Hot Money Inflows in China : How the People's Bank of China Took up the Challenge

This paper investigates hot money inflows in China. The financial liberalization comes into effect and the effectiveness of capital controls tends to diminish over time. As a result, China is fuelled by hot money inflows. The US interest rate cut since 2001 and expectations of exchange rate adjustments are the main factors explaining these capital inflows. This study use the Bernanke and Blinder (1988) model extended to an open economy to examine implications of hot money inflows for the Chinese economy. A Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) on monthly data from March 1995 to March 2005 is estimated to investigate the recent upsurge in foreign reserves and shows that the interaction between domestic credit and foreign reserves was stable and consistent with monetary stability. Granger causality tests are implemented to show how the People's Bank of China (PBC) achieved this result.Hot money inflows, domestic credit, VECM, Granger causality.

Bank excess reserves in emerging economies: a critical review and research agenda

This paper reviews academic studies of excess reserves in the banking system of emerging economies from 2000 to 2014. While excess reserves in emerging countries have attracted increasing attention from scholars, virtually no work has reviewed and synthesised the extant knowledge. This paper takes the necessary step of consolidating and integrating the past literature on emerging country excess reserves. Focusing on articles published in major scholarly journals, we classify the existing literature on excess reserves into three broad taxonomies, namely excess liquidity sources, excess liquidity's effects, and the response policies of central banks of emerging countries. Achievements within each of the three research areas are reviewed, critical gaps identified, and recommendations for future research provided

Hot Money Inflows and Monetary Stability in China: How the People's Bank of China Took up the Challenge

Non-foreign direct investment capital inflows in China were particularly strong in 2003 and 2004. They were even stronger than current account surpluses or net foreign direct investment inflows. As a result, the pace of international reserves accumulation in China increased significantly. This paper investigates if the rapid build up of international reserves in 2003 and 2004 was a source of monetary instability in China. The relationship between international reserves and domestic credit is examined with a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM), estimated on monthly data from March 1995 to December 2005. Empirical results show that this relationship was stable and consistent with monetary stability. Direct and indirect Granger causality tests are implemented to show how the People's Bank of China (PBC) achieved this monetary stabilityhot money inflows, international reserves, VECM, Granger causality

Hot money inflows and monetary stability in China: how the People's Bank of China took up the challenge

Non-foreign direct investment capital inflows in China were particularly strong in 2003 and 2004. They have led to a rapid accumulation of international reserves and they may have provided excess liquidity to the Chinese economy. This paper investigates how the central bank of China managed the rapid build-up of international reserves in 2003 and 2004. The relationship between real international reserves and real domestic credit is examined with a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM), estimated on monthly data from January 1997 to March 2006. Empirical results show that this relationship was negative, which suggests that the central bank succeeded in slowing down real domestic credit when real international reserves increased. Direct and indirect Granger causality tests are implemented to show how the People's Bank of China (PBC) proceeded to control domestic credit

Optimal Monetary Policy with Non-Zero Net Foreign Wealth

I study the impact of net foreign wealth on the optimal monetary policy of an open economy in a two-country DSGE model with incomplete markets, sticky prices and deviations from the Law of One Price. I find that by optimally manipulating monetary policy, central banks can affect the timing of interest receipts (or payments) and therefore increase the risk-sharing role of the internationally traded asset. In particular, debtor nations find it optimal to allow their currency to float relatively more freely than do creditor nations. In order to maximize consumer welfare, in most specifications of the model central bank should target a weighted average of CPI inflation and changes in the nominal exchange rate.Optimal monetary policy; welfare; open economy; net foreign wealth.

On the link between credit procyclicality and bank competition

This paper investigates the relationship between bank competition and credit procyclicality for 17 OECD countries on the 1986-2009 period. We account for heterogeneity among countries in terms of bank competition through the use of a hierarchical clustering methodology. We then estimate panel VAR models for the identified sub-groups of economies to investigate whether credit procyclicality is more important when the degree of bank competition is high. Our findings show that while credit significantly responds to shocks to GDP, the degree of bank competition is not essential in assessing the procyclicality of credit for OECD countries.Credit cycle, economic cycle, bank competition, financial stability, panel VAR.

Currency Crises and Monetary Policy in an Economy with Credit Constraints: The No Interest Parity Case

This paper revisits the currency crises model of Aghion, Bacchetta and Banerjee (2000, 2001, 2004), who show that if there exist nominal price rigidities and private sector credit constraints, and the credit multiplier depends on real interest rates, then the optimal monetary policy response to the threat of a currency crisis is restrictive. We demonstrate that this result is primarily due to the uncovered interest parity assumption. Assuming that the exchange rate is a martingale restores the case for expansionary reaction - even with foreign-currency debt in firms' balance sheets. The effect of lower interest rates on output can help restore the value of the currency due to increased money demand.currency crises; foreign–currency debt; balance sheets; interest parity; monetary policy

Banks’ tax disclosure, financial secrecy, and tax haven heterogeneity

This study investigates the effect of mandatory public Country-by-Country Reporting (CbCR) for European banks on their presence in tax and regulatory havens. We find that the number of subsidiaries of European banks in tax havens declines significantly after the introduction of mandatory public CbCR in contrast to insurance firms that need not disclose. We document that this decline is mainly driven by a reduction of subsidiaries in small countries with little economic substance (“dot havens”) and in tax havens that are regulatory havens at the same time, i.e., with high financial secrecy. Further, we find that high exposure to reputational risk is a major amplifier of reorganizational activities. Our results explain prior mixed evidence and document that CbCR effectively curbs tax haven presence only under specific circumstances, i.e., in countries offering both tax shelter and financial secrecy, and more strongly for banks with high reputational risk. These findings suggest that increased tax disclosure on banks does not effectively attenuate tax haven presence per se, but only for a subset of havens and banks. Policymakers need to be aware of these limitations, especially during the current discussion of extending public CbCR to all large multinationals.Series: WU International Taxation Research Paper Serie

Does the regulation of the insurance industry have a pernicious effect on innovation by the sector in South Africa?

Financial regulation could be a double edged sword in that despite its major thrust being that to secure the financial sector and bring about financial stability; it might have the unintended consequence of stifling innovation by the sector. We investigate the nexus between financial regulation and innovation by specifically focusing on the insurance industry in South Africa. We demonstrate that there are plethora pieces of legislation that govern the insurance industry in South Africa. As such this has driven the cost of compliance to unsustainable levels thereby curtailing the spending by companies on innovation. We thus would like to caution the policy makers’ that this “heavy-touch” regulatory mode is having a pernicious effect on research and development by the insurance sector. As such we encourage them to embrace the “light-touch” regulatory mode whereby self-regulation and moral suasion are other avenues to be considered.Finance, Risk Management and Bankin