Global imbalances and current account imbalances.

As the global economy gradually recovers from the severe recession, the possible risks of unsustainable global imbalances are receiving renewed attention. In assessing global imbalances, it is important to avoid excessively focusing on current account imbalances per se. Rather, the focus should be on the root causes of the imbalance and whether they may become sources of unsustainable financial imbalances. The recent financial crisis, as well as Japan’s past experience in the 1980s, highlight the importance of information which cannot necessarily be obtained from current account statistics. Unsustainable financial imbalances can be better captured through information such as the build-up of leverage, gross cross-border capital flows, risk pricing in financial markets, and the extent of currency and maturity mismatches in the financial system. Through careful assessment of such elements central banks and other authorities will be able to assess whether current account imbalances are a reflection of the build-up of domestic financial imbalances. In formulating macroeconomic policy, the traditional emphasis was to ensure domestic stability or to put one’s house in order. However, with the deepening of globalisation, the simple sum of each country’s policy action may not necessarily achieve an optimal outcome at the global level. It has become ever more important for countries to review the spillover effects of their policies which will also reverberate back to each country through economic and financial interlinkages.

The future of securitization

Securitization is a financial innovation that experiences a boom-bust cycle, as many other innovations before. This paper analyzes possible reasons for the breakdown of primary and secondary securitization markets, and argues that misaligned incentives along the value chain are the primary cause of the problems. The illiquidity of asset and interbank markets, in this view, is a market failure derived from ill-designed mechanisms of coordinating financial intermediaries and investors. Thus, illiquidity is closely related to the design of the financial chains. Our policy conclusions emphasize crisis prevention rather than crisis management, and the objective is to restore a “comprehensive incentive alignment”. The toe-hold for strengthening regulation is surprisingly small. First, we emphasize the importance of equity piece retention for the long-term quality of the underlying asset pool. As a consequence, equity piece allocation needs to be publicly known, alleviating market pricing. Second, on a micro level, accountability of managers can be improved by compensation packages aiming at long term incentives, and penalizing policies with destabilizing effects on financial markets. Third, on a macro level, increased transparency relating to effective risk transfer, risk-related management compensation, and credible measurement of rating performance stabilizes the valuation of financial assets and, hence, improves the solvency of financial intermediaries. Fourth, financial intermediaries, whose risk is opaque, may be subjected to higher capital requirements

The New Economy and the Challenges for Macroeconomic Policy

The accelerated introduction of information and communications technology into the economy has created numerous challenges for policymakers. This paper describes this New Economy and then proceeds to examine difficulties created for policymakers. The increased flexibility of the new economy argues against trying to use fiscal policy for stabilization and creates both immediate and long-term difficulties for monetary policy. Immediate difficulties concern the problems associated with estimating potential output when the productivity trend is shifting. During periods of transition, it is extremely difficult to distinguish permanent from transitory shifts in output growth, and adjust policy correctly. In the long-term, central banks must face the prospect of a significant decline in the demand for their liabilities, and a resulting loss of their primary interest rate policy instrument. The disappearance of the demand for central bank money for interbank settlement seems very unlikely, and so this concern seems unwarranted.

Varieties of liberalism: Anglo-Saxon capitalism in crisis?

‘Global financial crisis’ is an inaccurate description of the current upheaval in the world’s financial markets. The initial banking crisis did not affect all countries to the same degree. Notably, while the US and UK banking systems were badly hit, those of the other two major Anglo-Saxon economies, Canada and Australia, remain largely unscathed and have even gained in terms of global market share. The national business systems and comparative corporate governance literatures underscore the similarities among these four ‘liberal market economies’ (LMEs) and would predict similar trajectories. This paper investigates the reasons behind the differing performance of the Anglo-Saxon banking systems, which defy a verdict of failure of the LME variety of capitalism as such

