Crisis Transmission Research Articles

On Cross-Border Bank Credit and the U.S. Subprime Crisis Transmission to Equity Markets

This paper examines the role played by cross-border equity, bond and bank credit flows versus international trade in the transmission of the U.S. financial crisis to equity markets worldwide. We estimate vector autoregressive models with exogenous global factors using monthly data on 36 emerging and developed countries. The results from an eclectic methodology that includes causality tests, generalized impulse responses and forecast error variance decompositions indicate that the crisis is mostly transmitted through bank credit rather than portfolio flows and international trade. The results are robust to altering the exogenous versus endogenous vectors of variables, to measuring equity prices in U.S. dollars or local currency, to averaging the data across countries versus averaging the parameters from individual country estimation, and to redefining the start date of the crisis. The findings endorse the use of banking regulation and capital controls as part of the policy toolkit to limit financial vulnerability.

Global banking, global crises? The role of the bank balance-sheet channel for the transmission of financial crises

We examine whether shocks to leveraged creditors with cross border holdings have an incidence on debtor countries׳ risk of suffering financial turmoil. We construct a new proxy of shocks to international banks׳ balance-sheets using credit ratings and the structure of their international assets. This allows us investigating the effect of (foreign) bank balance-sheet shocks on domestic financial turmoil in a large sample of 146 developed and emerging economies from 1984 to 2011. Our proxies of shocks towards bank balance-sheets are strong predictors of systemic banking crises in their debtor countries. Confirming these results, bilateral bank flows significantly decrease when creditor banks׳ assets are hit by negative shocks, as measured by credit rating downgrades from third-party countries. Short-term liabilities towards global banks appear to increase roll-over and funding risks, thereby amplifying the impact of shocks to foreign lenders’ balance-sheets. Domestic banking sectors vulnerabilities, such as illiquid assets and a low deposit-asset ratio, are found to increase crisis contagion risk. In contrast, a high level of global liquidity attenuates the transmission of shocks to international banks׳ assets to debtor countries.

Contagion and banking crisis – International evidence for 2007–2009

Abstract Policy makers aim to avoid banking crises, and although they can to some extent control domestic conditions, internationally transmitted crises are difficult to tackle. This paper identifies international contagion in banking during the 2007–2009 crisis for 54 economies. We identify three channels of contagion – systematic, idiosyncratic and volatility – and find evidence for these in 45 countries. Banking crises are overwhelmingly associated with the presence of both systematic and idiosyncratic contagion. The results reveal that crisis shocks transmitted from a foreign jurisdiction via idiosyncratic contagion increase the likelihood of a systemic crisis in the domestic banking system by almost 37 percent, whereas increased exposure via systematic contagion does not necessarily destabilize the domestic banking system. Thus while policy makers and regulatory authorities are rightly concerned with the systematic transmission of banking crises, reducing the potential for idiosyncratic contagion can importantly reduce the consequences for the domestic economy.

Unveiling investor-induced channels of financial contagion in the 2008 financial crisis using copulas

Understanding how financial crises spread is important for policy-makers and regulators in order to take adequate measures to prevent or contain the spread of these crises. This paper will test whether there was contagion of the subprime financial crisis to the European stock markets of the NYSE Euronext group (Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Portugal) and, if evidence of contagion is found, it will determine the investor-induced channels through which the crisis propagated. We will use copula models for this purpose. After assessing whether there is evidence of financial contagion in the stock markets, we will examine whether the ‘wealth constraints’ transmission mechanism prevails over the ‘portfolio rebalancing’ channel. An additional test looks at the interaction between stock and bond markets during the crisis and allows us to determine if the transmission occurred due to the ‘cross market rebalancing’ channel or the ‘flying to quality’ phenomenon. The tests suggest that (i) financial contagion is present in all analyzed stock markets, (ii) a ‘portfolio rebalancing’ channel is the most important crisis transmission mechanism, (iii) and the ‘flight-to-quality’ phenomenon is also present in all analyzed stock markets.

A Wavelet - based Discussion on the Greek Stock Market Integration During the Last Decade

The current paper investigates how has been evolving the integration of the Greek stock market to the major world stock exchanges for a period spanning from the early 2000s till the middle of 2013. The idea of wavelet coherency is adopted in the analysis in order to identify linkages and co-movement patterns that are otherwise not that obvious. It is further investigated if the detected relationships are of short or of long-run character. Also particular attention is paid to the co-movement patterns during the period of the 2007-2009 financial crisis as well as during the period of the Eurozone debt crisis. In addition, conclusions on presence of contagion and transmission of crises are drawn.

