Low Interest Rate Environment Research Articles

Return smoothing in life insurance from a client perspective

Participating (or with-profit) life insurance contracts play an important role in private old-age provision in many countries. Life insurers pool the assets and liabilities of a heterogeneous portfolio of such contracts and typically perform some return smoothing in the collective investment. Participating contracts were historically equipped with a cliquet-style (year-to-year) guarantee. The current low interest rate environment and regulatory requirements have forced life insurers to develop new product designs with lower and/or different types of guarantees. However, observed demand as well as the findings of several studies show that (year-to-year) guarantees are (subjectively) highly attractive for long-term investors. In this paper, we show that return smoothing alone (that is, without guarantees) can significantly increase the attractiveness for such investors. Most importantly, we show that many (loss averse) long-term investors will even prefer products without guarantee but with smoothed returns over other products with guarantee features. The results hold for long-term investors who not only consider the terminal value but at least partially also evaluate potential annual changes in the account value (even if such changes only have a rather low impact on the decision). Additionally, we show that the descriptive model used in this paper is able to explain the popularity of traditional participating life insurance products in Germany providing further evidence that long-term investors consider potential annual value chances already when making the investment decision.

A collective investment problem in a stochastic volatility environment: The impact of sharing rules

It is typical in collectively administered pension funds that employees delegate fund managers to invest their contributions. In addition, many pension funds still need to sustain guarantees (prescribed by law) in spite of the current low interest environment. In this paper, we consider an optimal collective investment problem for a pool of investors who (implicitly) demand minimum guarantees by deriving utility from the wealth exceeding their guarantees in two financial market settings, one with a stochastic and one with a constant volatility. We find that individual investors’ well-being will not be worsened through the collective investment in both financial markets, as individual optimal solutions are attainable if a financially fair state-dependent sharing rule is applied. When more prevailing sharing rules like linear rules are applied, this holds no longer. Furthermore, the degree of sub-optimality imposed by linear sharing rules is more pronounced in the stochastic volatility market than in the constant volatility market.

Household Wealth: Low-Yielding and Poorly Structured?

In this paper, we present a newly generated data set on real returns of households’ aggregated asset holdings, which adds additional and more sophisticated information to existing relevant datasets in the literature. To do this, we draw on various datasets from public and private sources and then transform and combine them in a consistent manner that allows for international comparative and intertemporal analyses. Based on this, we address two current debates on the development of household wealth in the euro area that have been triggered by the low-interest environment. The first debate refers to the development of real yields on household wealth from 2000 to 2018, whereas the second debate deals with the mean-variance efficiency of household portfolios. Contrary to widespread belief, we find that yields on total wealth, which were largely dominated by non-financial assets’ yields, were mostly positive, although they exhibit a declining trend. Moreover, on average, overall real yields were significantly lower after 2008. Referring to portfolio efficiency, we find that current portfolios seem to be comparatively close to mean-variance efficiency. If households were to optimize their portfolios despite limited room for improvement, holdings of equity and investment fund shares should be reduced, contradicting common recommendations of financial advisors.

Financial institutions and developing countries’ debt cancellations: How to get rid of moral hazard?

The purpose of the paper is to shed light on the looming risk of developing country debt defaults for financial institutions in the wake of the pandemic crisis. There are mounting calls to delink debt relief and conditions on developing countries so that debt cancellations should be delivered immediately without performance criteria or record of accomplishment. To date, however, debt cancellations have not sufficiently distinguished developing country beneficiaries according to their performance in sustainable development policies, neither have cancellations taken into account commitments towards improved governance trajectories, despite the requirements of poverty reduction programmes involving civil society. International financial institutions thus face the risk of large write-offs at a time of portfolio fragility due to an environment of low interest rates, meager profitability and weak economic growth. This paper argues that much of the resistance of private creditors comes from deeply rooted skepticism as to whether debt relief and write-offs lead to sustained improvement in creditworthiness. Accordingly, prudent risk management requires resisting calls for blanket debt relief when there is little scope for improved governance. Financial institutions should insist on strict criteria regarding inclusive development policies. As new legislation to facilitate debt-restructuring agreements, likely at the expense of private financial institutions, is currently being discussed, the insistence on ‘fair burden sharing’ between official and private creditors should be a wake-up call for banks. A range of financial risk management instruments could link debt relief with enhanced governance commitments, including debt swaps, recapture clauses and the monitored recycling of debt-servicing relief into high-priority projects. The pandemic crisis provides financial institutions with an opportunity to transform debt relief into a leverage for improving sustainable development prospects, hence better creditworthiness.

