The Greek Crisis: Causes and Implications

This paper presents and critically discusses the origins and causes of the Greek fiscal crisis and its implications for the euro currency as well as the SEE economies. In the aftermath of the 2007-2009 financial crisis the enormous increase in sovereign debt has emerged as an important negative outcome, since public debt was dramatically increased in an effort by the US and the European governments to reduce the accumulated growth of private debt in the years preceding the recent financial turmoil. Although Greece is the country member of the eurozone that has been in the middle of this ongoing debt crisis, since November 2009 when it was made clear that its budget deficit and mainly its public debt were not sustainable, Greece’s fiscal crisis is not directly linked to the 2007 US subprime mortgage loan market crisis. As a result of this negative downturn the Greek government happily accepted a rescue plan of 110 billion euros designed and financed by the European Union and the IMF. A lengthy austerity programme and a fiscal consolidation plan have been put forward and are to be implemented in the next three years.Sovereign risk, Debt crisis, Bonds market, Expectations, Fiscal guarantees

Greek fiscal crisis and repercussions for the property market

The aim of the paper is to present a review of the fiscal imbalances and debt crisis in Greece and identify the possible links with the recent developments in the Greek property market. We follow a non-technical approach to discuss a number of factors that have contributed to the fiscal crisis that Greece has been experiencing since October 2009. We critically analyse both the “internal” causes of the deteriorating fiscal stance of the Greek economy (that is, the prolonged macroeconomic imbalances that the Greek economy faces and the credibility problem of macroeconomic policy) and the “external” factors that might have contributed to the Greek fiscal crisis (that is implications of the recent financial turmoil and the timing of the response of Europe to the Greek fiscal crisis). We then study the extent to which fiscal imbalances and the debt crisis have affected the Greek property sector. One of the distinctive features of the paper is to critically discuss the direct and indirect effects of the prolonged macroeconomic imbalances on the Greek property sector. Our analysis indicates that the current fiscal stance of the Greek economy and the Greek property market crisis are intertwined. We believe that these results are useful and provide some evidence that current economic recession has a considerable adverse effect on the property sector in Greece

Symmetric or asymmetric interest rate adjustments? Evidence from Greece, Bulgaria and Slovenia

The purpose of this paper is to examine how effectively the wholesale interest rates are transmitted to the retail rates, and whether the interest rate pass-through is symmetric or asymmetric in Greece, Bulgaria and Slovenia. The disaggregated general-to-specific methodology is applied for testing the symmetry hypothesis in these economies. It is evident from our results that across the countries examined there exist variations regarding the monetary transmission process and the symmetry hypothesis alike. This can be interpreted as an indication of a different level of competition, development and liberalization among the banking systems in these South Eastern European economies

Default Risk of the UK Real Estate Companies: Is There a Macro-economy Effect?

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to empirically identify the factors which are important in explaining default risk of the UK real estate companies over the past 20 years. We estimate a pooled probit econometric model where the probability of failure is expressed as a function of both macroeconomic variables (inflation, interest rates etc) and company financial ratios. The inclusion of macroeconomic variables marks a departure from most previous studies of company bankruptcy. We find that the most important determinants of bankruptcy of the UK real estate companies are company liquidity, profitability and debt coverage as well as financial market volatility, interest rates, current account and the economic cycle. The latter provides evidence that the macro-economy crucially affects the probability of default of the real estate industry in the UK

The Greek crisis: Causes and implications

This paper presents and critically discusses the origins and causes of the Greek fiscal crisis and its implications for the euro currency as well as the SEE economies. In the aftermath of the 2007-2009 financial crisis the enormous increase in sovereign debt has emerged as an important negative outcome, since public debt was dramatically increased in an effort by the US and the European governments to reduce the accumulated growth of private debt in the years preceding the recent financial turmoil. Although Greece is the country member of the eurozone that has been in the middle of this ongoing debt crisis, since November 2009 when it was made clear that its budget deficit and mainly its public debt were not sustainable, Greece’s fiscal crisis is not directly linked to the 2007 US subprime mortgage loan market crisis. As a result of this negative downturn the Greek government happily accepted a rescue plan of 110 billion euros designed and financed by the European Union and the IMF. A lengthy austerity programme and a fiscal consolidation plan have been put forward and are to be implemented in the next three years

Bank lending, real estate bubbles & basel II

Abstrac

Interest rate pass-through in Europe and the US: Monetary policy after the financial crisis

We examine the interest rate transmission mechanism for the Eurozone and the USA and discuss this issue in the light of the recent financial market tensions. For an efficient monetary policy, any change in the central bank policy rate is meant to be transmitted to retail interest rates, ultimately influencing consumer and business lending rates and therefore aggregate domestic demand and output. The disaggregated GETS methodology is employed, which allows us to reveal the relative importance of the central bank and money market rates as policy vehicle variables in the two banking systems. Our empirical results for the two banking systems are rather mixed as far as it concerns the pass-through transmission and completeness. We also refer to the lessons learned prior to and after the collapse of the monetary and financial system on both sides of the Atlantic. We believe that this study has interesting policy insights and provides certain policy suggestions, which might be useful for the regulatory authorities in their attempt to monitor and reinforce monetary policy effectiveness.Interest rate pass-through Disaggregated general-to-specific model