Cross-border banking flows spillovers in the Eurozone: Evidence from an estimated DSGE model

This paper seeks to evaluate quantitatively how interbank and corporate cross-border flows shape business cycles in a monetary union. Using Bayesian techniques, we estimate a two-country DSGE model that distinguishes between Eurozone core and peripheral countries and accounts for national heterogeneities and a set of real, nominal and financial frictions. We find evidence of the key role of this cross-border channel as an amplifying mechanism in the diffusion of asymmetric shocks. Our model also reveals that under banking globalization, most national variables and the central bank interest rate are less sensitive to financial shocks while investment and current account imbalances are more sensitive to financial shocks. Finally, a counterfactual analysis shows that cross-border lending has affected the transmission of the recent financial crisis between the two groups of countries.

An investigation of systemic stress and interdependencies within the Eurozone and Euro Area countries

One of the most challenging issues that economists are dealing with is the investigation of the financial turmoil in Eurozone economies. Particularly, the issue of exposing the potential crisis transmission channels has attracted considerable interest. Aiming to contribute to this literature, we construct financial stress indices on a country level and explore further the potential inter-reactions between the root causes of systemic risk. The country-specific index consists of a wide number of series drawn from the money, equity and bond markets, as well as from the banking sector of each Eurozone country. A Euro Area stress index is also provided, exploring the evolution of financial conditions for this group of countries. The investigation of the potential transmission channels is implemented through a multivariate analysis and the corresponding impulse responses' dynamics. The empirical findings suggest that countries are mostly responsive to their own financial shocks, while a degree of regionalism is also evident. That is, the peripheral countries are more susceptible to their financial stress, while the same holds for the core Eurozone countries. Additionally, in contrast to common wisdom, financial conditions in Greece and Portugal do not seem to affect the rest of the Euro Area, at least in the degree that Italy and Ireland do. These results are consistent under alternative model and sample specifications.

The Global Crisis and Equity Market Contagion

We analyze the transmission of the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 to 415 country-industry equity portfolios. We use a factor model to predict crisis returns, defining unexplained increases in factor loadings and residual correlations as indicative of contagion. While we find evidence of contagion from the U.S. and the global financial sector, the effects are small. By contrast, there has been substantial contagion from domestic markets to individual domestic portfolios, with its severity inversely related to the quality of countries' economic fundamentals. This confirms the wake-up call hypothesis, with markets focusing more on country-specific characteristics during the crisis.

Hot money in bank credit flows to emerging markets during the banking globalization era

This paper investigates the relative importance of hot money in bank credit and portfolio flows from the US to 18 emerging markets over the period 1988–2012. We deploy state-space models à la Kalman filter to identify the unobserved hot money as the temporary component of each type of flow. The analysis reveals that the importance of hot money relative to the permanent component in bank credit flows has significantly increased during the 2000s relative to the 1990s. This finding is robust to controlling for the influence of push and pull factors in the two unobserved components. The evidence supports indirectly the view that global banks have played an important role in the transmission of the global financial crisis to emerging markets, and endorses the use of regulations to manage international capital flows.

Financial Stress and Economic Dynamics: The Transmission of Crises

A financial stress index for the United States is introduced JEL Classification: E44, C11, C32

Financial stress and economic dynamics: The transmission of crises

A financial stress index for the United States is introduced—one used by the staff of the Federal Reserve Board during the financial crisis of 2008–2009—and its׳ interaction with real activity, inflation and monetary policy is investigated using a Markov-switching VAR model, estimated with Bayesian methods. A “stress event” is defined as a period of adverse latent Markov states. Results show that time variation is statistically important, that stress events line up well with historical events, and that shifts to stress events are highly detrimental for the economy. Conventional monetary policy is shown to be weak during such periods.

The Transmission of the Financial Crisis in 1907: An Empirical Investigation

Using an extensive high-frequency data set, we investigate the transmission of financial crisis specifically focusing on the Panic of 1907, the final severe panic of the National Banking Era (1863-1913). We trace the transmission of the crisis from New York City trust companies to the New York City national banks through direct and indirect interconnections. Trust companies held cash balances at national banks, and these balances were liquidated as trust companies suffered depositor runs. Secondly, trust companies and national banks were notable creditors to the New York Stock Exchange; when trusts were suffering runs, the call loan market on the stock exchange seized. The crisis spread to the interior banks after the New York Clearing House banks restricted the convertibility of deposits into cash. Bond returns were sharply negative in the two weeks following the suspension. We highlight commonalities between the Panic of 1907 and the financial crisis of 2007-2009.

How effective are countercyclical policy tools in mitigating the impact of financial and economic crises in Africa?