Response of Mexican life and non-life insurers to the low interest rate environment.

The purpose of this research is to examine whether insurers have improved their economic performance through efficiency as a reaction to the prolonged period of low interest rates. The results of an analysis of 22 years of data, using a two-stage data envelopment analysis approach (DEA), show that there is an inverse relationship between efficiency and interest rate. The non-life insurance group had a superior level of efficiency compared with that of the life insurance group. It seems that life insurance companies, to some extent, transferred their inefficiency to customers to maintain their solvency. Additionally, this research shows that companies with substantial market power and bancassurance exceeded the performance of the rest of the industry.

The behavior of exchange rate and stock returns in high and low interest rate environments

In this paper, we contribute to the literature in the following ways. First, we test whether stock returns respond differently to exchange rates in high and low interest rate environments. Second, we further probe into possible asymmetric effects of appreciation and depreciation on stock returns. Third, we examine the role of extreme (negative) low interest rate in the nexus among the low interest rate economies. Using panel data procedures that account for the salient features of the relevant variables, the following are discernible from the analyses. First, we establish contrasting evidence between low and high interest rate environments in relation to short run & long run results. Second, we find that the low interest rate group exhibits long run positive nexus while the high interest rate counterpart predominantly reveals short run negative nexus. Third, we show that all these outcomes remain true whether or not we account for the roles of macroeconomic factors including interest rate, inflation, and global oil price and alternative data frequency. Some insightful implications of our findings are highlighted and we do hope that investors and policy makers will find the results useful for decision making purpose.

Interest rate risk in the banking book – is the SSM’s regulatory approach tight enough?

Abstract The current low interest rate environment is an unprecedented situation for the European banking union’s single supervisory mechanism (SSM) in that it increases interest rate risk in the banking book (IRRBB) for euro area banks. Sudden upward movements in rates threaten the economic value of bank equity, and persistently high interest rates can lead to lower bank earnings. These risks point to the need for a comprehensive supervisory approach to regulating IRRBB. Given the extraordinary circumstances and high levels of IRRBB which banks are and will be exposed to, we evaluate whether the SSM’s regulatory approach is tight enough. Specifically, we assess the adequacy of the supervisory outlier tests by performing an empirical analysis on historical interest rate changes and discussing whether the earnings perspective should be included in the supervisory outlier tests. Furthermore, we consider the minimum capital requirements for IRRBB against the background of the current low interest rates. Overall, we conclude that the current SSM’s approach on IRRBB is not tight enough. While we confirm the adequacy of the existing supervisory outlier tests, we recommend complementing them with outlier tests regarding the net interest income of banks. We further recommend implementing a standardised approach for calculating minimum capital requirements to improve banks’ resilience against IRRBB.

Stock returns and interest rate differential in high and low interest rate environments

AbstractIn this study, we contribute to the literature in three ways. First, we test whether the response of stock returns to interest rate differential contrasts between high and low interest rate environments. Second, we further test whether positive and negative interest rate differentials impact differently on stock returns. For completeness, we examine the role of negative interest rate policy in the nexus by testing whether the response of stock returns to interest rate differential varies between negative and positive low interest rate environments. The third objective becomes necessary as negative interest rate may not necessarily translate into negative interest rate differential and vice versa. Using panel data methods that allow for nonstationarity, mixed order of integration and cross‐sectional heterogeneity in the estimation process, we find contrasting evidence between the two interest rate environments. While the relationship is negative for the low interest rate economies, a positive sign is observed for the high interest rate group. The ‘asymmetry’ effect in the relationship is only evident in the short run and in addition interest rate differential tends to improve stock returns in negative interest rate environment albeit in the short run. We also find contrasting evidence between the positive and negative low interest rates where the nexus remains negative for the positive (low) interest rate group and positive nexus for negative (low) interest rate category.

Interest Rate Risk in the Banking Book - Is the SSM's Regulatory Approach Tight Enough?

