Banking crisis in Asia and Latin America – A single pattern for emerging market economies?

Most extant work on prediction of banking crises has utilised global samples, which are in turn dominated by observations from middle-income countries, and rely on a single estimator, while a range of specifications is desirable to check robustness. However, economic and financial structure as well as the pattern of shocks may differ substantially across regions. Accordingly, in this paper we test the implicit pooling assumption in earlier work on Early Warning Systems using the widest range of models, by estimating logit, signal extraction and binary recursive tree specifications separately for crises in Asia and Latin America, as well as the pooled sample. Results suggest markedly different crisis determinants across regions, implying global samples are inappropriate

Bank regulation, property prices and early warning systems for banking crises in OECD countries

Early warning systems (EWS) for banking crises generally omit bank capital, bank liquidity and property prices. Most work on EWS has been for global samples dominated by emerging market crises where time series data on bank capital adequacy and property prices are typically absent. We estimate logit crisis models for OECD countries, finding strong effects from capital adequacy and liquidity ratios as well as property prices, and can exclude traditional variables. Higher capital adequacy and liquidity ratios have a marked effect on the crisis probabilities, implying long run benefits to offset some of the costs that such regulations may impose

How idiosyncratic are banking crises in OECD countries?

Low levels of bank capital and liquidity in combination with ongoing crises in other countries are shown to increase the probability of banking crises in OECD countries. Hence global coordination of regulatory reform is vital for reducing crisis risks.Funding was received from the ESRC for this work

Off-balance sheet exposures and banking crises in OECD countries

Against the background of the acknowledged importance of off-balance-sheet exposures in the sub prime crisis, we seek to investigate whether this was a new phenomenon or common to earlier crises. Using a logit approach to predicting banking crises in 14 OECD countries we find a significant impact of a proxy for the ratio of banks‟ off-balance-sheet activity to total (off and on balance sheet) activity, as well as capital and liquidity ratios, the current account balance and GDP growth. These results are robust to the exclusion of the most crisis prone countries in our model. For early warning purposes we show that real house price growth is a good proxy for off balance sheet activity prior to the sub-prime episode. Variables capturing off-balance sheet activity have been neglected in most early warning models to date. We consider it essential that regulators take into account the results for crisis prediction in regulating banks and their off-balance sheet exposures, and thus controlling their contribution to systemic risk

Assessing the macroeconomic impact of alternative macroprudential policies

Copyright © 2018 The Authors. This article assesses the effects on the wider economy and the overall costs and benefits of two alternative macroprudential policies - loan-to-value ratios on mortgage lending and variable bank capital adequacy targets. It also traces the potential effects of such policies if introduced prior to the subprime crisis. The work is performed within the National Institute Global Econometric Model, with a focus on three contrasting Group of 7 countries, Germany, Italy and the UK. Detailed banking sectors and addition of a macroprudential block to our model enable effects of policies to be captured. A further key innovation within the model is a systemic risk index that tracks the likelihood of the occurrence of a banking crisis and establishes thresholds at which macroprudential policies should be activated by the authorities. Capital adequacy impacts the economy by acting on the spread between borrowing and lending of corporates and households, while loan-to-value transmits through its impact on the housing market. We find generally loan-to-value policy has a lesser effect than capital adequacy on crisis probabilities and net benefits, but there is considerable cross country variation. We show that the introduction of macroprudential policy prior to the crisis would have led to improvement in a number of key macroeconomic measures and might thus have reduced the incidence of the crisis. We contend that the results are of major policy relevance in the light of the widespread introduction of macroprudential policies and the need for analysis of their effects.FIRSTRU

NGFS Climate Scenario Database: Technical Documentation V2.2

This document provides technical information on the two datasets behind the NGFS scenarios. It is intended to answer technical questions for those who want to perform analyses on the datasets themselves. It is an update of the Technical Documentation published in June 2020 alongside the first set of NGFS Scenarios. It is therefore aligned with the second set of NGFS Scenarios, released in June 2021

Evaluating changes in bank lending to UK SMEs over 2001-12; ongoing tight credit?

