The determinants of vulnerability to currency crises: country-specific factors versus regional factors

We investigate the determinants of exchange market pressures (EMP) for some new EU member states at both the national and regional levels, where macroeconomic and financial variables are considered as potential sources. The regional common factors are extracted from these variables by using dynamic factor analysis. The linear empirical analysis, in general, highlights the importance of country-specific factors to defend themselves against vulnerability in their external sectors. Yet, given a significant impact of the common component in credit on EMP, a contagion effect is apparent through the conduit of credit market integration across these countries under investigation

Impact of exchange rate regime reform on asset returns in China

Employing monthly data over the period 1999–2010, this paper examines the impact of China’s exchange rate regime reform in July 2005 on three major asset markets: house, land, and stocks. We test whether the reform, which switches from a fixed exchange rate regime to a managed floating one, has brought forward structural changes to asset return dynamics. The results suggest that the exchange rate regime switch exerted the most significant impact on house and land returns at the national level, in terms of both returns and their volatilities. In contrast, its impact on China’s stock market was moderate, with no structural change being detected in its returns and only weak structural change being found in the dynamics of its volatility. We also find that in comparison with other popular explanatory variables, broad money supply and inflation have the largest explanatory power on housing and land returns in China after the policy reform

Efficiency in private banking: evidence from Switzerland and Liechtenstein

Data envelopment analysis, Technical efficiency, Private banking, D24, G21,