Liquidity, financial crises and the lender of last resort – How much of a departure is the sub-prime crisis?

Liquidity risks are endemic to banks, given the maturity transformation they undertake. This gives rise to risk of bank runs, the first line of defence against which should be appropriate liquidity policy of banks. Nonetheless, solvent banks can face liquidity difficulties at times of stress, necessitating liquidity support. The traditional role of the lender of last resort (LOLR) is to avoid unnecessary failures that could threaten systemic stability, while ensuring that there are suitable safeguards for central bank balance sheets and that moral hazard is minimised. The sub-prime crisis has shown that traditional models of bank liquidity risk and of LOLR require revision, as was already apparent to a lesser extent in the Russia/LTCM episode. Funding risk now interacts with market liquidity risk, to create difficult challenges for central banks. The LOLR has had to adapt radically, for example, in terms of lending to investment banks, taking lower quality collateral and lending for longer maturities. Central banks have also been challenged by difficulties in maintaining confidentiality of support and by the interaction of these problems with low levels of deposit insurance

Information acquisition and financial contagion.

This paper incorporates costly voluntary acquisition of information à la Nikitin and Smith (2007) [Nikitin, M., Smith, R.T., 2007. Information acquisition, coordination, and fundamentals in a financial crisis. Journal of Banking and Finance, in press, doi:10.1016/j.jbankfin.2007.04.031], in a framework similar to Allen and Gale (2000) [Allen, F., Gale, D., 2000. Financial contagion. Journal of Political Economy 108, 1–33], without relying on any unexpected shock to model contagion. In this framework, contagion and financial crises are the result of information gathering by depositors, weak fundamentals and an incomplete market structure of banks. It also shows how financial systems entering a recession can affect others with apparently stronger economic conditions (contagion). Finally, this is the first paper to investigate the effectiveness of the Contingent Credit Line procedures, introduced by the IMF at the end of the nineties, as a mechanism to prevent the propagation of crises.Central Bank; Contingent credit line; Financial contagion; Fundamentals; Verification equilibrium;

Financial Institutions, Contagious Risks, and Financial Crises

In this paper contagious risks and financial crises are endogenized through the interactions among corporations, banks, and the interbank market. We show that the lack of financial discipline in a single-bank-financing economy generates informational problems and thus the malfunction of the interbank market, which constitutes a mechanism of financial contagion and may lead to a financial crisis. In contrast, financial discipline in an economy with diversified financial institutions leads to timely information disclosure from firms to banks and improves the informational environment of the interbank market. With symmetric information in the interbank market, bank runs are contained to insolvent banks and financial crises are prevented. Our theory sheds light on the causes and timing of the East Asian crisis; it also has important policy implications for the lender of last resort and banking reform.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39828/3/wp444.pd

An Analysis of Stability of Inter-bank Loan Network: A Simulated Network Approach

Research in the domain of Financial Contagion has come to the forefront in recent years. There has been a significant focus on this field since the recession of 2008. In this paper we take a look at simulation based modelling to stress test the stability of inter-bank loan networks of different structures. We look to analyze the effect of various parameters on the stability of these networks. We first simulate networks which are Homogeneous in nature. We then simulate a Heterogeneous (tiered) network. The model also introduces an endogenous loaning mechanism to imitate a more realistic inter bank loan market. We run simulations on these networks to gain a better understanding of the propagation of losses through the network. After studying the results of these simulations we come up with some interesting new insights about how parameters like connectivity and size of the network, effect a tiered intra-bank financial network. One of our key findings is that higher inter-tier connectivity is good for the stability of big banks but not so much for banks of smaller size

Liquidity matters: Evidence from the Russian interbank market

We suggest an additional transmission channel of contagion on the interbank market - the liquidity channel. Examining the Russian banking sector, we and that the liquidity channel contributes significantly to understanding and predicting interbank market crises. Interbank market stability Granger causes the interbank market structure, while the opposite causality is rejected. This bolsters the view that the interbank market structure is endogenous. The results corroborate the thesis that prudential regulation at the individual bank level is insufficient to prevent systemic crises. We demonstrate that liquidity injections of a classical lender of last resort can effectively mitigate coordination failures on the interbank market both in theory and practice. Apparently, liquidity does matter.interbank market stability; contagion; liquidity channel; lender of last resort; Russia

Systemic risk: A survey

This paper develops a broad concept of systemic risk, the basic economic concept for the understanding of financial crises. It is claimed that any such concept must integrate systemic events in banking and financial markets as well as in the related payment and settlement systems. At the heart of systemic risk are contagion effects, various forms of external effects. The concept also includes simultaneous financial instabilities following aggregate shocks. The quantitative literature on systemic risk, which was evolving swiftly in the last couple of years, is surveyed in the light of this concept. Various rigorous models of bank and payment system contagion have now been developed, although a general theoretical paradigm is still missing. Direct econometric tests of bank contagion effects seem to be mainly limited to the United States. Empirical studies of systemic risk in foreign exchange and security settlement systems appear to be non-existent. Moreover, the literature surveyed reflects the general difficulty to develop empirical tests that can make a clear distinction between contagion in the proper sense and joint crises caused by common shocks, rational revisions of depositor or investor expectations when information is asymmetric ('information-based' contagion) and 'pure' contagion as well as between 'efficient' and 'inefficient' systemic events. JEL Classification: G21, G29, G12, E49banking crises, Contagion, currency crises, financial markets, financial stability, payment and settlement systems, systemic risk