Using panel vector auto regression (PVAR) and GMM estimates we provide evidence for the transmission of financial crises to African economies through foreign direct investments and exports. Although many countries resort to stimulus packages to mitigate the impacts of financial crises, we find no evidence for fiscal policy to be considered an effective countercyclical policy tool in the African context. Monetary policy could be an effective tool in mitigating the impact in non-resource rich SSA countries, but not in others. Limited policy space calls for African economies to reconsider their policies towards trade, investment, finance and macroeconomic management.

Transfer of Risk in Emerging Eastern European Stock Markets: A Sectoral Perspective

This paper studies the market integration of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic by utilizing the multivariate GARCH analysis of Engle and Kroner (1995) for which a BEKK representation is adopted. We investigate the transmission of the US subprime crisis across Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in a sectoral setting. In addition, we attempt to identify whether the three emerging Eastern European countries have become more integrated after their EU accessions in 2004, in a regional setting. Our results clearly indicate the existence of direct linkages between different stock market sectors with respect to returns and volatilities. We found that the transmission of equity shocks between markets has increased after the EU accession in 2004. Notably, the intra-industry contagion in emerging Europe has increased after this accession. Our findings have significant implications for asset pricing and portfolio selection for international financial institutions and financial managers.

Los países del tercer mundo frente a la crisis europea

El objetivo de este documento es determinar los canales de transmisión de la crisis europea hacia los países del Tercer Mundo. El trabajo examina la forma en que la crisis de la deuda soberana se propagó por el sector financiero, a través de la mayor volatilidad de la rentabilidad de los activos. Lo cual se debió a una mayor variación de sus precios, lo que tuvo efectos sobre el patrimonio neto de los agentes económicos, los ingresos, la demanda agregada y la asignación del crédito, así como también sobre la producción y el empleo. Para este documento se hizo búsqueda y selección de literatura especializada y se extrajeron estadísticas especializadas de la UNCTAD, CEPAL y OECD. Se concluye que la transmisión de la crisis europea al Tercer Mundo se dio por canales específicos conocidos, como el comercio internacional, la inversión extranjera directa, las remesas y la ayuda oficial para el desarrollo.

Are all financial crises created equal? Wholesale funding and two financial crises

We use financial information on banks from Asia, Europe, North America and Oceania to examine the role of wholesale funding on the transmission of financial crises to bank lending, as well as to study the response of financial institutions in different regions during the crises. We consider the role of wholesale funding during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and Asian Financial Crisis (AFC). Our results suggest that during the GFC, wholesale funding dependence had a negative effect on loans growth across regions, but with substantial regional heterogeneity. The growth of loans from financial institutions in Asia and Europe was consistently sensitive to wholesale funding dependence. Although wholesale funding did not play a significant role in the transmission mechanism of the AFC, a subsample of financial institutions in Asia, who depended more heavily on wholesale funding, experienced a faster loan growth and may have been able to better withstand the crisis.

Taming the herd? Foreign banks, the Vienna Initiative and crisis transmission

We use detailed data on over 350 banks in emerging Europe to analyze how bank ownership and the Vienna Initiative impacted credit growth during the Great Recession. As part of the Vienna Initiative, western European banks signed country-specific commitment letters in which they pledged to maintain exposures and to support their subsidiaries in emerging Europe. We show that while both domestic and foreign banks sharply curtailed credit during the financial crisis, foreign banks that participated in the Vienna Initiative were relatively stable lenders. We find no evidence of negative spillovers from countries where banks signed commitment letters to countries where they did not.

(Effects of Financial Integration on the Transmission of the Global Financial Crisis)

(Effects of Financial Integration on the Transmission of the Global Financial Crisis)

CURRENCY VERSUS BANKING IN THE FINANCIAL CRISIS OF 1931

During the 1920s, Germany was the world's largest capital importer, financing reparations through U.S. credits. We examine financial channels in crisis transmission between these two countries around the German financial crisis of 1931. We specify a structural dynamic factor model to identify financial and monetary factors separately for each of the two economies. We find substantial crisis transmission from Germany to the United States via the financial channel, while monetary or financial crisis transmission from the United States to Germany was weak. We also find major real effects of the 1931 crisis on both economies, again transmitted via the financial channel.

Transmission of the debt crisis: From EU15 to USA or vice versa? A GVAR approach

In this paper, we estimate a GVAR model in order to study the transmission of shocks between the EU15 and the USA economies, respectively, on a quarterly basis in the 2000 (Q1)–2011 (Q4) time span. Our work is based on the global variables of trade and credit which act as the transmission channels, whereas EU15 is being treated as a single economy. Our main finding is that a shock in the US Debt has significant and persistent results on the EU15 and US economies. In general, the EU15 economy seems to be more vulnerable to the various shocks while US Debt is found to affect significantly in the short run its EU15 counterpart.