Refine
Year of publication
- 2018 (132) (remove)
Document Type
- Working Paper (132) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- yes (132) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (132) (remove)
Keywords
- Liquidity (6)
- household finance (4)
- OTC markets (3)
- regulation (3)
- regulatory arbitrage (3)
- Capital Markets Union (2)
- Central Clearing (2)
- Central Counterparties (2)
- Circuit Breaker (2)
- Collateral (2)
Institute
- Wirtschaftswissenschaften (101)
- Center for Financial Studies (CFS) (97)
- Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe (SAFE) (74)
- House of Finance (HoF) (61)
- Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS) (9)
- Kulturwissenschaften (7)
- Geographie (3)
- Informatik (3)
- Rechtswissenschaft (3)
- Exzellenzcluster Die Herausbildung normativer Ordnungen (2)
The paper analyses the contagion channels of the European financial system through the stochastic block model (SBM). The model groups homogeneous connectivity patterns among the financial institutions and describes the shock transmission mechanisms of the financial networks in a compact way. We analyse the global financial crisis and European sovereign debt crisis and show that the network exhibits a strong community structure with two main blocks acting as shock spreader and receiver, respectively. Moreover, we provide evidence of the prominent role played by insurances in the spread of systemic risk in both crises. Finally, we demonstrate that policy interventions focused on institutions with inter-community linkages (community bridges) are more effective than the ones based on the classical connectedness measures and represents consequently, a better early warning indicator in predicting future financial losses.
We propose a unified framework to measure the effects of different reforms of the pension system on retirement ages and macroeconomic indicators in the face of demographic change. A rich overlapping generations (OLG) model is built and endogenous retirement decisions are explicitly modeled within a public pension system. Heterogeneity with respect to consumption preferences, wage profiles, and survival rates is embedded in the model. Besides the expected direct effects of these reforms on the behavior of households, we observe that feedback effects do occur. Results suggest that individual retirement decisions are strongly influenced by numerous incentives produced by the pension system and macroeconomic variables, such as the statutory eligibility age, adjustment rates, the presence of a replacement rate, and interest rates. Those decisions, in turn, have several impacts on the macro-economy which can create feedback cycles working through equilibrium effects on interest rates and wages. Taken together, these reform scenarios have strong implications for the sustainability of pension systems. Because of the rich nature of our unified model framework, we are able to rank the reform proposals according to several individual and macroeconomic measures, thereby providing important support for policy recommendations on pension systems.
The increase in alternative working arrangements has sparked a debate over the positive impact of increased flexibility against the negative impact of decreased financial security. We study the prevalence and determinants of intermediated work in order to document the relative importance of the arguments for and against this recent labor market trend. We link data on individual participation and losses from a Federal Trade Commission settlement with a Multi-Level Marketing firm with detailed county-level information. Participation is greater in middle-income areas and in areas where female labor market non-participation is higher, suggesting that flexibility offers real benefits. However, losses from MLM participation are higher in areas with lower education levels and higher income inequality, suggesting that the downsides of alternative work are particularly high in certain demographics. Our results illustrate that the advantages and disadvantages of alternative work arrangements accrue to different groups.
With a notional amount outstanding of more than USD 500 trillion, the market for OTC derivatives is of vital importance for global financial stability. A growing proportion of these contracts are cleared via central counterparties (CCPs), which means that CCPs are gaining in importance as critical financial market infrastructures. At the same time, there is growing concern that a new "too big to fail" problem could arise, as the CCP industry is highly concentrated due to economies of scale. From a European perspective, it should be noted that the clearing of euro-denominated OTC derivatives mainly takes place in London, hence outside the EU in the foreseeable future. For some time there has been a controversial discussion as to whether this can remain the case post Brexit.