SAFE: An early warning system for systemic banking risk

This paper builds on existing microprudential and macroprudential early warning systems (EWSs) to develop a new, hybrid class of models for systemic risk, incorporating the structural characteristics of the fi nancial system and a feedback amplification mechanism. The models explain fi nancial stress using both public and proprietary supervisory data from systemically important institutions, regressing institutional imbalances using an optimal lag method. The Systemic Assessment of Financial Environment (SAFE) EWS monitors microprudential information from the largest bank holding companies to anticipate the buildup of macroeconomic stresses in the financial markets. To mitigate inherent uncertainty, SAFE develops a set of medium-term forecasting specifi cations that gives policymakers enough time to take ex-ante policy action and a set of short-term forecasting specifications for verification and adjustment of supervisory actions. This paper highlights the application of these models to stress testing, scenario analysis, and policy.Systemic risk ; Liquidity (Economics)

Capital markets, CDFIs, and organizational credit risk

Can Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) get unlimited amounts of low cost, unsecured, short- and long-term funding from the capital markets based on their organizational credit risk? Can they get pricing, flexibility, and procedural parity with for-profit corporations of equivalent credit risk? One of the key objectives of this book is to explain the reasons why the answer to the two questions above remains “no.” The other two key objectives are to show the inner workings of what has been done to date to overcome the obstacles so that we don’t have to retrace the same steps and recommend additional disciplines that position CDFIs to take advantage of the mechanisms of the capital markets once the markets stabilize

A failure in the measurement of inflation: results from a hedonic and matched experiment using scanner data

Statistical offices use the matched models method to compile consumer price indices (CPIs) to measure inflation. The prices of a sample of models are recorded, and then price collectors visit the same stores each subsequent month to record the prices of the same matched sample of models. The matched models method is designed to control for quality changes. But new, unmatched models launched in subsequent months have their prices ignored as do old unmatched models no longer available. The paper uses retailer's bar-code scanner data on several consumer durables to show that serious sample degradation can take place and that the quality-adjusted prices of unmatched items differ from those of matched ones, leading to substantial underestimates of inflation. Hedonic indices use the whole sample. They are argued to be more useful to price measurement in markets with a rapid turnover of models in order to avoid the demonstrated bias. JEL Classification: C43, E43, O47Cost of living indices, Superlative index numbers

"Minskyan Perspective, Part II--Treasury, CRMPG Reports, Financial Stability Forum"

This four-part study is a critical analysis of several reports dealing with the reform of the financial system in the United States. The study uses Minsky's framework of analysis and focuses on the implications of Ponzi finance for regulatory and supervisory policies. The main conclusion of the study is that, while all reports make some valuable suggestions, they fail to deal with the socioeconomic dynamics that emerge during long periods of economic stability. As a consequence, it is highly doubtful that the principal suggestions contained in the reports will provide any applicable means to limit the worsening of financial fragility over periods of economic stability. The study also concludes that any meaningful systemic and prudential regulatory changes should focus on the analysis of expected and actual cash flows (sources and stability) rather than capital equity, and on preventing the emergence of Ponzi processes. The latter tend to emerge over long periods of economic stability and are not necessarily engineered by crooks. On the contrary, the pursuit of economic growth may involve the extensive use of Ponzi financial processes in legal economic activities. The study argues that some Ponzi processes--more precisely, pyramid Ponzi processes--should not be allowed to proceed, no matter how severe the immediate impact on economic growth, standards of living, or competitiveness. This is so because pyramid Ponzi processes always collapse, regardless how efficient financial markets are, how well informed and well behaved individuals are, or whether there is a "bubble" or not. The longer the process is allowed to proceed, the more destructive it becomes. Pyramid Ponzi processes cannot be risk-managed or buffered against; if economic growth is to be based on a solid financial foundation, these processes cannot be allowed to continue. Finally, a supervisory and regulatory process focused on detecting Ponzi processes would be much more flexible and adaptive, since it would not be preoccupied with either functional or product limits, or with arbitrary ratios of "prudence." Rather, it would oversee all financial institutions and all products, no matter how new or marginal they might be. See also, Working Paper Nos. 574.1, 574.3, and 574.4.

Approaches to monetary policy revisited - lessons from the crisis, 6th ECB Central Banking Conference, 18-19 November 2010

This volume contains a collection of papers, commentaries and speeches that review the strategic and operational decisions taken by the central banks to combat the crisis and that reflect on the lessons for the future. The contributions are grouped around five broad topics: monetary policy strategy, lessons from historical experiences, challenges for macroeconomic and finance theory, the international dimension of the crisis, and operational frameworks for monetary policy.monetary policy strategy, monetary policy operational framework