Background The availability of bank finance to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is important to allow SMEs to start up and finance investment for growth. There has been widespread comment regarding the continued difficulty SMEs perceive in obtaining external finance since the financial crisis of 2008. This followed a period in which credit was more widely available in the early to mid 2000s. BIS commissioned this project to develop an understanding of the changes in lending to SMEs from 2001-12; to identify the extent to which bank lending has contracted since 2008, and to identify whether SMEs were disproportionately affected in their ability to access finance. An important focus of the research was also to identify SME characteristics associated with greater difficulties in accessing finance. Methodology The project used data from a series of SME surveys that provide detailed information on the characteristics of a sample of UK SMEs, their owners and experiences of obtaining finance . Using econometric models, which included controls for SME characteristics and risk factors, indicators of changes in the supply of bank lending over the time period abstracting from borrower risk could be obtained. Key findings SMEs have faced a more challenging environment for accessing credit after the financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent recession. Even controlling for risk factors, rejection rates for both overdrafts and term loans were significantly higher in the period from 2008-9 onwards, which is indicative of constraints to the supply of credit. The evidence suggests greater credit restrictions for term loans than overdrafts. Firm characteristics associated with greater likelihood of rejection included higher credit risk rating, previous financial delinquency and lower sales levels, whilst older more established businesses were less likely to be rejected. Margins for both overdrafts and term loans were also significantly higher in the period from 2008-9 onwards, even controlling for risk, as cuts in the Bank of England base rate were not fully transferred on to SME borrowers. However there was no significant increase over time in the likelihood of an SME with given risk characteristics having to provide collateral. Whilst arrangement fees were high during 2008-9, they subsequently returned to levels that were not significantly different from the period before 2008. The tightening in credit since 2008-9 has disproportionately affected low and average risk SMEs (based on Dun and Bradstreet credit scores). However there was no significant change over this period in the likelihood of rejection for SMEs rated as above (e.g. greater than) average risk. This suggests banks viewed lending to the safer categories of SMEs as relatively more risky in the period after the financial crisis than they did before, although the pattern is also suggestive of a partial withdrawal from SME lending as an asset class. After 2009 there was also an increase in the proportion of SMEs rated as above average credit risk due to the effects of the recession on sales, profitability and asset prices. Effects of ethnic origin of the owner on lending to SMEs were detected, with black entrepreneurs more likely to be refused credit. The newly-nationalised banks in 2008-9 were more willing to provide SME credit overall than were other institutions. Time series modelling reveals that greater uncertainty in economic conditions appears to have had greater negative effect on lending to SMEs compared to the corporate sector as a whole. This suggests economic uncertainty as has prevailed since 2008-9 leads to a general shift away from higher risk SME lending towards lending to larger businesses. Overall, we suggest that the research is indicative of a shortage of finance for SMEs, reflecting banks’ attitudes to risk and their own pressures to delever combined with banks’ market power in the SME sector. Although demand is also probably subdued, there is a high level of discouragement from application for lending as well as high rejection rates and margins on credit after controlling for risk. If the situation is not resolved, output, investment and employment will be lower than would otherwise be the case, with adverse effects on economic performance in the short and longer term.We gratefully acknowledge assistance from Stuart Fraser of Warwick Business School, advice from colleagues at BIS and suggestions from participants in seminars at BIS and NIESR

BANK REGULATION, PROPERTY PRICES AND EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS FOR BANKING CRISES IN OECD COUNTRIES

Existing work on early warning systems (EWS) for banking crises generally omits bank capital, bank liquidity and property prices, despite their relevance to the probability of crisis in the mind of bankers, policymakers and the public. One reason for this neglect is that most work on EWS to date has been for global samples dominated by emerging market crises. For such countries, time series data on bank capital adequacy and property prices are typically absent, while other variables affecting crises may also differ in OECD countries. Accordingly, we estimate logit models of crisis for OECD countries only and find strong effects of capital adequacy, liquidity ratios and property prices, such as to exclude most traditional variables. Our results imply that higher unweighted capital adequacy as well as liquidity ratios has a marked effect on the probability of a banking crisis, implying long run benefits to offset some of the costs that such regulations may impose (e.g. widening of bank spreads).