CCPs, which clear a significant proportion of euro OTC derivatives and are systemically relevant from an EU perspective, should be subject to direct supervision by EU authorities and should be established in the EU. This would represent an important building block for a future Capital Markets Union in Europe, as regulatory or supervisory arbitrage in favour of systemically important third- ountry CCPs could be prevented. In addition, if a systemically relevant CCP handling a considerable portion of the euro OTC derivatives business were to run into serious difficulties, this may impact ECB monetary policy. This applies both to demand for central bank money and to the transmission of monetary policy measures, which can be significantly impaired, particularly in the event that the repo market or payment systems are disrupted. It is therefore essential for the ECB to be closely involved in the supervision of CCPs. Against this background, the draft amendment of EMIR (European Market Infrastructure Regulation) presented on 13 June 2017 is a step in the right direction. In addition, there is an urgent need to introduce a recovery and resolution mechanism for CCPs in the EU to complement the existing single resolution mechanism (SRM) for banks in the eurozone. Only then can the diverse interdependencies between banks and CCPs be adequately taken into account in the recovery and resolution programmes required in a financial crisis.
The German government has recently adopted a reform package for the statutory pension insurance scheme to ensure that the pension level will not fall below 48% and that the contribution rate will not exceed 20% up to 2025. In addition, there are planned improvements in maternal pensions, pensions for people with reduced earnings capacity and relief for low-income earners. The total extra cost of these measures is estimated at approximately EUR 32bn, to be financed by funds of the statutory pension system and by increased federal subsidies. It is currently unclear how the German pay-as-you-go pension system will be reformed for the period after 2025. The author suggests establishing a “Pension Fund Germany” as a capital-backed fund with a highly diversified investment portfolio. A German sovereign wealth fund of this kind could make an important contribution to greater intergenerational equity. Financing could be provided by, for example, retaining part of the solidarity surcharge on German income tax rather than abolishing it entirely, as is currently envisaged.
Die Förderung von Fahrradmobilität und öffentlichem Verkehr ist ein wesentlicher Baustein zur Gestaltung einer ökologisch nachhaltigeren, sozial verträglicheren und ökonomisch tragfähigen Verkehrs- und Siedlungsentwicklung in Deutschland. Mit einer verbesserten intermodalen Verknüpfung werden beide Verkehrsträger attraktiver und somit häufiger genutzt. Öffentliche Verkehrsunternehmen gewinnen dadurch vergrößerte Einzugsbereiche von Haltestellen, können Spitzenbelastungen abfedern und verbessern ihr Image. Fahrradfahrenden ermöglicht die Kombination mit öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln größere Reichweiten, was gerade auch in randstädtischen, suburbanen oder ländlichen Regionen bedeutsam werden kann. Letztlich leistet die Verknüpfung der beiden Verkehrsträger einen Beitrag zur Daseinsvorsorge und für den Klimaschutz.
Der Handlungsleitfaden wurde innerhalb des Forschungsprojektes „Verbesserte Integration des Fahrrads in den öffentlichen Verkehr – Systematische Erschließung von Handlungsoptionen und Bewertung von Best-Practices“ erarbeitet. Das Projekt wurde vom Bundesministerium für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur (BMVI) aus Mitteln zur Umsetzung des Nationalen Radverkehrsplans gefördert.
We propose a spatiotemporal approach for modeling risk spillovers using time-varying proximity matrices based on observable financial networks and introduce a new bilateral specification. We study covariance stationarity and identification of the model, and analyze consistency and asymptotic normality of the quasi-maximum-likelihood estimator. We show how to isolate risk channels and we discuss how to compute target exposure able to reduce system variance. An empirical analysis on Euro-area cross-country holdings shows that Italy and Ireland are key players in spreading risk, France and Portugal are the major risk receivers, and we uncover Spain's non-trivial role as risk middleman.
A tale of one exchange and two order books : effects of fragmentation in the absence of competition
(2018)
Exchanges nowadays routinely operate multiple, almost identically structured limit order markets for the same security. We study the effects of such fragmentation on market performance using a dynamic model where agents trade strategically across two identically-organized limit order books. We show that fragmented markets, in equilibrium, offer higher welfare to intermediaries at the expense of investors with intrinsic trading motives, and lower liquidity than consolidated markets. Consistent with our theory, we document improvements in liquidity and lower profits for liquidity providers when Euronext, in 2009, consolidated its order ow for stocks traded across two country-specific and identically-organized order books into a single order book. Our results suggest that competition in market design, not fragmentation, drives previously documented improvements in market quality when new trading venues emerge; in the absence of such competition, market fragmentation is harmful.