Working Papers
2015
February 27, 2015
Central and Commercial Bank Balance Sheet Risk Before, During, and After the Global Financial Crisis
Description: This paper presents an overview of exposures in the balance sheets of central banks, banks, and other depository institutions during the past decade, with emphasis on asset growth and currency composition. It exploits the IMF’s SRF-based monetary data to show: (i) there was a widely observed buildup of assets prior to the global financial crisis, but there has been no significant reduction in its wake; (ii) the foreign currency composition of the balance sheets of banks and other depository institutions remained remarkably constant in spite of the crisis, significant changes in the composition of balance sheets, and globalization, and does not seem to have been significantly influenced by the behavior of exchange rates; and (iii) exposure to households increased prior to the crisis, but this increased risk was offset by increased capitalization.
February 27, 2015
Is Banks’ Home Bias Good or Bad for Public Debt Sustainability?
Description: Motivated by the recent increase in domestic banks’ holdings of domestic sovereign debt (i.e., home bias) in the European periphery, this paper analyzes implications of banks’ home bias for the sovereign’s debt sustainability. The main findings, based on a sample of advanced (AM) and emerging market (EM) economies, suggest that home bias generally reduces the cost of borrowing for AMs and EMs when debt levels are moderate to high. A worsening of market sentiments appears to dimish the favorable impact of home bias on cost of borrowing particularly for EMs. In addition, for AMs and EMs, higher home bias is associated with higher debt levels, and less responsive fiscal policy. The findings suggest that home bias indeed matters for debt sustainability: Home bias may provide fiscal breathing space, but delays in fiscal consolidation may actually delay problems until debt reaches dangerously high levels.
February 26, 2015
Are Foreign Banks a 'Safe Haven'? Evidence from Past Banking Crises
Description: The presence of foreign banks in emerging markets has increased markedly over the last two decades, raising questions about their potentially stabilizing or destabilizing role during times of financial distress. Most studies on this subject have focused on banks’ asset side (i.e., their lending behavior). This paper focuses on their liability side, studying the behavior of depositors vis-à-vis foreign banks. We rely on data from the banking crises in Argentina and Uruguay over the period 1994-2002 to conduct the study. The paper focuses on three questions; (i) are foreign banks perceived as a safe haven during bank runs?; (ii) does their legal structure (branch versus subsidiary) matter?; (iii) do perceptions depend on the nature of the crisis? Contrary to the commonly held view that foreign banks play a stabilizing role during domestic banking crises, we do not find robust evidence in this regard. Only in one (large) bank run episode, out of five studied, there is evidence of safe haven perceptions towards foreign branches.
February 26, 2015
Asia’s Quest for Inclusive Growth Revisited
Description: Despite the rapid economic growth and poverty reduction, inequality in Asia worsened during last two decades. We focus on the determinants of growth inclusiveness and suggest options for reform. A cross cross-country empirical analysis suggests that fiscal redistribution, monetary policy aimed at macro stability, and structural reforms to stimulate trade, reduce unemployment and increase productivity are important determinants of inclusive growth. The main policy implication of our analysis is that there is still room to strengthen such policies in Asia to better achieve growth with shared prosperity. In particular, scenario simulations based on our results suggests that the effect of expanding fiscal redistribution on inclusive growth could be sizeable in emerging Asia, since the estimated improvement in our proxy of inclusive growth – a measure of growth in average income “corrected” for the equity impact—ranges from about 1 to about 8 percentage points.
February 26, 2015
Are Islamic Banks More Resilient during Financial Panics?