The current low interest rate environment is an unprecedented situation for the European banking union’s single supervisory mechanism (SSM) in that it increases interest rate risk in the banking book (IRRBB) for euro area banks. Sudden upward movements in rates threaten the economic value of bank equity, and persistently high interest rates can lead to lower bank earnings. These risks point to the need for a comprehensive supervisory approach to regulating IRRBB. Given the extraordinary circumstances and high levels of IRRBB which banks are and will be exposed to, we evaluate whether the SSM’s regulatory approach is tight enough. Specifically, we assess the adequacy of the supervisory outlier tests by performing an empirical analysis on historical interest rate changes and discussing whether the earnings perspective should be included in the supervisory outlier tests. Furthermore, we consider the minimum capital requirements for IRRBB against the background of the current low interest rates. Overall, we conclude that the current SSM’s approach on IRRBB is not tight enough. While we confirm the adequacy of the existing supervisory outlier tests, we recommend complementing them with outlier tests regarding the net interest income of banks. We further recommend implementing a standardised approach for calculating minimum capital requirements to improve banks’ resilience against IRRBB.

Dynamic Banking and the Value of Deposits

We propose a dynamic theory of banking where the role of deposits is akin to that of productive capital in the classical q-theory of investment. As a cheap source of leverage, deposits typically create value for banks, but the marginal q of deposits can be negative. Deposit accounts commit banks to accept any inflows and outflows, so that banks cannot perfectly control leverage. Such uncertainty destroys value when banks have insufficient equity capital to buffer shocks. Our model lends itself to a re-evaluation of leverage regulations and offers new perspectives on banking in a low interest-rate environment.

State-Diaspora Relations: A Capital Markets Perspective through the Naya Pakistan Certificate (NPC)

The aim of this paper is to contextualize the economic importance of the Pakistani diaspora through the lens of the newly promised Naya Pakistan Certificates (NPCs), which are high-yield fixed-income investments targeted at overseas Pakistanis as a means of spurring domestic development through the proactive participation of the diaspora. The paper highlights key limitations in the approach behind NPCs, arguing that such high and discriminatory rates in a global low-interest rate environment with fewer opportunities for quick domestic deployment of capital indicates that the diaspora is indeed being “fetishized” as a driver of development. This helps inform state-diaspora relations through a capital markets perspective.

Assessing Trends and Risks of US Dollar Corporate Bonds in the EMEAP Region

The USD non-financial corporate debt in the EMEAP economies has been growing rapidly since the outbreak of Global Financial Crisis (GFC). However, bonds in the region have shown deterioration in overall quality and increasing issuance of short-term bonds. These may expose firms to higher rollover risks, especially during stress periods. Our empirical analysis confirms the importance of rollover risk in driving up the default risk of non-financial corporates after controlling financial characteristics of individual firms and country risk factor. The results also show that the risks during periods of financial distress are mainly found in emerging market economies (EMs) of the region. We also find that within the investment grade (IG) universe, BBB rated bonds, which are subject to greater fallen angel risks and account for a higher share of IG bonds after the GFC, would be exposed to higher default risk due to the elevated rollover risks. Our findings have three financial stability implications. First, while the low interest rate environment may provide breathing space for corporates, the accumulation of debts may raise concerns about the debt sustainability problem of corporates in the region. Second, the increasing reliance on shorter maturity bonds may expose firms systemically to a sharp rise in funding cost and rollover risks should US monetary policy tighten. Third, EMs, particularly those with weaker economic fundamentals should stay vigilant to the increasing exposures of their corporate sector to USD bonds and the potential currency mismatch problem, as these vulnerabilities could rise sharply if their economies are under stress.

Monetary Policy Rules and the Effective Lower Bound in the Euro Area

We analyze the economic performance of different monetary policy strategies, or rules, in a low interest rate environment, using simulations with a DSGE model which has been estimated for the euro area. We study how often the effective lower bound of interest rates (ELB) is likely to bind, and how much forgone monetary policy accommodation this entails. Macroeconomic outcomes are measured by the mean levels and the volatility of output (gaps), unemployment and inflation. We present three sets of results. First, the macroeconomic costs of the ELB are likely to grow in a non-linear manner if the monetary policy space (the difference between the normal, or average, level of nominal interest rates and the ELB) shrinks. Second, a point inflation target appears to outperform a target range. Third, the (relative) performance of low-for-long (L4L) monetary policy rules depends on the size of the monetary policy space. The L4L rules tend to perform well, if the monetary space is small, but if the space is larger these rules, while stabilizing inflation, may lead to more volatility in the real economy than flexible inflation targeting.

