An Evaluation of Early Warning Models for Systemic Banking Crises: Does Machine Learning Improve Predictions?
Johannes Beutel, Sophia List, Gregor von Schweinitz
Abstract
This paper compares the out-of-sample predictive performance of different early warning models for systemic banking crises using a sample of advanced economies covering the past 45 years. We compare a benchmark logit approach to several machine learning approaches recently proposed in the literature. We find that while machine learning methods often attain a very high in-sample fit, they are outperformed by the logit approach in recursive out-of-sample evaluations. This result is robust to the choice of performance measure, crisis definition, preference parameter, and sample length, as well as to using different sets of variables and data transformations. Thus, our paper suggests that further enhancements to machine learning early warning models are needed before they are able to offer a substantial value-added for predicting systemic banking crises. Conventional logit models appear to use the available information already fairly effciently, and would for instance have been able to predict the 2007/2008 financial crisis out-of-sample for many countries. In line with economic intuition, these models identify credit expansions, asset price booms and external imbalances as key predictors of systemic banking crises.
Artikel Lesen
Too Connected to Fail? Inferring Network Ties from Price Co-movements
Jakob Bosma, Michael Koetter, Michael Wedow
Journal of Business and Economic Statistics,
Nr. 1,
2019
Abstract
We use extreme value theory methods to infer conventionally unobservable connections between financial institutions from joint extreme movements in credit default swap spreads and equity returns. Estimated pairwise co-crash probabilities identify significant connections among up to 186 financial institutions prior to the crisis of 2007/2008. Financial institutions that were very central prior to the crisis were more likely to be bailed out during the crisis or receive the status of systemically important institutions. This result remains intact also after controlling for indicators of too-big-to-fail concerns, systemic, systematic, and idiosyncratic risks. Both credit default swap (CDS)-based and equity-based connections are significant predictors of bailouts. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
Artikel Lesen
The Case for a European Rating Agency: Evidence from the Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis
Marc Altdörfer, Carlos A. De las Salas Vega, Andre Guettler, Gunter Löffler
Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money,
2019
Abstract
Politicians frequently voice that European bond issuers would benefit from the presence of a Europe-based rating agency. We take Fitch as a prototype for such an agency. With its ownership structure and a headquarter in London, Fitch is more European than Moody’s and S&P; during the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, it also issued more favorable ratings. Fitch’s rating actions, however, were largely ignored by the bond market. Our results thus cast doubt on the benefits of a European credit rating agency.
Artikel Lesen
On the Risk of a Sovereign Debt Crisis in Italy
Oliver Holtemöller, Tobias Knedlik, Axel Lindner
Intereconomics,
Nr. 6,
2018
Abstract
The intention for the Italian government to stimulate business activity via large increases in government spending is not in line with the stabilisation of the public debt ratio. Instead, if such policy were implemented, the risk of a sovereign debt crisis would be high. In this article, we analyse the capacity of the Italian economy to shoulder sovereign debt under different scenarios. We conclude that focusing on growth enhancing structural reforms, would allow for moderate increases in public expenditure.
Artikel Lesen
Accounting Quality in Banking: The Role of Regulatory Interventions
Manthos D. Delis, Iftekhar Hasan, Maria Iosifidi, Lingxiang Li
Journal of Banking and Finance,
2018
Abstract
Using the full sample of U.S. banks and hand-collected data on enforcement actions over 2000–2014, we analyze the role of these interventions in promoting several aspects of accounting quality. We find that enforcement actions issued for both risk-related and accounting-related reasons lead to significant improvements in accounting quality. This improvement is consistently found for earnings smoothing, big-bath accounting, timely recognition of future loan losses, the association of loan loss provisions with future loan charge offs, loss avoidance, and cash flow predictability and earnings persistence. Most of the effects are somewhat more potent in the crisis period and survive in several sensitivity tests. Our findings highlight the imperative role of regulatory interventions in promoting bank accounting quality.
Artikel Lesen
Avoiding the Fall into the Loop: Isolating the Transmission of Bank-to-Sovereign Distress in the Euro Area and its Drivers
Hannes Böhm, Stefan Eichler
Abstract
We isolate the direct bank-to-sovereign distress channel within the eurozone’s sovereign-bank-loop by exploiting the global, non-eurozone related variation in stock prices. We instrument banking sector stock returns in the eurozone with exposure-weighted stock market returns from non-eurozone countries and take further precautions to remove any eurozone crisis-related variation. We find that the transmission of instrumented bank distress, while economically relevant, is significantly smaller than the corresponding coefficient in the unadjusted OLS framework, confirming concerns on reverse causality and omitted variables in previous studies. Furthermore, we show that the spillover of bank distress is significantly stronger for countries with poorer macroeconomic performances, weaker financial sectors and financial regulation and during times of elevated political uncertainty.
Artikel Lesen
SMEs and Access to Bank Credit: Evidence on the Regional Propagation of the Financial Crisis in the UK
Hans Degryse, Kent Matthews, Tianshu Zhao
Journal of Financial Stability,
2018
Abstract
We study the sensitivity of banks’ credit supply to small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in the UK with respect to the banks’ financial condition before and during the financial crisis. Employing unique data on the geographical location of all bank branches in the UK, we connect firms’ access to bank credit to the financial condition (i.e., bank health and the use of core deposits) of all bank branches in the vicinity of the firm for the period 2004–2011. Before the crisis, banks’ local financial conditions did not influence credit availability irrespective of the functional distance (i.e., the distance between bank branch and bank headquarters). However, during the crisis, we find that SMEs with banks within their vicinity that have stronger financial conditions faced greater credit availability when the functional distance is close. Our results point to a “flight to headquarters” effect during the financial crisis.
Artikel Lesen
Housing Consumption and Macroprudential Policies in Europe: An Ex Ante Evaluation
Antonios Mavropoulos, Qizhou Xiong
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 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.
Artikel Lesen
On DSGE Models
Lawrence J. Christiano, Martin S. Eichenbaum, Mathias Trabandt
Journal of Economic Perspectives,
Nr. 3,
2018
Abstract
The outcome of any important macroeconomic policy change is the net effect of forces operating on different parts of the economy. A central challenge facing policymakers is how to assess the relative strength of those forces. Economists have a range of tools that can be used to make such assessments. Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models are the leading tool for making such assessments in an open and transparent manner. We review the state of mainstream DSGE models before the financial crisis and the Great Recession. We then describe how DSGE models are estimated and evaluated. We address the question of why DSGE modelers—like most other economists and policymakers—failed to predict the financial crisis and the Great Recession, and how DSGE modelers responded to the financial crisis and its aftermath. We discuss how current DSGE models are actually used by policymakers. We then provide a brief response to some criticisms of DSGE models, with special emphasis on criticism by Joseph Stiglitz, and offer some concluding remarks.
Artikel Lesen
Market Power and Risk: Evidence from the U.S. Mortgage Market
Carola Müller, Felix Noth
Economics Letters,
2018
Abstract
We use mortgage loan application data of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) to shed light on the role of banks’ market power on their presumably insufficient risk screening activities in the U.S. mortgage market in the pre-crisis era. We find that banks with higher market power protect their charter value. The effect is stronger for banks that have more information about local markets.
Artikel Lesen