Description: Rapid growth of Islamic banking in developing countries is accompanied with claims about its relative resilience to financial crises as compared to conventional banking. However, little empirical evidence is available to support such claims. Using data from Pakistan, where Islamic and conventional banks co-exist, we compare these banks during a financial panic. Our results show that Islamic bank branches are less prone to deposit withdrawals during financial panics, both unconditionally and after controlling for bank characteristics. The Islamic branches of banks that have both Islamic and conventional operations tend to attract (rather than lose) deposits during panics, which suggests a role for religious branding. We also find that Islamic bank branches grant more loans during financial panics and that their lending decisions are less sensitive to changes in deposits. Our findings suggest that greater financial inclusion of faith-based groups may enhance the stability of the banking system.
February 25, 2015
The Sources of Business Cycles in a Low Income Country
Description: We examine the role of global and domestic shocks in driving macroeconomic fluctuations for Ghana. We are able to study the impact of exogenous shocks including productivity, credit supply, and commodity price shocks. We identify the shocks with a combination of sign and recursive restrictions within Bayesian VAR models. As a benchmark we provide results for South Africa to document the difference between two economies with similar structures but different levels of development. We find that global shocks play a more dominant role in South Africa than in Ghana. These shocks operate through three channels: trade, credit and commodity prices.
February 25, 2015
A Phillips Curve with Anchored Expectations and Short-Term Unemployment
Description: This paper examines the recent behavior of core inflation in the United States. We specify a simple Phillips curve based on the assumptions that inflation expectations are fully anchored at the Federal Reserve’s target, and that labor-market slack is captured by the level of shortterm unemployment. This equation explains inflation behavior since 2000, including the failure of high total unemployment since 2008 to reduce inflation greatly. The fit of our equation is especially good when we measure core inflation with the Cleveland Fed’s series on weighted median inflation. We also propose a more general Phillips curve in which core inflation depends on short-term unemployment and on expected inflation as measured by the Survey of Professional Forecasters. This specification fits U.S. inflation since 1985, including both the anchored-expectations period of the 2000s and the preceding period when expectations were determined by past levels of inflation.
February 25, 2015
Financial Decisions and Investment Outcomes in Developing Countries: The Role of Institutions
Description: This paper analyzes how differences in legal origin, judicial efficiency, and investor protection affect firm leverage and earnings volatility across developing countries. Using a large number of developing countries, four main findings are highlighted. First, firms in civil legal origin countries rely more on debt financing compared to firms in common law countries, and they exhibit lower earnings volatility. Second, under weak judicial enforcement, firms tend to borrow more but they take less risk. Third, stronger creditor rights increase debt financing and reduce earnings volatility. Fourth, firm listing on a developed stock exchange shifts the capital structure towards more equity financing, and it increases the firm’s ability to borrow more when the judicial system is inefficient. The results reinforce the importance of strengthening laws and institutions as well as deepening capital markets in developing countries to improve financing conditions and investment outcomes.
February 25, 2015
Value of WTO Trade Agreements in a New Keynesian Model
Description: We revisit the question of the quantitative benefits of WTO trade agreements in a setup that is non-standard from the traditional trade policy point of view. We show that in a New Keynesian model, unilateral trade liberalization reduces welfare due to terms-of-trade deterioration, creating an incentive for a trade agreement. For realistic parameter values, the value of an agreement, which cuts tariffs by one percentage point, is 0.5% to 2% of consumption, much larger than in trade models. The intuition for this result hinges on some New Keynesian features of our framework, such as imperfect competition and endogenous labor supply.
February 23, 2015
Private Sector Deleveraging and Growth Following Busts
Description: Balance sheet recessions have been a drag on activity after the Global Financial Crisis, underscoring the important role of balance sheet adjustment for resuming sustained growth. In this paper we examine private sector deleveraging experiences across 36 advanced and emerging economies countries since 1960. We consider the common features and divergent experiences of deleveraging episodes across countries, and analyze empirically the impact of different aspects of deleveraging during the bust phase of leverage cycles on subsequent medium-term growth. The results suggest that larger and quicker unwinding of non-financial sector debt overhangs is associated with sizable medium-term output gains, and that policies should focus on facilitating up-front balance sheet adjustment.