Employment and the Conduct of Monetary Policy in the Euro Area

This report discusses the role of the European Union’s full employment objective in the conduct of the ECB’s monetary policy. It first reviews a range of indicators of full employment, highlights the heterogeneity of labour market outcomes within different groups in the population and across countries, and documents the flatness of the Phillips curve in the euro area. In this context, it is stressed that labour market structures and trend labour market outcomes are primarily determined by national economic policies. The report then recalls that, in many circumstances, inflation and employment move together and pursuing price stability is conducive to supporting employment. However, in response to economic shocks that give rise to a temporary trade-off between employment and inflation stabilisation, the ECB’s medium-term orientation in pursuing price stability is shown to provide flexibility to contribute to the achievement of the EU’s full employment objective. Regarding the conduct of monetary policy in a low interest rate environment, model-based simulations suggest that history-dependent policy approaches − which have been proposed to overcome lasting shortfalls of inflation due to the effective lower bound on nominal interest rates by a more persistent policy response to disinflationary shocks − can help to bring employment closer to full employment, even though their effectiveness depends on the strength of the postulated expectations channels. Finally, the importance of employment income and wealth inequality in the transmission of monetary policy strengthens the case for more persistent or forceful easing policies (in pursuit of price stability) when interest rates are constrained by their lower bound.

Income inequality, mortgage debt and house prices

This paper studies housing and credit market implications of increasing income inequality and discusses how a low interest rate environment can alter its consequences. I develop an analytical general equilibrium model with a novel borrower risk composition channel of income inequality. Following a rise in income inequality house prices and mortgage debt decline, and aggregate default risk increases. I then show that low real rates mitigate the depressing effect of inequality on house prices at the cost of amplifying the aggregate default risk. Using a panel of US states and instrumental variables approach, I verify the model’s predictions.

Alternative investments in the Fintech era: The risk and return of Non-Fungible Token (NFT)

We utilize one of the earliest and largest NFT collections to investigate the pricing and the risk-return profile of NFTs. In general, we find that NFTs have higher returns than traditional financial assets. Yet, investing in NFTs comes along with extremely high volatility. The average monthly returns on NFTs range from 6.10% to 44.11%. But their standard deviations fluctuate between 44.35% and 74.57%, leading to a Sharpe ratio comparable to the NASDAQ index. NFT prices surge when there is a drastic increase in demand for alternative investments and a search for yield, especially in a low interest rate environment. We also find that the pricing of NFT largely depends on a token’s scarceness and an investor’s aesthetic preference. Hence, conventional asset-pricing models are unlikely to explain NFT returns. Overall, we provide the first comprehensive analysis that NFTs serve as a novel investment vessel in this Fintech era.

Monetary Policy in a Low Interest Rate Environment: Reversal Rate and Risk-Taking

This paper develops a simple analytical framework to study the impact of central bank policy-rate changes on banks’ credit supply and risk-taking incentives. Unobservable expost bank monitoring of loans creates an external-financing constraint, which determines bank leverage. Unobservable, costly ex-ante screening of borrowers determines the level of bank risk-taking. More risk-taking tightens the external-financing constraint. The policy rate affects the external-financing constraint because it affects both the return on outside investors’ alternative investments and loan rates. In a low rate environment, a policy-rate cut reduces bank funding costs less because of a zero lower bound (ZLB) on retail deposit rates. Bank risk-taking is a necessary but not sufficient for a policy-rate cut to become contractionary (reversal). Reversal can occur even though banks’ net-interest margins increase. Credit market competition plays an important role for the interplay of monetary policy and financing stability. When banks have market power, a policy-rate cut can increase lending and still lead to risk-taking. We use our analytical framework to discuss the literature on how monetary policy affects the credit supply of banks, with special emphasis on low and negative rates. JEL Classification: E44, E52, E58, G20, G21

Macroeconomic Reversal Rate in a Low Interest Rate Environment

Macroeconomic Reversal Rate in a Low Interest Rate Environment

When Companies Don't Die: Analyzing Zombie and Distressed Firms in a Low Interest Rate Environment

We analyze the phenomenon of zombification in Europe and show that monetary policy alone is not its only driver. Concurring phenomena explain zombie and distressed firms’ prevalence. Using Compustat data on public firms, we find that a rise in short-term interest rates is associated with a decrease in zombie status, suggesting that low rates constitute a favorable environment for zombie firms; there is no evidence of credit misallocation within the ECB’s Corporate Sector Purchase Program; and that a decrease in inflation and a lower state of the business cycle is associated with a rise in zombie prevalence.

When Companies Don't Die: Analyzing Zombie and Distressed Firms in a Low Interest Rate Environment

When Companies Don't Die: Analyzing Zombie and Distressed Firms in a Low Interest Rate Environment