets. The original contestable market theory implied three assumptions necessary to be satisfied to establish potential competition: Free market entry, market exit possible without any costs, and the price adjustment lag exceeding the entry lag. Our analysis shows that if the incumbent reduces its prices slowly (high adjustment lag) and the market entry can be performed quickly (low entry lag), a new competitor will be able to earn back sunk costs. Therefore it is not necessary that all three conditions be complied with for potential competition to exist. Applying this „revised“ contestable market theory to the deregulated sectors in Germany, natural monopolies can be identified in telecommunication sections local loops and local/regional connection networks, in the national electricity grid and the regional/local electricity distribution networks, in the national and regional/local gas transmission/distribution sections, and in the railroad network. These sections are not contestable due to sunk costs, expected high entry lags and a probably short price adjustment lag. They are identified as bottlenecks, which should be regulated. The function of system operators in energy and railroad are closely related to the non-contestable monopolistic networks.
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Bank Concentration and Retail Interest Rates
S. Corvoisier, Reint E. Gropp
Journal of Banking and Finance,
Nr. 11,
2002
Abstract
The recent wave of mergers in the euro area raises the question whether the increase in concentration has offset the increase in competition in European banking through deregulation. We test this question by estimating a simple Cournot model of bank pricing. We construct country and product specific measures of bank concentration and find that for loans and demand deposits increasing concentration may have resulted in less competitive pricing by banks, whereas for savings and time deposits, the model is rejected, suggesting increases in contestability and/or efficiency in these markets. Finally, the paper discusses some implications for tests of the effect of concentration on monetary policy transmission.
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